vkeong loves good food, travel and photography!
Seafood
Seafood
Brother Yat Restaurant @ Subang Jaya
Sep 2nd
If this pot looks familiar, it’s either you have read my old post about Sauna Prawns, or you have seen and tasted it before personally.
For those uninitiated, Sauna Prawns is a dish where a glass of Carlsberg beer is poured into a pot with heated sauna stones underneath, then immediately followed by a bowl of live grass prawns on top of the steamer lid.
As soon as the beer touches the rocks, steam is generated which will cook the prawns alive. At this time, the dining table would be filled with a faint beer and seafood aroma, enticing each and every diner. Just imagine the pot as a sauna room and the prawns as people, except they won’t get out alive. Oh, so poor prawns.
The prawns’ freshness is very important in dish so only live prawns are used. And I don’t think you could get any fresher prawns than live ones. 500g of prawns for this dish cost RM41, inclusive of the table-side show, uniquely available here only.
Munakata Japanese Buffet @ Life Centre, Jalan Sultan Ismail
Aug 11th
**Nov 2001 update: Life Centre is undergoing major renovations but Munakata is still open for business as usual.
About a year ago I went to Munakata‘s Japanese Buffet and I was happy with their authentic Japanese dishes served in the ala-carte buffet. Since then I have been to a couple of Japanese buffets with some even in Singapore.
Speaking from personal experiences I found that although the number of dishes served in Munakata is less compared to the rest, their food quality is hard to beat because they are fresh and only prepared upon order. This is especially true for the cooked food, Teppanyaki and Sashimi (albeit only Salmon Sashimi is available in Munakata)
I am also glad that there were no complaints on Munakata since it was posted, while the others were still bombarded with bad experiences and comments every now and then (eg. Tenji). Recently, Munakata updated their ala-carte buffet menu by removing some unpopular items according to customer feedbacks and introduced some new dishes. So I thought it is a high time for me to revisit to try the new dishes while keeping in check the food quality.
Starting with the new items, Yakinasu No Nikumiso Kaka (Japanese style grilled brinjal topped with minced chicken meat & soya bean paste) Despite being grilled to a soft and tender bite, the eggplants were still able to be picked up and held as a whole using chopsticks, while the toppings actually resembled sambal minus the spiciness.
Ikan Bakar Gerai No.3 @ Medan Ikan Bakar Jalan Bellamy
Aug 6th
Hidden behind Istana Negara along Jalan Bellamy is an array of ikan bakar stalls next to each other forming a medan ikan bakar. Despite its secluded location it gets extremely crowded especially during lunch hour. Not knowing which stall to go for, we chose Gerai No.3 that was the busiest among all.
Three huge frying pans were used to pan fry (instead of grill/bakar like the name actually implies) a wide array of seafood like fish, prawns, squids and kerangs. The sight of the ikan bakar here is simply delightful. With so many choices, you are sure to have a difficult time to decide which items to take. Just for fish alone there are a few types like ikan keli (catfish), ikan pari (stringray), siakap and ikan terubok.
What attracted me immediately when I stepped into Gerai No.3 are the larger than life sotongs, which some even as big as six inches. Coated in an orangish-red colored marinating, they looked absolutely delicious and I just got to try them. So I got one sotong for each of us along with some prawns and the smallest slice of ikan pari I could find in the pile.
D Kuang Seafood Restaurant @ Kampung Baru, Bukit Mertajam
Jul 8th
For a cheap and tasty meal, D Kuang Seafood Restaurant at Kampung Baru (Bukit Mertajam) would be a great choice. Here, a dinner for a family of four would cost only a little over RM50 and you could have five dishes inclusive of seafood, meat and vegetable. Sounds good? Read on.
Kung Pao Mantis Prawn @ RM8 – one of the crunchiest and freshest mantis prawns I have tasted so far. The portion is small but definitely sufficient to share among three or four pax. One of the things I like about D Kuang is that they prepare the dishes’ portions according to your preferences. Some restaurants would deliberately prepare dishes in big portions in order to charge more in the bill later. Here, you get to specify the portion in headcount. No need to worry about being ‘chopped’.
Fried Squid @ RM8 for the smallest portion. About two large sized squids were used and they were great because of the freshness and not to mention the really crispy coating. Soggy coating is a no-no in any fried seafood caused by low temperature of the oil.
