After the interesting grilled frog at my favorite foreign city, I headed to a Vietnamese seafood restaurant for dinner the following night. At the heart of the city, the Hong Hai (pronounced as 红海, or red sea, in Mandarin) restaurant is not particularly lavish nor it is very eye catching. However, judging by the crowd of locals congregating at this place, it must offer some pretty good and authentic seafood.

fresh fish, shrimps, and various types of clam

The restaurant was quite packed, but luckily we managed to secure a table at the balcony on the second level. My friend made the order as I would have no idea how to go about reading the 100% Vietnamese menu, with no translation nor any pictures. I doubt any of the servers speak English either.

three types of clam, including cockle (blood clam)

The first four dishes that came consists of the various types of clam. The boiled cockles (I think) were very delicious, and goes extremely well with the fried garlic (including skin) and vegetable garnish. The fresh and somewhat bloody cockles with the slightly salty but strong tasting garlic was just perfect. A salt + dried pepper + dried plum + lime dipping sauce accompany the dishes.

We also had a grilled clam and a plum sauce clam dishes. While the grilled clam is best enjoyed with the dipping, the plum sauce actually goes well with some bread. Pretty interesting contrasting taste among these three dishes, the bloody cockles, the dry grilled clam, and the sourish plum sauce clam.

oyster with cheese, and a great tasting hot pot with eel

Next in line were the two huge oyster with cheese. Though this dish isn’t something that is unique to this part of the world, the oyster served were the size of my palm. Needless to say, you can guess if I enjoyed it from the photo above.

Other than all the shell fish dishes, we ordered a hot pot with eel. As with most Vietnamese dishes, the pot came with a huge serving of vegetable consisting spring onion, bean sprout, okra, and interestingly, shredded banana flower, all arranged in a neat and pretty presentation. The soup tasted a little spicy and salty, but compliment the vermicelli noodle and the fresh vegetables. It was a very good dinner.

Pham Ngoc Thach road is located at the heart of Ho Chi Minh City

Hong Hai is located at the heart of the city, not more than US $2 taxi ride away from any major hotels in District 1. The dinner itself was somewhere around RM 50-60, value for money indeed.

Address:
54, Pham Ngoc Thach,
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam
Tel: 8.292977, 0908-103547

Tags:  clam,  cockle,  eel,  grilled,  hcmc,  ho-chi-minh-city,  hot-pot,  seafood,  shell-fish

Posted by KY | 7 Comments »

Sort of like the laksa of Penang, anyone who goes to Melaka should not miss the uniquely Melaka delicacy, the satay celup (celup: dip). It is basically a type of steamboat on with the raw food on the stick to be cooked in a boiling spicy peanut sauce that is similar to those that comes with normal satay. Other than the different medium for cooking the raw food on stick, it is identical to the more recognizable lok lok.

this stuff are absolutely mouth watering

For supper during our Melaka trip, we headed to Ban Lee Siang to fill our stomach with this uniquely Melaccan food. Now some of you may suggest that Capitol Satay Celup is the “better” place to go. In a way, while Capitol is one of the “original” and oldest place serving satay celup, there are simply way over-crowded (with people standing right next to your table waiting for you to get done) for anyone to enjoy a peaceful meal there without rushing. My baba friends from Melaka hence suggested this place, which is just as good.

only 50 sen per stick, pay what you eat

The place was quite packed as well, we managed to get 2 tables right next to each other to fit all 10 of us. We then head straight to the line to get our stuff. At this place, everything is priced at RM 0.50 per stick, no matter if it is prawn, vegetable, fish ball, quail’s egg, cockles, anything. You only pay for what you eat. You can also order some bread too.

some happy diners (notice Kim, on the left, stained her shirt)

Serving is simple, you just put the stick of raw food in the boiling satay sauce/soup, let it cook, and then put it to your mouth. The stuff packs a punch though, in terms of hotness, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who can’t have spicy food. But if you like spicy food and enjoys lok lok, this is an awesome combination.

the map of Ban Lee Siang satay celup at Jalan Ong Kim Wee

After crowning herself with 38 sticks of satay in the afternoon, Kim got the better of us again and devoured almost 30 sticks of satay celup. I only had 2/3 of what she managed, respect.

If you head down to Melaka, do not miss this dish.

Address:
45E, Jalan Ong Kim Wee,
Melaka
Tel: 606-284 1935

Tags:  ban-lee-siang,  Eats,  food,  gravy,  hot-pot,  Melaka,  satay-celup,  spicy

Posted by KY | 18 Comments »

Itchy for steamboat again, the gang and I decided to try the “original” pulau ketam steamboat at SS15, Subang Jaya. The name of the restaurant is Bee Ho (美好海鲜火锅之家). This is of course, the same style as offered at the Patrick Teoh’s Damansara Village steamboat.

the chili paste is awesome!

Unlike the grand set up at uncle Teoh’s outlet, Bee Ho is just a big old school kopitiam. Meaning the tables near the sidewalk are much preferred as those situated deeper in the restaurant can be a little hot and humid with all the steamboat boiling on every table.

the steamboat, the crab meehun, and the two noobs.

For the 8 of us, we ordered 5 portion of standard steamboat meal, a plate of fish fillet (actually wanted to have the fish cubes but they ran out), string mushroom, extra meat roll, dumplings, and a big plate of absolutely must-order crab meehun.

The joy of having steamboat with plenty of people is that you have more choices ordering the side orders and not have to only settle for the standard steamboat meal.

the sloppy diner!

We boiled the soup with plenty of ingredients at least 4-5 times over. The ingredients were fresh and pretty good, the soup with good herbal taste, and the chili paste was really awesome. I think I had at least 3 small plates of those spicy stuff. Above all, the crab meehun was really something special, the aroma of crab soaked into the meehun, making it tastes unique of the crustacean’s sweetness, this is something that everyone MUST TRY at Bee Ho.

Bee Ho steamboat is at SS15, near the college areas.

The dinner only came to RM 17.50 per person that night. We had Chinese tea as drinks.

Address:
Bee Ho Steamboat Restaurant
no. 52 Ground Floor,
Jalan SS15/4C
Subang Jaya 47500
Selangor
GPS: 3.076773, 101.587862
Tel: 012-250 7717

Tags:  crab,  gareth,  hot-pot,  kim,  prawn,  pulau-ketam,  seafood,  ss15,  Steamboat,  subang-jaya

Posted by KY | 6 Comments »

Steamboat is best enjoyed with a group of friends, so I gathered the usual suspects last weekend and eight of us went to the relatively new Damansara Village Steamboat opposite ProJET gas station near Atria at Damansara Jaya.

very nice set up and excellent ambiance

This place is more than just a simple restaurant, there’s a little pool for kids to catch guppies (longkang fish) from, some furry animals, Iguana, and a giant tortoise on one side, a miniature vegetable farm, and even a guy twisting balloons for free. At least this local restaurant is catching up to McDonald’s concept of making the kids happy first.

As for the restaurant itself, there are indoor and outdoor areas, with everything set up in an open concept. No need for air conditioning when you have high ceiling, no wall, and plenty of fans. The tables are not arranged too close together either, very spacious and comfortable.

the standard steamboat set

For the eight of us, we ordered five portion of the standard steamboat set (assorted fish balls, prawns, mussels, eggs, bamboo clams, noodle, and vegetables). To complete the meal and add some variety, we also asked for 300gm of live tiger prawn (still jumping on the plates!), straw mushroom, 1kg of giant clam, and a pretty good size batfish that looks and tastes pretty much like pomphret.

the extras: tiger prawns, clams, fish, straw mushroom

As this is a Pulau Ketam style steamboat, we go for the traditional clear soup with some herbal ingredients. The sambal provided at this place was pretty good too.

We started out boiling the soup with some seafood, fish balls, and noodle for the first round. Finished everything in less than a few minutes; and proceed with the second round of giant clams and others; then it was the fish; and after that the live prawns; with the final round of more noodles and egg. The soup got better and better as the essence of seafood ingredients got sucked into it. It was a very fulfilling meal, fresh ingredients with very good soup. The food went well with the fresh coconut juice and a bottle of toddy we ordered.

the happy diners

The dinner came to slightly less than RM 30 per person. I would consider that a very good value for the ambiance and great food we had. A place worth visiting again.

less than 2 kilometers from Kelana Jaya LRT station

Address:
1067, Jalan Jenjarum
SS23 Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.124233, 101.612672
Tel: 03-7803 1832

By the way, if you haven’t know already, the big boss is Patrick Teoh.

Tags:  clam,  damansara,  fish-ball,  hot-pot,  prawn,  pulau-ketam,  Steamboat

Posted by KY | 23 Comments »

It’s been a while since I last went for a buffet steamboat, in fact, it was Talipon in May. I guess it was because buffets always left me unable to walk. Then came the noobs suggesting that we head for the rather famous Yuen buffet steamboat at Sunway Mentari. I have passed the shop a few times and there was always a huge crowd, I guess it must be pretty good. So, why not?

huge crowd all the time

Except that I was rather hungry, and when we got there at about 8pm, there were about a dozen tables’ waiting list ahead of us. It was about 45 minutes later when we were called for our table. Note to self: donot go there without reservation on a weekend when too hungry.

Once seated, we were asked for the choice of soup. Unlike, say, Shabu Shabu King, we were able to have both the tomyam and clear soup in the same hotpot. We headed to the buffet line right away. The selection of items in this restaurant is bigger than the previous two restaurants mentioned, and they are not stingy on the more expensive items either. Plenty of big shrimps (both salt and fresh water), crab, squid, and shell fish for the taking. They were all pretty fresh too.

they didn’t skimp on the offering

The tomyam soup was particulary good, with the right amount of spiciness and sourness, it gets even better as you boil the various raw ingredients in the soup. I suggest always starting off with some crab or shell fish to give the soup base a stronger flavor.

Other than a few dozen types of seafood seafood, you can find poultry, beef, various types of fishball and fishcake taste-alike, more than half a dozen vege, kuih, fruits, ice cream, noodles, fried meehun and fried rice. I believe no pork is served.

chicken wing was really good too

The claim of fame for this restaurant though, is not merely its steamboat offering, you can get that in many other places. It was their honey chicken wing. We stalked the cooked buffet line for quiet sometime before the chicken wing came out of the kitchen steaming, and it was some 30 seconds before the tray is empty again. We only managed to get a couple pieces per person. The tiny chicken wings were indeed very delicious, with strong taste of honey properly marinated in the wings, it was something you’ll have to try for yourself.

so now you can go there too!

The dinner costs RM 18.80 per person, add RM 1.00 for the free flowing Chinese tea and it’s still less than RM 20.00, a very reasonable for the type of food served. Yuen buffet steamboat only serves dinner.

Address:
32A-1, Jalan PJS 8/6
Mentari Plaza, Bandar Sunway
46150 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.076211, 101.612098
Tel:016-2086678, 56375825

Tags:  Buffet,  hot-pot,  mentari,  seafood,  Steamboat,  sunway

Posted by KY | 31 Comments »