Lemang Kijal oh my god!
If you’re traveling on the road north of Kuantan and past Kemaman, you’ll eventually pass Kijal before reaching Kerteh/Dungun/Kuala Terengganu on your way to some island holidays or oil and gas work.
Now Kijal is a pretty uninteresting town with probably the only interesting place being Awana golf resort, a hotel that I’ve stayed a couple times on business travel.
the stretch of lemang stalls at Kijal
What Kijal has though, is this whole stretch of lemang stalls by the road side between Kg. Baharu Batu Anak Dara and Kg. Meraga on trunk road 145. And yes, I got the information from google map.
On the way from Dungun going south, there’s a little sign board that says “Lemang in 500 meters”. We drove past that on previous trip, but this time around, I made sure we stopped by and grab some lemang for the road.
2x lemang at RM 2.50 each, 2x serunding at RM 5 each
We stopped by the stalls and bought ourselves 2 lemang with 2 container of serunding (meat floss, we bought chicken and beef) to go with it.
The aroma of glutinous rice with coconut milk came gushing as soon as the lady split open the bamboo that was holding all that goodness in.
snooze inducing food, guaranteed
We dug in as soon as we got into the car. The rice was soft and so fragrant, and I didn’t imagine that glutinous rice with coconut milk could taste so good! The meat floss gave it a bit of extra flavor but I seriously could eat the piping hot lemang all by itself. If only we had some rendang too…
So if you’re traveling on that road, don’t miss out the lemang. A word of caution though, lemang is also probably the best traditionally sleeping medicine in Malaysia. Haze certainly pengsan about an hour after the lemang, and I almost snoozed off while driving too.
Address:
Kijal Lemang Stalls
Kijal, Terengganu
GPS: 4.3306878, 103.4508196