Just got back from a trip to the Similan Islands near Phuket/Khao Lak over the past 6 days that includes 4 days and 4 nights spent on the boat without touching dry land. My very first Live On Board experience.
enjoying a piece of grilled chicken at Khao Lak
It was pretty much a last minute thing as I only decided to join when a spot came up for the liveaboard trip. I’ll be writing a lot more about the trip in the next couple days.
mantis shrimp, shot at Similan Islands
The trip was full of unplanned events, but that’s until next post! In the mean time here’s a photo of a mantis shrimp taken at one of the 15 dives we did over the course of the entire trip.
—————————————————-
In the mean time, hope over to MilkADeal.com and check out the lastest deal – RM 6 instead of RM 14 at sbread, the Gardens for a bowl of authentic Penang Asam Laksa and a drink, that’s a good 57% off!
Asam Laksa at SBread, Gardens
While the name sbread is a bit out of the ordinary, the place is run by Penang-born Madam Q S Tan, you can perhaps test her with Penang Hokkien. Redemption period of this deal runs from 25 February – 31 March 2011, 10am – 7pm daily. Don’t miss out
What’s better than an ice cold beer? A frozen beer of course!
I’ve heard about this wonderful concoction from Gareth several years ago, so when Cheesie, Kim, Jojo, and I were shooting Project Alpha season 2 at Lost World of Tambun, we made it a point to have dinner there.
super chilled beer poured on frozen mug = frozen beer!
After spending a good 20-30 minutes looking for the place and almost ended up at a wrong shop with a deceptively similar name, we finally sat our collective butts on the table. Except this time around the 5 of us sat at a semi-circle aka TVB style dinner, and I got to do the food review in the video below:
Before talking about the food, lets concentrate on the frozen beer for a moment. The idea is actually pretty simple, the beer is chilled till it’s almost frozen, I’m guessing probably below 4 C.
The beer glasses are super chilled separately, and when the two meets, the beer foam is instantly frozen, and the beer itself remained super cold but in liquid form. The beer tasted super awesome! I’m not sure you can do this at home, but I think it’s worth a try, just don’t leave your beer in the freezer though.
tofu, kung pao chicken, vegetable, fried lala
Since the shop uses a super cool and ultra efficient wireless PDA for ordering, we ended up asking for way too much food. The five of us had 7 dishes, and later added on 2 other side dishes since we found out Jojo doesn’t eat seafood, at all!
We had tofu with minced meat, kung pao chicken, and vegetable (vitamin c quota 
) for the non seafood dishes. While the tofu and vegetable dishes were pretty decent, the kung pao chicken was rather good, it had a good “wok hei” going on. Those were the only dishes Jojo eats, FHL.
mantis prawn, steamed pak sou kong, steamed frog
As for the seafood dishes, we had deep fried mantis prawn, steamed cat fish (pak sou kong), steamed frog with chicken essence, and fried lala.
Other than the fish which tasted rather ordinary, the other 3 dishes were excellent. The mantis prawns was my favorite, deep fried, salted, and with fresh chili all over, it packed a punch and was really flavorful. The steamed frog with chicken essence were very sweet too, Kim loved that max!
stuffed chicken wings, frozen beer, satay
Since Jojo were only able to have 3 out of those 7 dishes, we ordered stuffed chicken wings and satay for the tv celeb without telling her that the wings are stuffed with a variety of ingredients including mutton and fish. We liked it, and so did Jojo, but she almost killed me when I told her they had fish in them.
The stuffed wings are a must order item, and it’s sold by this old lady that has a stall next to Yoon Wah. Don’t miss out if you’re there. The satay though, was forgettable.
Kim, Gareth, Jojo, KY, and Cheesie
Since this was for Project Alpha, the production treated us dinner and I didn’t manage to find out the exact price of the feast. But from all the other blogs and comments, Yoon Wah seems to charge pretty reasonably. So if you’re in Ipoh, get some frozen beer and good seafood there.
Address:
Kafe Sun Yoon Wah
No. 7, Jln Bijeh Timah,
30000 Ipoh, Perak
GPS: 4.596231, 101.078977
Tel: 05-253 9980
Check out our other Project Alpha season 2 videos too!
Ep 26 – Musing around at Lost world of Tambun
Ep 27 – Photoshoot with Jojo & Cheesie, with snakes!
Ep 29 – Gareth spilling Kim’s secrets
Ep 30 – Terribly cute Racoons
Ep 31 – KY enters the Serpentarium
As a practical joke from this God person, people are made in such a way that food always tastes better when we have to travel long distance to obtain them. Something that you can get right next door is never as satisfying as the one you have to spend an hour’s journey getting there.
Hence, the place to go for seafood when you’re in Penang is not located on the island, it is this little fishing village called Tambun on peninsular side of the stat. The place is anything from 40 min to 1.5 hours away from the island, depending on the mercy of traffic.
Jon, Jun, and Wai Meng, check out the big fat mantis prawns swimming!
And since we were in Penang over the long weekends, it took us well over an hour to get from the little motel at Tanjung Tokong to Gee Seng Seafood Restaurant at Tambun. The road from Penang bridge onwards was alright, it was getting to the bridge that took the longest time ever.
Lesson Learned: never try to drive anywhere far within Penang over any long weekends.
fried squid, prawn with Nestum, fried noodle, crab with salted egg
This was actually my first time at Gee Seng seafood restaurant, and it was almost a couple years since I last went to Tambun. We somehow found a parking space deep inside the village and made our way to the restaurant.
For the five of us, we ordered deep fried squid, prawn with Nestum, crab with salted egg, giant mantis prawn, noodle, and a plate of vegetable for some sense of balance.
love the giant mantis prawns, says Elfie
Despite the crowd, our dishes didn’t take long start arriving at the table. They were fresh and really tasty, despite having scored almost negative when it comes to presentation. I particularly like the giant mantis prawns (RM 60 for the 3 we had), very succulent and sweet, did you know that these creatures have polarized vision?
Nestum prawns (RM 23) and deep fried squid (RM 18) too were top notch, but I thought the crab with salted egg (RM 47) was kinda average, would have been better if they were bigger.
Together with the vegetable, noodle, and tea, the bill came to RM 155.50, which translate to only RM 31 per person for the 5 of us for some rather satisfying food. Everyone agreed that it was worth the drive, but perhaps next time we should try somewhere closer? emm
Address:
Restoran Makanan Laut Gee Seng
860, Bagan Bukit Tambun,
14100 Simpang Ampat, Penang
GPS: 5.271221, 100.443385
Tel: 04-588 7200
