KY eats – River Fish at Restoran Hon Kee, Gua Musang (non-halal)

I think it is safe to say that many of the readers here may have not been to Gua Musang, or know that Gua Musang is actually a town located in Kelantan.

Indeed, most of us may never have a reason to find themselves be in this part of Malaysia, but just in case you do, one of the places worth stopping over for lunch would be Hon Kee restaurant.

Restaurant Hon Kee, at Gua Musang

A bit of a background story, we found ourselves at Gua Musang due to the Merapoh trail running event, and since Merapoh doesn’t really cater for outside overnight visitors easily, we got ourselves a sleepover in the next town over – Gua Musang.

I may talk about the 27k trail running event in another post perhaps, an interesting experience for sure.

Anyway, that’s how we got ourselves to Hon Kee restaurant. Situated at the small town’s main road, it’s a place you can’t miss. The restaurant is a tiny building lost in time, serving up dishes that are equal to its year of creation, which spanned decades.

steamed patin and pak sou kong

Like many Chinese restaurants, there’s no fixed menu.

Order is usually done by asking the server for recommendation and type of fish available. The price for their river fish (famous around this area) is clearly stated on the wall, which is quite helpful in budgeting for your meal.

stewed pork ribs, vege, omelet w/ preserved radish

For 6 of us, we ordered a total of three dishes and two steamed fish.

The normal dishes were their famous stewed pork ribs, vege, and omelet with preserved radish. I enjoyed the stewed pork which was soft and tender, and that omelet was actually somehow tastier than expected. Vegetable was… acceptable. These three dishes came up to RM 68.00.

prices of fish stated on the wall

Then of course, there’s those river fish. We tried two, both were steamed with soya sauce and topped with cilantro, the purest and simplest way of cooking fresh river fishes, or indeed any fish if they’re fresh enough.

Pak sou kong (900 gram, RM 49.50), and patin (1.1kg, RM 93.50). Both were types of river catfish, and to be frank, both were pretty delicious with very smooth, fatty meat that is quite subtle in taste. You could argue which is better in a blind taste test and come up with different conclusions.

For my money, I’ll go with the cheaper option next time. The meal was definitely worth it tho.

Address:
Restoran Hon Kee 漢记饭馆
33, Jalan Besar, Pekan Gua Musang,
18300 Gua Musang, Kelantan
GPS: 4.88444, 101.967406
Tel: 09-912 1349