On my previous trip to Kota Kinabalu, I was feeling a little bit under the weather due to a bout of not entirely moderate case of flu. My KK buddy was kind enough to take me to some comforting food fit for my condition – Seafood Porridge at Foh Sang.
How Lee Coffee Shop Seafood Porridge
The operation is located at How Lee Coffee Shop by the shop lots at Foh Sang that’s packed with quite a few other restaurants that aren’t short of customers during dinner time. After a couple rounds of circling the premise, we found a parking spot, and another few minutes of waiting, we finally landed on a table for two.
At this place, the star is their seafood porridge, but you can also have them with chicken, pork, scallop, crab, fish fillet, or prawns. Additionally, this is also a full fledge “tai chao” operation, so you get to order a pretty good selection of accompanying side dishes, or even have rice or noodle if porridge isn’t your calling for the night.
seafood porridge, choi sum, asam chicken, salted egg
For dinner, we ordered a standard bowl of seafood porridge with a salted egg, a plate of deep fried asam chicken, and a portion of choi sam for fiber and vitamin.
The porridge was certainly top notch, and as expected of any seafood dishes, the quality was top notch and super fresh. The vegetable was probably produce from kundasang, crunchy and sweet. However, the asam chicken was perhaps a little too over fried for my liking, the slight bitter after taste didn’t really do it for me.
wholesome dinner especially when you’re under the weather
Overall dinner came to about RM 60+ for the two of us, I’d say that’s decent value for the quality of seafood we got. Will not hesitate to go again.
Address: Seafood Porridge How Lee Coffee Shop No. S-26, Lorong Mawas 1, Jalan Kolam, Taman Foh Sang, Luyang, Kota Kinabalu 88300 Sabah GPS: 5.957661, 116.088143 Tel: 016-839 1938
Growing up on an island and having relatives who were fishermen definitely does instill some love for seafood in me from a young age. Hence, Crab Factory being one of our destinations for the short food trip to Johor Bahru definitely helped encouraged me to participate in this fun little blogger get-together.
Update: Crab Factory at Johor Bahru is permanently closed.
Crab Factory at Little Paris, Johor Bahru
I’ve been to the original Crab Factory outlet at PJ SS2 about a year prior and enjoyed the experience tremendously, so the expectation was certainly up there for this visit down south.
The restaurant is located at Little Paris, JB’s attempt at replicating the famous city in France with tastefully thought out architecture, I must say overall the small development area looks rather neat.
For the afternoon, we sampled three different sauces – Signature Southern Bang, Creamy Lemak, and seemingly flavor of 2017 for many dishes these days – Salted Egg.
crab, shrimps, or squid?
For those who hasn’t tried the Louisiana style seafood dining before, the experience can be quite fun. Your seafood is basically poured directly on the table and you use your bare hands & fingers to dig in. There’s no bowls, plates, or forks & knifes, but thankfully, a little hammer & clamp is provided for those pesky crab claws.
pour it all on the table and lets get messy
As for pricing, there are 3 different value meals to choose from – Crab Lover Shiok (2-3 pax), Crab Lover Party (4-5 pax), and Crab Lover Giler (7-9 pax) priced at RM 49.90 or RM 59.90 per pax. Pretty decently priced for the experience and premium ingredients I thought.
what’s your favorite sauce?
Having sampled all three sauces, I find myself gravitate towards the classic Southern Bang, with it’s cajun spice, lemon, garlic, and herbs contributing just enough to the fresh seafood. Creamy Lemak makes for good sauce base if you love to have some deep friedmantao with. As for the Salted Egg sauce, well, could perhaps be a bit stronger to give it that extra kick.
To be honest though, I also kinda missed the original butter garlic sauce, of course you could order yours that way.
Address: Crab Factory G14, Block B, jalan jaya putra 1/1, Bandar Jaya Putra, 81100 Johor Bahru, Johor GPS: 1.567581, 103.776728 Tel: 07-351 4062 Web: http://www.crabfactory.com.my Hours: Tues-Sun: 12pm – 10pm, closed on Mondays
Hello, guess it’s time to share another one of our experimental recipes, this time – fried pumpkin with salted egg yolk.
pumpkin with salted egg, steamed pomfet
We originally stumbled upon this dish at a restaurant in Klang, and since it was quite an eye, or taste bud opener, I decided to re-create the same thing in our own kitchen. The result was pretty decent. So if you want to try something perhaps a little different at home, this recipe should fit the bill.
pumpkin, curry leave, chili padi, flour, salted egg
Ingredients (2-3 pax):
half a small pumpkin
1 salted egg yolk (2 shown is pic, overkill)
4-5 chili padi
curry leaves
half cup flour
dash of salt to taste
enough cooking oil for deep frying
deep frying pumpkin is the first step
Cooking instructions:
cut pumpkin into bite size slices and coat them in flour
heat up oil & deep fry pumpkin till golden brown
crush salted egg yolk with a spoon
heat up 2 spoon of cooking oil and fry egg yolk till fragrant
add pumpkin, then curry leaves & chili padi
add salt to taste (if need to) – done!
then fry everything with salted egg, done!
The version in the picture has a bit too much cooking oil to it, so with a little less oil it should be perfect, happy cooking!
Now that we moved to Shah Alam, it’s time to explore the neighbouring places for food a bit, and there’s no better way to do this than starting out with some of the names that we’ve already familiar with – which is what brought us to Serai Thai Restaurant at Seksyen 3.
Serai Thai at Seksyen 3, Shah Alam
Serai has been quite successful since it first started out several years ago, we went to the Subang Empire branch and came away pretty impressed, so it was no surprise that we had some high hopes for their more Thai oriented version when we discovered it by typing “thai” on google map in search for dinner option nearby.
The restaurant is hidden in a quiet residential area, parking is plentiful, and interior is simple yet comfortable.
brinjal with belacan, tomyam, squid with salted egg
The menu is typical Southern Thai with influence of some Malaysian element. We tried three dishes for the two of us over dinner.
The tomyam seafood (RM 14 small)had quite a decent kick and while it wasn’t the most flavourful tomyam I’ve tried, it was more than decent and had the necessary ingredient to carry its own.
Brinjal with belacan (RM 10 small) was my favorite dish of the night, beautifully executed with the perfect balance of sweetness from brinjal complemented by the pungent belacan taste, bits of chopped dried shrimp completes this dish.
Squid with salted egg (RM 12 small) was another dish worth trying as well, they definitely didn’t skimp on the salted egg part at all.
dinner for two at Serai Thai, Shah Alam
We came away more than satisfied with our experience at Serai Thai, good food at fair price with a comfortable setting. If you’re hunting for decent halal food at Shah Alam, this is definitely a good option.
I discovered Restaurant Sing Kee in most unconventional way – while riding my mountain bike for the purpose of waist management (beats running IMHO, you get a bit of adventure thrown in), I found myself at Sungai Way and saw this restaurant that was full of people.
If a restaurant at an old neighborhood is packed, it is usually good, and many weeks later, Haze and I decided to pay a visit for dinner.
Sing Kee at PJ Sungei Way
Sing Kee is just like any “tai chau“, with a huge variety of dishes on the menu. The specialty here though is their asam fish, a dish that we noticed on more than half the tables.
Since it was our first time here, I asked for the server to give us her recommendations. We ended up with asam fish, squid with salted egg yolk, and a plate of vegetable to go with two steamed rice.
the glorious asam fish – tilapia
It did take a while for food to be served, but at least the home brewed loh hon goh drinks accompanying our wait were plenty good.
Our food arrived.
The asam fish (RM 21) was almost a balanced meal by itself – steamed tilapia with brinjal, long bean, lady’s finger, onion, tomato, and red chili all in an asam soup base that strikes a perfect balance of sourness and hotness. The fish were done perfectly too, and despite a generally inferior species when it comes to taste, preparing it in this method clearly removes any muddy tastes that we sometimes associate with tilapia.
It was really one of the best asam fish dish I’ve tried thus far.
squid with salted egg, vegetable for vitamin c quota
Our second dish was the squid with salted egg (RM 22). A dish not recommended for the weak hearted (or those with high cholesterol for sure). It was another win, squid that still retains some chewiness coated with generous amount of salted egg and breading for that extra savory taste. The only problem with it was that the portion should be for 4 pax, not 2.
Then there was the vegetable, which tastes like any normal vegetable dish. Nothing to see here.
Haze and I were positively satisfied
If you’re looking for old fashion tai chau and a good plate of asam fish, you can certainly do worse than Sing Kee. I’m going to visit this place again when the asam addiction strike. Will try other dishes too.
P/S: I later found out that this is also one of Kerol’s favorite place, she is a picky eater.
Address: Restaurant Sing Kee No. 28, Jalan SS 9A/16 Sungai Way New Village 47300 Petaling Jaya Selangor GPS: 3.086855, 101.62206 Tel: 013-217 7260, 012-380 3918
