Kai’s Plato, Kota Damansara

Kai Plato

My better half’s parents wanted to have dinner together last night so I thought of Kai’s Plato. Kai’s Plato is a restaurant specializing in seafood that subscribes to a no utensils and plates policy. The lobster, prawns, crabs etc comes in a platter and you use the table and your fingers to eat everything. It’s a pretty cool experience.

Kais Plato

I had wanted to come when it first opened but the queues were prohibitive. It’s still quite packed but you’ll be able to get in with a reservation. I booked a table for 4 pax at Kai’s Plato for 6:30 pm.

Kais

There is only 1 menu item here. The meal is standardized and goes according to the number of people. 2 diners will be served with a 3-tier platter while 4 pax has a 4-tier platter.

Writing Shell

You get shells to draw with from the server. These will be mounted on the walls with your customized message – the walls of Kai’s Plato is filled with these.

Watermelon Lychee

I ordered a Virgin Mojito (RM 8.90) while my dear had the Watermelon Lychee (RM 8.90). These two drinks are the house specials. I liked the Watermelon Lychee, it’s very refreshing. The mojito was decent too, they don’t skip on the mint leaves here. It takes up a full half of the glass!

Scallop Oyster

Our 4-layer platter came and was mounted on the jelly flame source. This is the first tier in the platter. There are 11 types of seafood in total here. I particularly liked the sea snails. It’s musky and sandy. Yum! The scallops are served with chopped ginger and spring onions. The oysters are topped with cheese and it’s pretty awesome.

Prawn Octopus

The second tier is filled with prawns, clams, mussels, bamboo clams and octopus. There is another type of clam called arc shell so there’s actually 3 types of clams in this layer. The bottom is lined with cabbage and the vegetables are edible. I preferred the broccoli from the first layer though.

Crab Lobster

The third tier is the best one! It contains the most premium ingredients – slipper lobsters, crabs, huge big head prawns, and grouper fish slices. I love the monster big head prawns. The brains are bigger than the size of my thumb when extracted! The mud crabs are super delicious too. I enjoyed eating the grouper and the small serving of vermicelli is infused with the flavors of the shellfish and seafood. It’s so bomb!

Seafood Soup

The fourth tier contains the seafood soup. You’ll notice that each layer has holes at the bottom to allow stray juices to drip downwards though each tier. This means the scallops, snails, oysters from the first layer drips down to the clams, octupus, mussels in the second layer which in turn goes into the huge prawns, crabs and lobster in the third layer and everything finally drains into this sweet, sweet broth.

Pasta

Kai’s Plato will give you a serving of pasta to eat with the soup. This is meant to fill you up but we were all very full from the seafood already. The soup was really nice though.

Seafood Pasta

I kept a little bit of the crab meat to put into my pasta and seafood soup. The soup is soooo delicious from the 11 types of seafood juices dripping down. It’s such a treat to finish the meal with piping hot soup. I like how the flame is kept going so the soup is boiling. The soup also serves as as steam source to keep the rest of the platter warm.

Kais Us

Kai’s Plato works out to around RM 86 per pax. I ordered the Captain’s Platter for RM 270++, which is what they call the set for 4 people. It’s RM 138++ for 2 pax or RM 390++ for a group of 6. We all enjoyed eating with our hands and using the table as a plate. I also learned that my dear’s dad is a collector of snail shells last night. The meal came up to RM 343.60 for the 4 of us which is reasonable for a meal with lobster, crabs, prawns and grouper. I’ll be back again but not for a long while since you can get sick of eating so much seafood. Haha!

Sang Har Mee @ Restaurant Green View, SS2

Green View Sang Har Mee

I was craving for some sang har mee (生虾面) over the weekend and decided to pop back to an old favorite to eat it. Restaurant Green View has been serving their famous sang har mee (big head prawn noodles) near SS2 (technically Jalan 19) for quite a long time, using the same big head prawns we use in our big head prawn noodles in Sibu but served Cantonese style with crispy noodles.

Big Head Prawn

The price of sang har mee is based on the weight of the prawn. It’s a seasonal, fluctuating price but it has increased over the years to a staggering RM 200/kg. There were three (3) other couples there, all eating sang har mee and we put in an order for 2 pax. Each person is allocated one (1) big head prawn so this is a double portion.

Big Head Prawn Noodles

Behold! The big head prawns were medium sized that day, one slightly bigger than the other. The appeal of big head prawns is due to the roe in the large head of the prawn – it seeps out when it’s cooked, blending into the gravy to turn it into a rich and prawny treat.

Freshwater Big Head Prawn

I like how they cooked the freshwater big head prawns just right so it’s still juicy. The prawns are HUGE too – the meat is equivalent to a slipper lobster or Moreton Bay Bug and the size of the prawn is bigger than my hand!

Sang Har Mee

The only downside is that they use a different serving platter for the 2 pax sang har mee, which is a bit too shallow, so the gravy goes into the crispy noodles and renders it slightly soggy. We should have ordered 1 plate of sang har mee for 1 pax EACH so the serving bowl is slightly curved up and the crispy noodles will remain crispy.

Prawn Roe Gravy

On the plus side, this gives us a lot of the big head prawn roe-infused gravy, but if you like crispy noodles, be sure to make two individual orders instead of one order for two. The price is the same anyway, since it’s calculated by weight.

Sang Har Noodles

This plate of giant freshwater prawn noodles cost us RM 118! It has 590 grams of big head prawns at RM 200 per kg but it’s worth it coz the sang har mee tasted delicious!

Cut Fruits

They also serve a complimentary plate of cut fruits for dessert (papaya and watermelon on a bed of ice) if you order the sang har mee.

Green View Restaurant

The total bill inclusive of drinks was RM 137.55 for the both of us, which is about the same price we’ll pay if we ate at a café so it’s not too bad. I love sang har mee and even though the price has gone up almost exponentially over the years, Green View Restaurant still cooks up a decent plate of big head prawn noodles.

Restaurant Green View

Restaurant Green View
8, Jalan 19/3,
Petaling Jaya, Selangor

RM 30 Coconut Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles @ Dian Xiao Er

dian xiao er prawn noodles

I’ve heard people telling me about this after I posted about the RM 33 big prawn noodles in a coconut available at Glory Cafe in Sarikei. Rowena and Alex both told me that Sibu itself has a version of this which they copied from Glory Cafe so I went to check it out with my dad yesterday. It’s located far inside the Ding Lik Kong industrial area near Igan River, which is about a 20 minute drive from Sibu town.

ding lik kong 31

It’s actually quite easy to find, I just forgot about the place. My dad called my uncle and got us oriented and it was just a matter of following road signs after that.

dian xiao er

The name of the coffee shop is Dian Xiao Er and it’s located along a block of shophouses that has three (!!!) coffee shops – it’s the middle one and they have a large banner promoting their Coconut Tom Yam Big Head Prawn Noodles.

dian xiao er sibu

The guy taking our order was a very friendly and chatty young kid who seemed to take a liking to me. He told me that there’s at least 5 different places in Sibu that offers the same thing now – all duplicates of the original recipe from Glory Cafe. He also confided that he’ll be shifting work places at the end of the month and he personally did not think this was as good as the Sarikei version.

sibu coconut big prawn noodles

I was pleased to see that the big head prawn (大头虾) is indeed quite large with claws intact.

big head prawn

The big head prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) is favored by Sarawakians due to the more intensely flavored meat. The other common type of prawn here is the big white prawn (Litopenaeus vannamei) which is milder. You can see the difference – the former really has a huge head in relation to the size of its body. If it were an inanimate object, I’ll compare it to a bobblehead or a chibi anime character. smirk

claws 2B pencil

The claws are very important too as the meat from them is equivalent to a *2B pencil*!

me big prawn noodles

I had a taste of the tom yam soup and I thought it was quite similar to Glory Cafe except for five key differences:

  • Calamansi lime not cooked in
  • Lemon grass stalk is chopped up (makes it hard to eat with the short inedible bits)
  • Cheap canned mushrooms from China used here
  • Not as much coconut juice
  • Spicier tom yam soup but less prawny broth

uncooked calamansi lime

The uncooked calamasi lime is the obvious one as Glory Cafe in Sarikei has a very mushy lime that’s almost *disintegrating* compared to this relatively fresh specimen and that adds a lot to the tom yam flavor profile.

sibu me dad

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my meal and it turns out to be cheaper than driving down to Sarikei for their RM 33 Tom Yam Coconut Big Prawn Noodles. It’s also better than the notorious RM 35 big head prawn noodles in Min Kwong. There are some problems with the recipe and it’s not exactly similar to the original one in Sarikei – anyone would be able to tell from a blind test taste.

sibu big prawn noodles

However, the one in Dian Xiao Er is a reasonably good facsimile of the original Glory Cafe Tom Yam Coconut Big Head Prawn Noodles and I’ll recommend it if you don’t feel like driving down to Sarikei – you can have your fix right in Sibu! It’s located at Lorong Ding Lik Kong 31.

Umai and other local delights @ Fisherman Restaurant

claypot tom yam prawns

I’ve been craving for umai lately and had the chance to eat it again for dinner with Arthur last night. Fisherman Restaurant is a popular local restaurant to bring visitors coz it has a lot of Melanau native delights like lokan, umai and ikan terubok. These are all Sarawakian dishes – they even have dabai (a local type of olive) when it’s in season.

umai

Umai is a local version of ceviche. Fisherman Restaurant does it in a style that’s similar to umai jeb in Mukah. I’ve had it when I went to Mukah in 2008 – it’s very fresh fish (in this case white pomfret or ikan bawal putih) that’s been cured with lime and mixed with chopped onions and chillies.

sarawak prawn crackers

It’s delicious when you eat it with the prawn crackers they serve as an appetizer.

prawn crackers umai

(although it’s traditionally eaten with sago pearls)

individual prawn claypot

We also ordered an individual serving of large prawn in a mini claypot. These prawns are huge and used in big head prawn noodles. The prawn is cooked in an assam tom yam broth soup and it costs RM 20 per prawn. It’s worth it though coz they do it very well – the broth is flavorful and spicy and the prawn meat is firm and juicy and sweet.

paku santan

The fibre quota was fulfilled by paku santan. It’s a local fern cooked Melanau style in santan (coconut milk) and shrimp. I really liked this dish too, everything the cook sent out really hit the mark.

fisherman restaurant

That’s why Fisherman Restaurant is so popular despite being relatively decrepit – peeling paint on the walls, dated single-unit wall air conditioners, and a musty interior. There were a lot of people who came after us coz we went really early – the place was quite full. I do wish that they put some money into renovation though – it looks the same (except a bit more worn) as when I went in 2008!

fisherman restaurant sibu

This isn’t even the original restaurant – they were located at a different part of town at first and shifted to this place.

fisherman restaurant us

I have to say that the best dish of the night is the roast lamb with mint sauce. This is a newer dish that came to pass with the current generation (the son came back from New Zealand where he had his own restaurant and brought some recipes home) and it’s cooked really well. I have to say that it’s even slightly better than my late mom’s famous lamb (sorry ma). smirk

roast lamb mint

The roast lamb here is sliced generously thick and the meat is juicy. You’ll love this if you’re fond of the slightly gamey taste of lamb, and they don’t overcook it unlike other places. They have two sauces – the mint sauce and a garlic inspired Asian dip, the former is the one you want since the latter is uninspiring. It costs RM 50 for the dish with two large slabs of lamb, definitely a must-order if you visit.

thick lamb slabs

The bill for the two of us came up to RM 126.40 but the roasted lamb (RM 25 per slice) and the tom yam prawns (RM 20 per prawn) accounts for RM 90 so the dishes aren’t really that expensive if you don’t order the premium stuff. Thanks for dinner Arthur! It’s always good to catch up when I’m back home. 🙂

Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles served inside a coconut for RM 33

coconut tom yam big prawn noodles

Behold! This Coconut Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodle is the latest innovation from Glory Cafe in Sarikei and it’s not just served inside a coconut, it’s cooked with *coconut juice*! I’ve been eating their famous tom yam spin on big prawn noodles since 2008 and it’s worth the hour’s drive from Sibu. It used to retail for RM 14 and was subsequently raised until the current price at RM 33 per bowl (or coconut, rather).

glory cafe sarikei

The first time I went, I was so taken by their take on the big prawn noodles that I wrote a glowing review. Strange thing was, the owners actually took notice and printed out my blog post and pasted it on their stall. Thus, the next time I went, they actually served me a complimentary bowl of their tom yam big prawn noodles for the early exposure!

glory cafe

I drove down to Sarikei to show my better half and my dad what this storm in a teacup bowl is all about over the weekend. We just had lunch and wasn’t sure what time Glory Cafe closes so it’s a good thing Joyce got us the number and I called ahead. It used to be cheaper than the notoriously priced RM 35 big prawn noodles in Sibu so people in the know started coming here but it’s now almost the same price.

big prawn noodles sarikei

The Coconut Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles here tastes a lot better though! They still serve the old version in a bowl instead of inside a coconut but the new coconut variant is better. The updated recipe is actually very sweet and I asked what the difference was – it turns out that they actually use coconut juice instead of water to make the tom yam soup for the big prawn noodles!

coconut tom yam prawn noodles

There are two different options for prawns/shrimp – RM 25 for a coconut bowl of big white prawn (Litopenaeus vannamei) and RM 33 for the larger giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii). The latter is actually cheaper in Sarikei coz it’s closer to the source and it’s what people here call da tou xia (大头虾) or big head prawn. We went for the latter since it tastes a lot better and it’s the traditional prawn to go into big prawn noodles.

prawn noodles in coconut

It’s absolutely delicious! My dad was still full so me and my dear shared a coconut bowl of the tom yam big prawn noodles. There’s actually not a lot since the volume inside of a coconut is rather small (the husk makes up a large mass of the actual coconut) but it’s the perfect serving for one.

sharing plates

There’s one large big head prawn inside split into four and about a fistful of noodles but it tastes soooo good – the broth is spicy and savory and sour and sweet at the same time, this really hits all the notes. I wished we ordered a coconut bowl each but that would be too much since we just ate lunch.

coconut juice

We also ordered coconuts for drinks (RM 3.50 each) and my dear tried their new homemade coconut pudding (RM 6). The coconut pudding is very popular – almost every table ordered it, and we wanted to check it out too. It’s made in-house with coconut milk and coconut juice and it’s not the same thing as the coconut jelly that we have in KL and Thailand. It’s sweet and the perfect counter-balance for the tom yam big prawn noodles.

coconut pudding

The tao geh nio gave me a strange look when I paid the bill and she said I looked familiar and I told her about how I used to make the hour long drive down just to eat their noodles and wrote the original review they printed out six years ago. Haha. This is a relatively new dish – it was just launched last year so if you haven’t been back in a while, I would highly recommend Glory Cafe’s Coconut Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles.

glory cafe us

It’s definitely worth the time to drive down but keep in mind that they’re very full during weekends and the last order is before 4 pm.

Glory Cafe’s Big Prawn Asam Tom Yam Noodles, Sarikei

glory cafe

I drove down to Sarikei to sample the famous RM 14 Asam Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles at Glory Cafe on Sunday morning. I went with Faye and the journey from Sibu to Sarikei took about 45 minutes. It can take up to an hour (or more/less) depending on how fast you drive – the distance is approximately 105 km. Glory Cafe is located at the only Magnum 4D outlet in Sarikei – do note that there are other gaming operators there (Sports Toto) – it’s the Magnum 4D outlet you should be looking for. The QAG 4114 arrived at Glory Cafe at just a little before 12 pm and parked right in front of a fire hydrant no-parking zone. 😉

asam tom yam noodles

It took about 20 minutes for our order to arrive. The Asam Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles came in a large glass serving bowl and is filled to the brim with huge big prawns, noodles and the asam tom yam soup. Asam Tom Yam is a cross between asam laksa and tom yum soup. It is made of tamarind, lemon grass, lime leaves, fish sauce and chili peppers. It is a delicious contrast of sweet and sour flavors with a hint of spiciness thrown into the mix. You can opt to substitute the default noodles with other carbohydrate chains e.g. rice vermicelli, kueh tiaw, tang hoon etc.

big prawn macro

The big head prawns in the RM 14 Asam Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles are huge and the chef was generous enough to include several of them in the dish. Each prawn is sliced vertically for easier consumption. Nevertheless, this is not a dish for dignified foodies – you almost certainly have to manually separate the shell from the crustacean with your fingers to get at the flesh.

asam tom yam mee

I went for the Asam Tom Yam Big Prawn Noodles (RM 14). The egg noodles is thick and has an almost tangible sweet undertone that goes very well with the asam tom yam. The noodles go well with the sour (from the tamarind) and sweet flavors from the soup. I noticed that the noodles also tend to absorb the flavors better. The noodles taste better than rice vermicelli due to the latter being unable to absorb the flavors of the asam tom yam soup. The portion is huge and it will definitely satiate all but the most voracious appetite.

asam tom yam mee hoon

Faye went for the Asam Tom Yam Big Prawn Rice Vermicelli (RM 14). Rice vermicelli is known locally as bee hoon. It’s the same dish except with rice vermicelli in place of the noodles. She thought it tasted alright until she sampled my noodles…after which she promptly took possession of my bowl. I am considering an appeal to the International Court of Justice for the disputed two-cubit Asam Tom Yam Noodle Island, I mean, bowl.

glory cafe us

It should be noted that the asam tom yam concoction is a notorious fabric stainer. You should probably reconsider wearing white or light colored articles of clothing during the consumption of this particular dish. The splash damage can be considerable despite elaborate measures to avoid such occurrences.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...