seafood

Twinsky Seafood, KK with RM 15 abalone

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twinsky seafood rock fish

Ask anyone* where the best seafood in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah is and they’ll inevitably say “Ocean Seafood”. Don’t. Just don’t.

twinsky seafood

I’ve been there, done that, bought the motherfucking t-shirt and I stand here as witness that it’s a tourist trap.

twinsky seafood tanks

* Now’s probably a good time to say that anyone means hotel personnel.

twinsky fresh seafood

You wanna eat where the locals eat? Are you a traveller or a tourist?

twinsky choose

Ignore me if you’re the latter. However, if you’re a serious traveller, head on over to Twinsky Seafood where there is fresh seafood, much better than all the fancy air conditioned, scented napkins, attentive service restaurants.

twinsky live seafood

Don’t get me wrong, the good people at Twinsky Seafood has damn good service as well and the place is absolutely fucking packed when we went there. We didn’t even go during peak hour – that’s a testament (okay, okay, cutting down on Biblical references now) to how good their food is.

Go on a tour of the establishment and you can pick and choose the marine life that you want to consume.

digging gold

Would appreciate it if you kept the gold prospecting away from the fresh seafood.

rock fish

Aww…poor fish. Sucks to be you.

Alrighty then let’s get to the meat (no pun intended) of the post:

twinsky crabs

Crabs in hot and sour sauce. This is good and you get to choose the crustacean that you want.

twinsky sabah abalone

Sabah Green Abalone. It only costs RM 15 per abalone. (!!!)

sabah abalone

I told you seafood is cheap in KK right? The portions are larger than what you’ll expect in KL and it’s juicy and sweet.

sabah style abalone

Best dish ever.

twinsky sea fish

This is a sea fish that we ordered. Wait ah, lemme get my wallet to see how much it is.

mango appetizer

Chup! I forgot about the delicious pickled papaya appetizer.

twinsky seafood stone fish

Rock fish a.k.a. stone fish. It sounds a bit dodgy as Jerine pointed out (and she swore not to eat it at first) but when it was served…it’s magical. =D

twinsky seafood me

It’s cooked HK style with soy sauce (as all fresh fish should be prepared) and it tasted delicious. It was hard to the touch at the tank, yeah, stating the fucking obvious here, there’s a reason it’s called stone fish but after steaming…it’s the best thing that hits your palate. Smooth, silky with all the right tones.

stone fish

The entire meal costs about RM 250-300 – I don’t have the receipt coz Jerine paid for the meal.

Bukit Mata Seafood Centre

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bukit mata seafood center

Permata Carpark in Kuching is host to some of the freshest catch from the seas if you’re not in the mood to drive down to Lundu or Serian. It’s smack dab in the middle of the city. My favorite is ABC Seafood (Stall #10) and we went to Bukit Mata Seafood Centre (Stall #25) this very day a week ago during the Project Alpha shoot.

bukit mata

Verily, much has changed in Kuching but the popularity of this al fresco (a very atas word meaning open air) seafood court has not waned.

seafood

We had beef, prawns, ferns native to Sarawak, fish, noodles, bamboo clams and crabs.

crabs

Me and Aud ate quite a bit of the chilli crab – it’s pretty big by normal crab standards if you don’t compare it to Alaskan King Crab.

crab claw

Mmm…crustaceans.

crab meat

The sauce is tangy and sweet, with a hint of spiciness to it. It goes very well with rice, I just love the eggy and starchy texture of the gravy.

lacerations

It was so good that I didn’t realize I cut my index finger multiple times while digging for that elusive crab meat. Lacerations galore. >.<

Kung pow fish roe, squid and eel with pig tail omelet

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kung pow seafood start

I hardly ever cook Chinese meals although I love eating tai chow as much as the next Oriental dude. The main reason for this is coz I don’t have a huge wok and a good ol’ fashioned flame for that elusive “wok hei” (literally wok heat – a reference to the caramelized texture of superheated food). 

kung pow style

I like kung pow (insert meat) so I decided to go back to my China roots and start cooking some Chinese food.

You will need: 

ingredients

Pig’s tail
Dried chillis
Fish roe
Squid
Eel
Kikkoman soy sauce
Lee Kum Kee Oyster sauce
Sunflower and canola oil
Eggs
Onions and garlic
Calamansi lime 

pig tail

Kung pow dishes are made with dried chillis, which obviously makes this an essential ingredient. Here’s a detailed (geddit? de-tailed) photo of the pig’s tail. 

fish roe squid eel

We started off by preparing all the seafood items. 

chopped seafood

Eel, those snake like creatures dwelling in the depths of the ocean (talking crap here) should be cut into bite-sized pieces. The squid has to be disemboweled and sliced into rings. You don’t really need to have a ring shaped apparatus – squid is hollow after preparation so just slice it and it’ll produce rings. Calamansi limes were squeezed over it to get rid of the distinct aquatic smell.

Fish roe. Mmm…full of cholestrol, but yet so delicious.

fry onions

My friend decided that this won’t taste very good with normal steamed rice – a point I vehemently disagree – so she added in some cooking oil and chopped garlic into the rice cooker. 

add rice

This is fried INSIDE the rice cooker BEFORE the rice was added in. 

fry rice

She then measured out the rice and started frying it with all the above before adding water and cooking it with several sauces lying around in my fridge. 

add sauce

Now, for the difficult part. Babe’s (not Babe Ruth, Babe the pig) pretty little pink tail has to be chopped up. 

pigs tail

This is more difficult than it sounds. I never knew those damn swine would have tendons/cartilage/whatever you call it as tough as this.

I attempted to do it with a serrated knife. Let me advice you that this is a Bad Idea (TM) and could lead to unfortunate incidents like Slicing Your Damn Finger Off (TM) as almost happened to this narrator. 

chop pig tail

I have a chopper which I forgot I had. Use a chopper instead. You’ll thank me.

Fucking pig’s tail. You almost cost me my index finger. *glares* 

frying pig tail

Anyway, add in the sliced onions and start frying Babe’s tail in extra virgin olive oil since he’s like a nice pig and all and even his tail deserves reverence.

It requires a Great Deal (TM) of frying which translates into 3212999 days in the standard measurements of time. I’m not kidding, it takes ages for the damn thing to cook. 

add eggs

After the piggy’s tail is all nice and cooked, crack six (6) eggs into the frying pan. Oh, before I forget, cooking posts are always meant for two. As in it should have a Serves: 2 on top if this were a proper cooking blog, which obviously it’s not. I just like to cook. 

cooking pig tail omelet

Put it on low heat until the pig’s tail omelet cooks to perfection. 

pig tail omelet

Now, let us concentrate on the seafood. Fry finely chopped garlic (a point I neglected to mention at the beginning – you should have chopped garlic. Heh!) and add in the dried chillis. 

cooking kung pow

You’re going to need a lot of oil for the kung pow fish roe, squid and eel so we got a Sunflower Canola bottle for this (Tesco store brand).

Cook on the highest heat your stove/heating element/whatever can manage (which isn’t very much for my ceramic one). Keep this going for a good 3 minutes or so and start adding in the seafood. Start with the squid (cooks slowest), quickly followed by the eel, and the egg roe at the very end (coz I like it kinda raw).

kung pow fish roe squid eel

Add in some oyster sauce and soy sauce and fry it as vigorously as you can for 10 minutes and then serve. 

flavored rice

The fluffy rice was nicely flavored and the pig’s tail omelet went well with the kung pow fish roe, squid and eel to subdue the spiciness of the dish. 

kung pow seafood end

Verdict: It was a good effort, but it wouldn’t beat even the crappiest tai chow’s kung pow offerings, due to the lack of wok hei (read beginning for definition).

Tambun seafood, Penang

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tambun seafood

Penang has an abundance of seafood due to its status as an island, and for the very same reason, the seafood also happens to be disgustingly cheap. Thus, a trip to Penang without having seafood is kinda like going to Egypt without visiting the pyramids.

tambun pier

We travelled from Tambun, Ipoh to Tambun, Penang after the hot springs trip. Tambun (the one in Penang) is famous for seafood and lies just before the Penang bridge connecting the mainland to the island.

gee seng tambun

We had dinner at Restauran Gee Seng, which looks small on the outside but actually has a huge amount of space which can easily accommodate 30 tables or so, with its own pier for fresh hauls of seafood to boot! Parking is a bit of a nightmare here though, since the road into this area is narrow and the parking attendants frequently shuffle the cars (along with their drivers) around when some poor sod stuck at the back of a matrix of cars has to exit after his/her dinner.

However, I’m sure you don’t want to read about the tribulations of the complicated parking system, so I’ll let the photos do the talking:

thorny clams

This is some sort of spiked clam that requires a toothpick to dig out.

extract clam

The flesh tastes good dipped in chilli sauce, once you’re able to get the damn thing out. It takes a bit of practise.

jolyn

Jolyn here shows us that chopsticks are not merely eating implements.

octopus

We also ordered boiled octopus…

vegetables

…and a serving of greens to balance out the marine meat. It had shrimps in it anyway, keeping true to the seafood restaurant roots. 😉

baked crabs

The baked crab at this place comes with a mallet made of wood. You use it to crack open the shell.

crab claw

This style of cooking preserves the natural sweetness of the crab meat.

signature tofu

The signature tofu dish at this establishment is different – it’s deep fried into triangular shapes and is a mixture of tofu and some vegetables. It’s quite tasty.

oyster omelet

The oyster pancake (o chien) isn’t what Sarawakians are used to. Ours is a crisp pancake with juicy oysters in the middle – click here to see a sample. The oyster pancake over here is more like a classic omelet, except with oysters.

chilli crab rolls

Next up is one of my favorite dishes – chilli crab served with a side of bread rolls to soak up the gravy with. Let me attempt to describe the pure awesomeness of the chilli crab. The gravy is cooked with starch and tastes sweet and tangy, with a slightly salty note in there somewhere.

chilli crab

It’s also infused with egg and at one point; I just discarded all social graces and started scooping up the sauce with my spoon and drinking it. Pure heaven!

mantis prawn cooked

This is the mantis prawn. I’ve written about the mantis prawn experience here in a post filled with (very justifiable) hyperbole.

mantis prawn flesh

It’s my first time eating mantis prawn and the tender and sweet flesh is simply orgasmic! This is what it looks like in the aquarium:

mantis prawn live

I can’t believe I haven’t had mantis prawn before! To this very day, it keeps me awake at night, doubting my own judgment and fitness to live.

coconut water

The bill came out to a grand total of RM 253.20 for the six (6) of us. We thought there was an accounting error on the restaurant’s part and made plans for a quick exit strategy since a dinner like that has gotta cost around RM 400.

seafood in tambun

However, upon further inspection, it seems that we were billed for everything we ordered after all. Tambun seafood is dirt cheap and it’s fresh and delicious to boot! I highly recommend stopping by Tambun for dinner when you drive up to Penang! You’ll be missing out if you don’t. 🙂

Mantis prawn

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mantis prawn

I’ve never had such a succulent piece of crustacean in my life! The odd looking mantis shrimp (also called mantis prawn) tastes more like lobster than prawns.

mantis prawn size

I had this at Tambun, Penang last night. Mantis prawns are huge creatures that can grow much longer than a chopstick (shown here next to my hand for perspective). I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve ever had mantis prawn…its awesome stuff!

mantis prawn flesh

The carapace peels back to reveal a bed of soft, tender flesh that almost melts in your mouth. The sweetness of the mantis prawn flesh is unbelievable!

It’s so good that I just had to write this hyperbole laden post.

Dragon Seafood Restaurant

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dragon seafood restaurant

Dragon Seafood Restaurant is a popular destination for seafood about 15 minutes away from Miri. I went there with with a couple of friends to check out the famous seafood restaurant in Miri. There is a huge neon sign at the eating establishment, prominently located beside the road, so you won’t miss it.

dragon seafood paradise

The actual restaurant itself is about 100 meters into the turning. The proprietor had the audacity to call it Dragon Seafood Paradise. 😉 It’s surrounded by palm trees and the structure is made of timber products which makes it very inviting. There was a bit of a cool breeze when we went there that night too.

dragon aquarium

This is the signature aquariums popular in seafood establishments where the marine life is kept alive until the customer picks one. The chef then uses a net to haul the one you want before it’s cooked straight in the kitchen. There are various fishes, mussels, oysters, clams, crabs, lobsters and prawns on offer at Dragon Seafood Restaurant.

dragon interior

The interior of Dragon consists of a large hall dining area which can easily accommodate 300 people. There is no air conditioning at the restaurant, but ample fans bring down the temperature and the breeze coming in from the sea cools the place down significantly. There’s a lovely beach view due to the locality of the establishment too.

dragon hut

Dragon Seafood Restaurant also has several private dining alcoves which contains a single table and a wooden walkway leading to the hut. I noticed that this is one of the more popular options – probably coz the people wouldn’t want to mix with the proles at the hall dining area. 😉 There are wooden Venetian blinds on all sides of the wooden huts for additional privacy.

dragon waitress

This is our waitress of the day. She recommended a couple of their signature dishes and was kind enough to pose for a photo for the blog. I was a little surprised when she mentioned that she blogs too (in Chinese). Interesting..

danish royal stout ginseng.

I think that seafood is best paired with beer (or stout) and I ordered Danish Royal Stout Ginseng which is manufactured under the Carlsberg group. Carlsberg sponsored the neon billboard of Dragon Seafood Restaurant – it’s in the first photo. This stout is rich and goes well with seafood. The addition of ginseng is a great idea as it contributes to the rich flavor of the stout.

dragon rice

The first dish that came out was the Dragon Garlic Rice with Seafood. It’s customary for Chinese restaurants to divide the dish on another table into smaller bowls before serving it. This only applies to soup and rice though. The remaining rice is left at the center of the table for second helpings.

garlic rice

The Dragon Garlic Rice with Seafood tastes good. This is one of their flagship dishes that the waitress recommended in place of plain steamed rice. There are bits of seafood inside the rice and the garlic rice is done just right – perceptible, but not overpowering. It’ll still wreck all sorts of havoc with your breath though. This dish would give you some serious halitosis problems but it tastes great! 😉

soup divide

The next dish was the Seafood Soup. It was also divided on the adjescent table and divided into four (4) equal servings before the bowls were passed to us.

dragon soup

The Seafood Soup had clams, abalone and fish pieces. It’s more like a broth – the liquid is clear and infused with flavors from the seafood ingredients.

dragon clams

This is a clam dish cooked with a variety of herbs and spices. The clams are huge and different from the ones we get over here. It’s surprisingly tender and juicy too. The best thing about the clams is that it’s fresh, unlike the ones we get over in Sibu which tend to have a bit of an odor associated with it.

dragon prawns

The next dish is Faye’s favorite seafood order – prawns steamed with eggs. The implementation at Dragon Seafood Restaurant is nice and the presentation is better than the regular restaurants. The prawns were tender enough to be eaten wholesale together with the shell. Well, at least that’s how I eat it, but then again, I’ve been told I have a cast iron stomach. 😉

dragon crabs

The final dish was butter crabs. The crabs we eat over here tend to be cooked with eggs or chilli but there is now an increasing trend of ordering butter crabs. The crabs are deep fried with butter to create fluffy buttery pieces. I love this dish, and I could also eat the shell (except for the huge ones) which surprised my dining companions.

dragon us

Dragon Seafood Restaurant is a nice
eating establishment that s
pecializes in seafood. The seafood is fresh and the service is attentive. It can be a little far from Miri town but it’s worth the drive.

Eating frogs and eels in Sabah

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sabah seafood

There is a popular seafood center in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah which
serves a lot of live seafood. It’s notable due to the way the live
seafood offerings is presented – the customer is presented with a huge
array of see-through aquariums that hosts a variety of (still alive)
marine life from green lobsters to huge oysters and a lot of swimming
fish in the middle.

sabah frog

We decided to go for something a little unorthodox – frogs.
It tickled me to no end to see large frogs jumping around a container
for the benefit of the customer. I choose three large frogs to be
cooked. Poor frogs. 😉

sabah eel

The proprietor of the stall also recommended their eel.
The eels were swimming around lazily in their aquarium and the eels are
rather long, sinewy characters which looks rather like snakes with
water as their habitat instead of land.

sabah eel you

I also chose an eel for our consumption. Poor eel. 😉

sabah mussels

There were also local oysters on display, which were flat, solid
looking objects. I also choose a couple for our table but the
proprietor accidentally served it to another table, and that other
table unknowingly accepted, so we forgot about it, since it would take
a long time to prepare another batch.

eel dish

Here’s a closer look at the eel dish. This was cooked Japanese style
in BBQ sauce with a touch of hot chilli (Sabah style) and it tastes
great! The eel came out hot and oily and it does get a little cloying
to eat too much eel, so small portions are the key.

eel close up

This is a close up shot of the eel. The (poor) eel has been sliced
into bite-sized pieces – the dish bears a distinctive resemblance to
the live eels, except that it’s been chopped up. 😉 The colorization
and shape (round) of the eel is still visible though.

frog dish

The frog dish was prepared with the WHOLE frog, which is great for
presentation purposes. This dish was cooked in a very bland sauce,
allowing the natural sweet frog meat taste to shine though.

frog meat

The Chinese call frogs tien chi which translates to “sweet
chicken”. It’s an euphemism for frog. The frog dish has parts of the
frog still visible – there’s the much lauded frog legs, a little frog
thigh here and there, the body of the frog. It’s frog.

frog leg

This is the best part of the meal – the frog was wonderfully
prepared, leaving the sweet, tender and juicy frog meat to shine
through. Hop on, frog! 😉

Seafood at Buntal Kuching

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buntal lim hock ann

Buntal is a fishing village about 35 minutes drive away from
Kuching. Buntal Seafood Village is a very popular place for seafood, as
it is located right on the beach and the produce is about as fresh as
it gets – straight from the sea. Lim Hock Ann Seafood is the longest
standing and most popular one in Buntal.

buntal fresh seafood

There’s a lot of fresh seafood; fish, crabs, prawns, lobsters,
oysters etc. Basically, if you can get it from the sea, they have it.
Lim Hock Ann is also popular due to it’s unique seating arrangements –
they actually have a platform suspended over the sea, with waves
lapping at the bottom while you eat!

buntal platform

Unfortunately, it was raining yesterday, so the platform was closed.
I was surprised to find a mini entourage of people waiting for me when
I came back from Sibu. I had called a friend to pick me up but when I
exited the arrivals hall, I was accosted by my friends who came in
several cars to whisk me off to Buntal. Jesus…

buntal dinner

Anyway, this is what the suspended platform looks like from one of
the photos in the popular Lim Hock Ann seafood center in Buntal:

buntal old

This outlet has been here since forever, or so it seems. It still
retains its old skool wood structures that I remember seeing when I was
still young.

buntal wood counter

Anyway, here’s what we ordered:

buntal kailan
Baby kailan
It’s a type of vegetable, very nice.

buntal butter prawns
Butter prawns
It came out very crisp and tasted divine. The granules are caramelized butter, it’s heavenly, I tell you.

buntal oyster pancake
O Chien
This is oyster pancake. I like Lim Hock Ann’s implementation of this
popular must-have seafood dish. It’s moist and there are generous
amounts of oysters scattered all around the pancake instead of just a
couple in the middle.

buntal crabs
Crabs cooked with egg and chilli

Here’s a video tour of Lim Hock Ann in Buntal:

buntal seafood

Download: Buntal Seafood [sixthseal.com]

buntal snap

I had a snapping good time, pardon the pun.

Hai Pa Wang Seafood

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hai pa wang
It’s pretty packed for a weekday night.

hpw waitress
The waitress took our order.

jelly
We bought some multi colored jelly from an unsolicited table to table vendor.

butter prawns
Buttered prawns. Crunchy and buttery.

fukui fish
Fu kui fish. Sweet and sour.

oyster pancake
Oyster pancake. It came with a unique pepper and sea salt sauce.

hpw us
L-R: Miriam, Ah Lung, Huai Bin (me).

Hai Pa Wang Seafood, Padungan.
30/03/2004

Seafood at Petanak, Kuching

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petanak central market

This is Petanak Central Market. We went there for seafood last
night. Petanak is another option for Top Spot (?) in the city for
seafood. This place is more down to earth.

petanak 99

We sat at table 99. There was me, Ah Boon, Ah Lung, Miriam and Ah Ann joined us for a while.

poh fah seafood

We ate at Poh Fah Seafood. It had my surname on it. 😉 Stall 38.

petanak garlic

Here’s a must for every seafood meal. Raw garlic. Mmm…

petanak chicken

This is the first dish that came out. I think it’s chicken, comprised exclusively of drumsticks.

petanak fried rice

We all had fried rice (goes well with seafood) except Ah Boon (he had steamed rice).

petanak cockles

This is the next dish – cockles. It’s those shells that goes into halves once cooked. It was nice.

petanak us eating

Here is a blurry photo the proprietor took of us. Beer goes well with seafood too.

petanak seafood

This is some tofu dish. Tasted surprisingly nice when you have the munchies. I had two.

petanak oyster pancake

Here is the classic of all seafood meals here – oyster pancake. It’s
crunchy and nice, with oysters in the middle. Best dish of the meal
disregarding the chicken, which should be discarded since it’s not
seafood per se.

petanak cat

Here’s a skinny stray small cute kitten that I found. I swear I
wasn’t holding onto her by force. She liked me, and stayed under my
chair for the rest of the meal. I like her too, very cute and small and
furry.

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