A day trip to Pulau Ketam

We love food and of course seafood is always in our mind we talk about gatherings and family celebrations. We do not mind travelling a little further to taste a good food, thus we planned a day trip to Pulau Ketam (Crab Island) on Wesak Day holiday.

 

The main transportation to this island is through the waters of Klang River. We took a speedboat from South Port Passenger Terminal to the island which costs RM10.00 per person and it took approximately 20 minutes journey. The details of the transportation can be found here at Ferry Schedule for reference. There were mangroves all the way where fishermen normally catch crabs at the area.

Speedboat ticket (RM10.00)

 

 It was low tide at the mid-afternoon hours when we reach the island where we could see a lots crabs running around the shore and I also saw the belacan fish for the very first time. I was eating sambal belacan all the while without knowing how that fish looked like. We had a short tour around the village before we can have our seafood.

 

This fishermen village’s population is majority Chinese. Some hawkers can speak good English and some do not even understand our Bahasa Melayu because the way the converse is so differently. There were many seafood restaurants, fruit juice stalls and grocery shops around. The famous food we noticed the entire pathway is fried oyster and clams but we did not get a chance to have it. Many shops sell seafood products like dried squids and anchovies.

There are no big roads in this village but only narrow pathway for people to walk and cycle. Bicycle is the main transportation that is being used around this village. They have normal bicycles and also battery operated bicycles for rent. Families also can put up a night at this place as they have hotel facilities here and it is very affordable in price wise. I find this place is suitable for friends to get together away from the pollutions and noisy city. Those who love fishing will enjoy this place because they have fishing facilities too.

One of the pathway in the village

The shops

Wall mural



Chinese Temple

 

We dined at Restoran Kuai Lok Hian which was highly recommended by a friend. So we did not take a second to think of other choices. The seafood was very delicious, the cooking style and flavor was extraordinary then what we usually have.

We chose the golden pomfret fish (bawal emas) to be made as soya sauce steamed. The soya sauce was very tasty and the fish was so fresh.

 

The mantis prawns was so yummilicious by the looks itself once served on our table. It tasted so fleshy and creamy as it looks and of course the portion is big.

 

The kam heong stir fried clams (lala) made me so surprised once I eaten it. There were no sand in any of the clams, thus it was very clean. All the clams were so big than what we usually get which is a tiny piece found inside the clam shells that make us always regret ordering clams in a restaurant. The kam heong gravy tasted so good and I cannot explain in words but I can recommend people to taste it.

We had hot plate prawns which had some unique flavoring in it. It was mixture of kam heong, spicy and curry flavor. It was simple awesome! I personally will highly recommend this dish to anyone.

 

 

Dry chili crab was the major highlight! We ate the crabs the last because we already planned to eat it using our fingers. The red crab’s shell is obviously very hard and we needed our fingers to assist us. The flesh of the crabs was so juicy and filled inside the shells and no empty shells found.

 

I have always heard that Pulau Ketam is a seafood paradise and indeed it is a place to enjoy the fresh seafood. No regrets and worth the price paid.

We took Alibaba Cruise back to Port Klang. This cruise was a little high-end looking but it also cost RM10.00 and its journey is 30 minutes. The journey to Pulau Ketam was indeed worth the time spent away from the city. 

 

 

“People who love to eat are always the best people. - Julia Child”

A simple smile

A simple smile

 

 

I just barged into the bus door entrance all of a sudden and the door hits me while it was almost closing. Ouch..! The bus driver got panicked but he smiled wide and asked "pintu kena you ke?" (Did the door hit you?) I said "tak apa bang, saya pun tiba-tiba masuk. Abang tak nampak" (it's ok bro, I suddenly barged in, you didn't see me). Instead of saying sorry, he said "terima kasih" (thank you) with a wider smile. In my heart, thank you? I gave him back my sweetest smile, paid my bus fare and went to the back to my seat. Then I was wondering, why thank you? May be others would have reacted angrily towards him but I didn't? The thank you and smile he has been very sincere which we hardly get from other bus drivers. I travel using the public transport everyday to work and it has been 10 years now. I have seen angry bus drivers, reckless ones, irritating ones and sometimes crazy ones. I know everyone is tired working but being a driver is even harder than working in office and those tired drivers unintentionally show their tiredness and frustration to their passengers "like me" and scold them for entering when the doors is almost closing. But this abang was so nice towards the passengers. He gave nice smile to everyone and I adore this kind of people being around me.

Smile, it shows the friendliness in you, also shows that you are not a small-minded person in the community. But nowadays, we cannot see many people smiling to each other as everyone is busy looking at their mobile phone, ipad or tabs, so all heads down. puffff… A simple smile from a stranger makes a lot of difference to me and of course it even made my rainy days better. We are in the era with bombastic gadgets which you get connected with people around the world but forget to smile to people in front of you.

Stop being so introvert. It is time to be nice to people!

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

~ Mother Teresa ~

 

Penang - Our food voyage

We have been to Penang many times since childhood and we have visited most places in Penang but this trip was specially planned for food hunting by six food lovers. My husband came up with the travel budget for our trip, i.e. petrol expenses, toll expenses, ferry fare and hotel charges.

Our roadtrip to Penang was scheduled on 5^th February 2017, Sunday and one of my friends was ready with her food directory for our journey, so we appointed her as our tour guide for this trip. We met up at my apartment at 4AM and started our roadtrip off to North–South Expressway with a Ford Escape. After 1 hour and 45 minutes we did our first pit stop at R&R Tapah and continued our journey to our second pit stop at Juru after 2 hours and 15 minutes.

We actually planned the beginning of our journey to be a little divine and holy before we turn into food monsters, so, we drove to St. Anne’s Church in Bukit Mertajam which was roughly 20 minutes’ drive from Juru. 



St. Anne's Church (inside view)



St. Anne's Church

Then, we proceeded to Jalan Baru Sri Muniswarar Temple in Prai. We did some offerings and prayers in this temple and also ate some tasty “prasatham” (food that is first offered to the deity).  Eventually, the tasty sweet rice and tamarind rice was given as “prasatham” was the first food we ate in Penang as a start of our food trip.  Next, we headed to Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry Terminal to get into the island. The ferry costs RM7.70 for motorcars.

Jalan Baru Sri Muniswarar Temple, Prai

View from the ferry

Once we landed on the island, we hunted for our breakfast which is Roti Canai Transfer Road. The stall is located at the shoulder of the road and there are no parking spaces nearby.  We ordered their signature dish the roti canai ayam and roti bakar telur goyang. The roti canai ayam was simply tasty especially eating it hot from the stove. Each serving have one full drumstick chicken piece which make our tummy so full, plus it was roti telur. With a glorious and satisfying breakfast we continued walking for our next food hunting.

Roti bakar telur goyang (RM2.00)

Roti canai + ayam (RM8.00)

 

We finally sat down after a 10 minutes’ walk at Joo Hooi Café at Jalan Penang where the Penang Road Famous TeowChew Chendul is just beside the café. We started our eating spree here by ordering five different Chinese food and chendul. Everything we ate was very tasty and has its own original taste which we do not always get in KL. After we are done eating, we had our joy ride to check-in to our resort to rest our overloaded tummy. We stayed at Sri Sayang Resort at Batu Ferringhi and the 3 bedroom apartment with seaview cost us RM218.00, it was worth it!



Asam Laksa (RM5.00)

Chee Cheong Fun (RM4.00)

Curry Laksa (RM5.00)

Fried Oyster (RM12.00)

 



Teow Chew Chendul (RM2.90)

Char Kuew Teow (RM6.50)

 

Late evening we drove looking for Nasi Kandar Beratur at Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling as we heard the food here is tasty and we have to wait in a long que to get our food. The stall is exactly beside a mosque, Masjid Kapitan Keling and it is a perfect landmark to this nasi kandar stall. Surprisingly, there was no que for food, maybe we were too early. I would say the food was just good but better than the commercialized restaurants out there.

 

Nasi Kandar Beratur - with ayam goreneg + sotong (RM9.50)

 

Of course, we cannot miss the Gurney Drive when we are in Penang, so we drove there for our next food pit stop. Unfortunately, the way the stalls and table seating is organized is little hassle for us. We ordered pasembur (Malaysian salad) and we cannot sit at the tables nearby the stall because it was only for those who order drinks at the nearby stalls. So, the pasembur stall owner does not have a table for his customers to eat and that was going on same with the other stalls. Sigh…. We never faced this kind of issue when we visited here years back. We got a table for us after we bought sugarcane juice from a stall. We ate a few other foods and the prices were reasonable.

Pasembur (RM17.00)



Pai Tee

Popiah

The next morning, we had our breakfast in a Malay stall just outside of the resort. It was so the “kampung style” place with trees, creepers as the roof to block the sunlight, table seating on the soils and birds (caged) noised around. Nothing can overtake our Malaysian breakfast, nasi lemak and nescafe tarik along with some kuih.

We checked-out from the resort and drove to the to Sri Muneeswaran temple at Waterfall Road which is a must visit temple whenever we visit Penang. We cannot ignore the deity there as he sits exactly at the main junction of the road, plus however we have to pass him to go out from the place. We went to Victoria Street to get our desserts at the China House. We felt so heavenly once we entered the café which was filled with pastry and cake fragrance in the air.

 

 

We took a few photographs with the street wall art while we were walking looking for food. There were more but time was so limited for us to discover the all.

 

 
After that we took our quick lunch in a nasi kandar restaurant and took off to KL, back home with the same route. It was a good roadtrip as we ate most of the famous food in Penang and it was within a cheap budget.

Below are some links / location maps which helps during this roadtrip:-

Ferry Services

Joo Hooi Cafe & Penang Road Famous TeowChew Chendul

Roti Canai Transfer Road

Nasi Kandar Beratur

China House



 

Happiness is going roadtrips with friends...

~Lenz~