Lumut/Pangkor Getaway - Part 2

What's a blog without food? So here you go...some stuff I ate!

Seafood

Upon recommendation by the staff at Swiss-Garden, we gave this restaurant, Hailam Seafood Restaurant, a try. Exit the resort at the main road, drive past Lumut Port and head for Sitiawan. At the traffic light after Lumut Port which shows a left for Sitiawan and straight for Lumut, take a sharp left into the restaurant which is just off the main road.

I recalled a yummy dish I once ate in Kampong Koh some time back. It was bittergourd nicely cooked with salted egg with a delicious creamy gravy. With this in mind, I ordered it again and imagine my horror when the server plonked this down and proclaimed it to be the same dish! Taking a bite, it wasn't all that bad. It was slices of bittergourd coated in a salted egg batter which gave it an interesting combination of sweet, bitter and salty tastes. A bit jelak though towards the end and I can't say that it is the healthiest way to eat your veggies!

What's seafood without crabs and this were 2 medium sized ones cooked in their "speciality" of salted egg which were cooked in exactly the same style as the bittergourd (surprise, surprise)! The crabs were quite meaty and the salted egg combination was really not too bad - very dry and crispy. Can someone say cholestrol :p

Finally a little steamed grouper to round it off. This was quite a small fella and I found that it tasted a bit hard, maybe due to over-steaming. I found that it had a touch of fishiness too. I should have gone with my instincts and ordered a sweet & sour instead of their steamed style.

The bill was about RM67 for two with a plate of fried mee sua (vermicelli). Their mee sua wasn't the thin, fragile type I'm used to here instead was thick, a little like thick beehoon. I think it's a local home-made speciality for I saw shops selling the uncooked form everywhere in Lumut and Pangkor.

Photo borrowed from Eat First Think Later

I found that the seafood wasn't as cheap as what everyone raved about but maybe I ate in the wrong place. Their prices of RM35/kg for the crabs were in fact more expensive than some seafood places in KL which charge only RM20/kg or RM28/kg. I found this rather surprising considering that they are a seaside town. Maybe it was the out-of-towner look as well that added a premium to the prices!

Satay Fish Galore!

What's a post on Pangkor without this icon?

A ride through the picturesque one-main-street Pangkor town will turn up dried seafood shops everywhere. Almost every shop there deals in dried seafood products, easily identifiable by the tubs of dried anchovies and oysters at their entrance to entice you in.

Go on in and have a wander. There's a lot more lurking on the shelves of the shops ranging from satay fish to my favourite keropok. Prices don't differ much from shop to shop due to the high competition. There are a few factories dotted around the island where you can buy these seafood products in the air-conditioned comfort of their shops but from what I found, the prices in some of these shops can actually work out cheaper than buying from their factories.

I came away clutching bags of keropok and had to stifle a laugh when we rode the evening ferry back to Lumut. Everyone leaving Pangkor had an ensemble of plastic bags stuffed with all varieties of dried seafood to eat or to be given away as souvenirs. Was it cheap? Well, personally, I didn't think it was that much cheaper than buying it in KL or on the mainland but when on holiday, do as the tourists do!