229 Jalan Dua A Kg Baru Subang
Tel: 03-7846-5813/1401
I'm sure many of you have passed by this place. It's just after Terminal 3 of the old Subang Airport - you can't miss it. It's been around for quite some time.
As you walk up the wooden steps into the restaurant, you'll be struck by the tanks and tanks of live seafood all lined up on one side...
Look at those triangles of dried sharksfin all hung up high on the wall! These are expensive stuff (that's why they are hung up HIGH!)
Let's take a closer look at those tanks... Sea Garoupa - those spotted/banded mean-looking fish...
Mantis Prawns - LL's favourite! They looked kinda weird and "geli" swimming around the tank, with their fat little legs paddling...
And these are the grossest-looking things around - Geoduck! They're supposed to be delicious though...
The elegant-looking pristine Snow Crabs - too big for my taste (and expensive!)...
These are more to my taste (and budget) ... the local crabs...
Lobsters, anyone??
Fresh abalones sharing a tank with the snow crab...
And these are the lala's, clams, cockles... all fresh and alive...
On the weeknight that we went for dinner, the place was pretty crowded...
The "4 Heavenly Kings" (ladies' fingers, petai, four angled beans & longbeans) we ordered was decent (although I dunno why they call these simple beans "kings"??). The beans were crunchy and lightly saute'ed in sambal...
The Crispy Sotong fried in batter was well-presented. Taste-wise, the squids were fresh and succulent and the batter light & crunchy - a good appetizer, I would say.
LL's favourite - Mantis Prawns, done in their signature style: deep-fried and tossed with bits of garlic, chilli padi and spring onions. These babies cost RM12 each - certainly not cheap, considering the meagre amount of succulent flesh hidden under the carapace. Oh yess! They were utterly delicious and 1 piece is certainly not enough but when you think of paying RM12 for that mouthful of sweet shrimpy flesh...well.... you think again!
We had their Tilapia - steamed Assam-style and this was a great hit! There were tomatoes, brinjals, ladies' fingers sharing the plate and the piquant sourish assam gravy made the boys asked for 2nd helpings of rice. Needless to say, the fish was super-fresh (as it was swimming in a tank prior to becoming our dinner).
Ahh... I had to have their XL-sized fresh cockles. They served this lightly cooked on a hotplate and then you eat them with their sambal dips... oohhh - absolute cholesterol-laden heaven!
Another one of LL's favourites - Japanese Escargots - baked with cheese. Not my favourite - ("just as well", so said LL!).
Their portion of Fried Rice was very generous - we had to tapau half of it back! Taste-wise, just like most fried rice you find in chinese restaurants lah - nothing out of the ordinary.
The service level of this place is superb. Staffed mainly with foreign workers, they were attentive without being intrusive. They were amazingly efficient in changing your plates and replenishing your chinese tea. But what impressed me was... one of them must have overheard me lamenting that I was too lazy to walk to the washroom to clean and my hands ... because in the next instant, this appeared on the table in front of me!
And then when you have paid your bill, they bring this to your table... to remind you...
We soooo liked this place that we went back there for lunch on another day. Besides ordering the must-have Mantis Prawns and Japanese Escargots (guess on whose insistence lahh!!)... we ordered the Tilapia again but this time cooked in Green Curry...
I was a bit disappointed as there was no brinjals (or any other veg, besides the bunch of decorative spring onions) accompanying the fish. The curry was a bit bland too. LL remarked we should just have stuck to the assam-style!
The Sweet Potato Leaves saute'ed with dried prawns were refreshing.
Ahh... this time we had their crabs - the local ones. Costing Rm36 per crab (not cheap!!), we had 2 of them cooked in the now-popular-everywhere Salted Egg Yolks style. A double whammie for cholesterol certainly... the crabs came thickly coated with the killer salted egg yolks. I assure you every piece of shell was wiped clean when we were done with this!
Ehh... don't play play - they have a popular HK actress as their Ambassador, you know! You can see lots of media write-ups pinned on their walls. If you can't make out who the ambassador is, maybe this pic will help...
Yeah, it's Michelle Mei Suet...
Oh... another thing... if you park at their carpark across the road , it's almost impossible to cross the road to the restaurant because the traffic there is really unbelievably BUSY. But they have their own "traffic attendant" who will stop the traffic for their customers to cross the road or drive out from the carpark - yess, that's excellent service for you!
Despite their rather steep prices, I would go back again for the fresh seafood and excellent service.My rating: 8/10
