Dinner at Malaysia

One thing that I love about my family is that we're quite spontaneous. On Wednesday, spontaneity came in the form of my father's suggestion that we head to Malaysia for dinner. Since most of us were free, we took our passports, loaded ourselves into the car and went off to Malaysia for a cheap and good meal!

We didn't know where we were heading and I can't remember where exactly we dined at but I suspect it's near Johor but we trusted my dad to drive us to somewhere which serves yummy food. After about 40minutes of travelling on the roads, we reached the Chinese food enclave that my father wanted to introduce us to.

It's kind of like a roadside/ outdoor zichar place. Thankfully the seating area is quite large so patrons won't be squashed together.


My brother was completely enthralled by this huge screen that had Channel 8 programmes projected on it! =) He's at the stage where he loves watching Channel 8 drama serials so I think he liked eating at the place we were at because he could watch his shows while eating!


The row of stalls that formed a U-shape around the perimeter of the seating area.

Our table with menus/ advertisements on them. We didn't refer to those because my dad just went ahead & ordered whatever he wanted.


Perhaps the most outstanding drink of the night - lime juice. It had a strong lime cum plum taste yet it wasn't sour. It's a drink that I would recommend if you'd like something non-gassy and has some 'kick'.

The dishes didn't take long to arrive, which was a good thing because it was already past 830pm and we were hungry!

Hot Plate Tofu. This is a dish that my family usually orders whenever we have zichar. The hot plate tofu here tastes similar to the ones served at zichar outlets in Singapore.

Lemon Chicken. (Sorry for the blur photo, was in a rush to take the photo because people around me were starving!) My youngest sister, whom I'd like to think has high standards when it comes to food, said that the chicken was "quite nice.. can la" so I suppose it's really not bad! (:

Fried bean sprouts with salted fish bits. Personally, I think this was one of the better fried bean sprouts dish that I've ever tasted. I loved how the bean sprouts retained their crunchiness and I especially liked how the salted fish bits accentuated the taste of the fried bean sprouts. I thoroughly enjoyed this dish.

Yam Ring. My mum and I used to be the only ones who were enthusiastic about eating yam rings but recently, my third sister also joined the yam ring bandwagon! (: I didn't really like this particular yam ring because unlike the yam rings that I've had in Singapore, this wasn't crispy on the outside. I think I prefer the crispy on the outside, soft on the inside kinda of yam ring so this didn't go very well with me. However, I must add that they were very generous with the toppings of the yam ring!

Steamed fish with fried ginger shreds. The fish was a hit with everyone primarily because of the sauce. It's neither too salty nor sweet and it has a very 'light' taste. It reminded me of the cheechongfun sauce that comes with the charsiew cheechongfun that is served at Crystal Jade Kitchen. The fish was fresh and the meat was tender. I think the ginger shreds added a nice finishing touch as well.

Cereal Prawns. Prawn dishes are always quite problematic because most of my family members (myself included) are extremely lazy people. We don't mind eating prawns but we dislike the necessary de-shelling process of prawns partly because we are not good at it and partly because our hands will get dirty (okay fine, maybe we're just LAZY!). Usually, dad and/or mum will sacrifice their clean hands and de-shell our prawns for us and that particular Wednesday was no exception. Dad de-shelled every single prawn on that plate so that everyone could just eat the prawns with ease! Thank you, Papa! (: I think the 'cereal' made the prawns very aromatic. The 'cereal' wasn't as crispy as some of the other 'cereal's that I've had but they were really tasty nevertheless =)

Sambal Sotong. This is one of the two spicy dishes that my dad ordered. It was cooked Malaysian-style so it had a hint of curry taste to it. Surprisingly, it wasn't the spiciest sambal sotong dish that I've ever had but that's probably a good thing because I didn't have to drink a lot of sprite to fight the spiciness.

Sambal Stingray. The sambal, again, wasn't very spicy but it had a fullness to it that made every mouthful of sambal stingray very satsifying. The stingray meat wasn't as tender as I would like it to be but I guess the sambal sauce more than makes up for the extra toughness.

I don't have the breakdown of the cost of dinner but I think our entire meal only cost $50-$60! (: I think my dad should bring us to Malaysia more often for meals so that we can expose our tastebuds to a wider repertoire of food! :)

Alright, that's all I've for now. Have a great Sunday everyone! (: