Food Review-Bali Hai Seafood Restaurant-Gurney Drive-Penang

Penang is my favourite holiday destination in Malaysia due to its vibrant city with beautiful seaview and most importantly all those delicious local food that can be found in abundance all over the island. Surely all most visitors will flock Gurney Drive for their epicurean trail as there are many selections here from the streetfood at the hawker centre to many restaurants lining along the drive which offers amazing dining experience overlooking the open sea.

During the recent trip to Penang i managed to try one of the prominent restaurant in Gurney Drive serving fresh seafoods, Bali Hai. As our stay coincided with extended public holiday on Monday, the restaurant was packed to the brim to the extent that we had to park few metres away from the restaurant as the restaurant parking was full.

From my observation this restaurant may be targeting  families or large groups rather than couples as i couldn't find any table for two and thus we had to seat at a small round table which could accommodate 5 people.

Menus:

They have vast selections of  seafood here and it can't be more fresher as they are all live seafood which will be taken out from the big aquarium once ordered

We ordered:

Kailan in Oyster Sauce

Butter Prawn

Sweet n Sour Seabass

Crab in Special Sauce

Honestly i think the foods here are quite ordinary/nothing outstanding in terms of taste but the freshness of the ingredients made up for the normalcy. The most preferred dish that night was the seabass, then the prawn, the kailan and last was the crab. We were disappointed that the crab, being the most expensive dish that night had a very tough and heavy shell though small in size. Thus we reckon that we were actually paying for the weight of the shells rather than the crab meat!

Our bill came out to RM 278 and for that price paid i had high expectation but it turned out that i can find the same taste in other seafood restaurants in KL. Highly unlikely that i will return to this restaurant but i believe this place will be a nice place to have family dinner or treating your friends or large group for seafood feast.

the crowded atmosphere

Lime infused water to wash your hands off any fishy odour

Kay2014

Eastern Crab Restaurant-Plaza Ampang City

Finding  nice and good eateries in Kuala Lumpur is really easy-just that you must know where they are or maybe you simply chance to find it unintentionally. As to the aforesaid, i "chanced" to find this wonderful restaurant, serving fresh and delicious seafoods, quitely tucked in dilapidated and run-down Plaza Ampang City-a shopping centre built in the early 90's and has never recovered since then. Many people may easily locate the famous eatery Suzy's corner located at the roadside leading to Plaza Ampang City and Flaminggo Hotel, anyway you can never miss this building as it is one of the tall building grazing the sky of Ampang and its recognizable hemispheric shape.

Recently there's a karaoke centre opened in Plaza Ampang City and after a satisfying karaoke session, we were feeling hungry and happened to pass by this restaurant, and so we gave it a try, looking at the affordable prices stated in the menu placed outside of the entrance.

 Let's see the menu...

as you can see from the menu, there are varieties of dishes offered here and not only they served seafoods, for those who prefer to eat western foods, you will not be disappointed as they also served many usual selections of western foods such as chicken chop and lamb shank (for which im tempted to try next time!) all at affordable prices.

But dont stop at the foods only and see also the choices of drinks and desserts that they have to offer, aren't those splendid selections and surely one will find it hard not to try everything on the menu list...i just love an eatery which has an endless items in their menu :)

Now as our intention was to try the dishes that this restaurant purported to be specialized in, we ordered 2 seafood dishes, one being a deliciously finger licking Srilankan Chilly Crab and the other is Sweet & Sour Siakap.

That was the first time i ate Srilankan crab and i can tell you that it tasted heavenly! The chunky crab meat was so juicy and sweet and the soury and sweet gravy complemented the dish splendidly. We were provided with crab crackers as this type of crab has hard and thick shell and to eat this crab, there's no other way but to use your hands.

They offered few chinese buns to be eaten together and especially to be dipped in and soak up the gravy but as we were quite full from our lunch we opted for a bowl of rice instead. Even with a single crab, it was hard for the two of us to finish of this dish especially the thick gravy. This dish is best shared with 3 people.

Next came the Sweet & Sour Siakap. Usually, if there's garoupa on the list, i will always choose garoupa over siakap anytime, however garoupa is not served here. Regardless, this dish is another dish which is not only filling due to the size of fish that they use here but also for the method of cooking that they adopted. The fish meat was first fillet, cut into pieces, breaded and deep fried separately from the carcass. Luckily this dish is not "gravy-heavy" and complement the Chilly crab nicely.

To wash it all down, as a coffee aficionado, i ordered the Iced Coffee. Not to be mistaken with the normal "nescafe" based coffee usually served elsewhere, here they serves Hong Kong styled iced coffee which is rich in flavour and mildly sweetened with cane/palm sugar. 

 

This restaurant has been here for three years and i believe it may be packed during office hours as when we where there it was dead empty.

Overall i was satisfied with the foods and the attentive service of this restaurant and as stated earlier i love that they have extensive list of menu. I reckon that i'll surely return to try their western affairs. Cheers-Kay2013