Wednesday, March 17, 2010

kelong dinner @ Bintan pt II


tom yam soup

We really should have known better than to order Tom Yam soup while in Indonesia, of all places.

While tom yams served in Singapore is decent, the one here is... bland.


baby kailan cooked with garlic

It's nice to have vegetables prepared simply so that they won't end up being over-cooked.

Another green vegetable dish that we ordered is the ubiquitous kangkong belacan which was pretty nice, too. Too bad I was too busy eating to snap a pic..


battered squids

I'm pretty disappointed with this dish. All the while I thought that these were fish fillet strips because I can't really taste the squid!

After I was told about it, I took another bite and realised that the squid was really thin, actually. Plus, there was more batter than there's squid meat. And the supposedly crispy exterior softened a little too soon.


hot plate tofu

I kinda enjoy this dish. They were generous with the eggs at the base, the tofu itself and you can see all those little chicken pieces all over the plate.

The problem with having a lot of those means there's little space left for the veggies (save for the strips of chili & scallions), which is pretty much non-existent here.


ayam goreng bawang

This is one unique dish. Seeing that he's ordered too many dishes already, my bro-in-law didn't order any chicken dish but he finally relented when one of the kids admitted that she's not fond of ANY seafood.

The server recommended this dish because the fried chicken is crispy and kids will like it.

True enough. These little chicken pieces were actually deep-fried with whole garlic, skin and all - till crispy. I can't help taking a bite on the crisp garlic skins. I really didn't know that chicken can go soo well with garlic. Nice!


deep-fried prawns

Please don't tell me that these are butter prawns or something cos' I don't think they taste more that just regular deep-fried prawns.

But these medium-sized prawns are nicely sweet and the meat - firm, given that they're freshly caught upon ordering.


black pepper crabs

It's the first time that I ate small-sized Sri Lankan crabs (from the holding area, I'm sure).

The black pepper flavour, though strong, doesn't possess much heat to set fire on our tastebuds so the kids kinda enjoy this.

Honestly speaking, given the size of the crabs and the amount of meat I got from those, I think I'm better off ordering the flower or blue crabs instead.


sweet & sour ikan kakap (grouper)

I'm really amused to see those peas scattered all over this dish.

While others were busy enjoying the other dishes, this dish arrived and was placed quite near me. So I took the chance to take for hubby and myself, the crispiest part of the fish, somewhere near the belly (to the bottom-left of the above pic).

I like the fact that the sauce is hardly starchy-gooey like what we're used to, here.
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Everything cost $200++ (yes, they accept SGD). Seeing that it's meant to feed 16 pax (6 of whom are kids, not counting in my baby).

It's not exactly my first meal on a kelong but this is definitely more authentic than the one at Senibong, JB. And we know that the seafoods is fresh and they only take them upon our ordering them (saw with my own eyes). I do enjoy this experience.

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