YummY! - Seafood @ Kia Hiong Yuen

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SEA FOOD @ RESTORAN KIA HIONG YUEN

Pulau Ketam, Selangor, Malaysia

On a recent bike-packing tour to celebrate  World Car-free Day , we rode our bicycles to  Klang  took the KTM Commuter Train  to  Port Klang and then boarded a ferry to  Pulau Ketam (see World Car-free Day Ride #2).

After a quick cycle ride around the island we had lunch at Restoran Kia Hiong Huen. Did I say lunch? No it was not lunch - it was a mini feast of the following dishes!


Fried Lala Clams Omelet

For starters we had starchy-fried lala clams omelet with bean sprouts and garnished with spring onions. It was a simple dish, not overly tasty to kick off the meal. 

Frying was done by two ladies at the front of the restaurant, right next to where we were sitting. See the big basin of white colored watery starch, this is added in at the tail end of the frying.

Seen above is the lala omelet before the starch is added. The frying though would probably need more oil so at to make the starchy part more crispy like in Penang Oh Chien. If done this way, the oil will be drained off before serving.


Fish Ball Soup

The Fish ball soup with choy sum - the fish ball had enough fish in them to be have that fishy smell and taste, and more importantly just the right amount of bounce in them for a good bite. The soup was just lightly flavored so as not to overshadow the taste of the fish ball. Many restaurants make that mistake, soup flavored to strong and the taste of the fish ball is lost.


Sweet & Sour Stir Fried Mantis Prawns

The Mantis Prawns are first dipped into a flour batter and deep fried. Only then are they stir fired with tomato sauce together with slices of large onions. The sauce only seeped into the flour coating leaving the taste of the prawns unhindered, a good combination - tasty and crispy on the outside and juicy and fresh on the inside.
Mantis prawns were once a poor man's dish but with the escalating cost of prawns, it has become a delicacy. The rice came with this and we started digging in.


Deep Fried Cuttle Fish

Similarly cuttlefish is dipped into a flour batter before deep frying. Just a hint of salt was added to the batter to bring out the taste of the cuttlefish.
I used to enjoy this dish, but now my poor old teeth find their rubberiness a challenge. Haha! Good to go with beer though.


Stir Fried Lala Clams

Stir-fried lala clams; this one is one of my favorites as I like the soupy sauce to go with rice. The ones here were super fresh, one can literally smell and taste the sea in them.
In frying this care must be take so as not to over-cook the clams, over-cooked the clam meat will shrink to a small rubbery morsel. Once the shell of the clams start opening during frying, that means the clams are just nicely done, and the meat will be soft and juicy.


Har Lok (Stir Fried Prawns in Soy Sauce)

"Har Lok" done here is the dry type, which is in a way good as the sauce becomes thicker and tastier. But this makes the prawn meat shrink more and become tougher. Still nice though.


Stir Fried Yeow Mak

The stir fried Yeow Mak (Romaine Lettuce) was surprisingly good, seeing that this island is small and one cannot see any soily area in the mangrove area for planting.
Although they have to import their vegetables in from the mainland, this was crunchy fresh. The stir frying must have been done pretty fast with just the right amount of oil to coat each leaf. No drippy, watery gravy to dilute the flavor, so this dish turned out very well.


Steamed Yellow-fin Pomfret

Like the other seafood, the steamed Yellow-fin Pomfret was also super fresh and nicely steamed in light soy sauce with spring onions and deep-fried shallots for garnishing. The chef here is pretty good with his cooking - with just the right amount of sauce, just the right amount of oil so that the gravy was lightly flavored just enough to complement the fresh meat.


Steamed Crabs

The steamed crabs were garnished with slices of red chilli, ginger and spring onion. The meat was perfectly compact and firm, and it comes with the aroma and fresh flavor of the sea. Too bad it was the wrong time of the month, and the crabs were without roe, otherwise it would have been 110% perfect.


Salted Deep Fried Prawns

Salted Deep Fried Prawn. This was one dish that I found unsatisfactory. The white-shell prawns used were fresh, but they were not crispy crunchy. Probably they did used to little oil ,or the oil was not hot enough. It also lacks the good burnt smell that one associate with well done prawns in their shell.


Stir Fried Bamboo Shell Fish

This was the  pièce de résistance  to finish of the meal -  fresh, tasty and succulent. The picture tells it all, I don't have to say more

All in all, it was a wonderful meal we had for 11 pax. And we had 12 big bottles of beer to go with it. Cycling does work up a hearty appetite *grins*.

And the pricing was very, very reasonable, at RM470-00 including the beers. Take away the beer and it will come to about RM350-00 averaging about RM30-00 per dish. That's more than reasonable it's cheap! Ssshhhh.... please don't tell them.

Restoran Kia Hiong Yuen Location Map (Google Map Link)

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