Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: Crabs

Showing posts with label Crabs. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

YummY! - Giant Seafood Platter @ Grandma Restaurant Sasaran Selangor (奶奶海鲜餐厅)

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YummY!

Jotaro's Food Review

As I sit at home to write this blog about a meal we had almost nine months ago, the world is facing a dangerous pandemic, the Covid-19. To help slow down the spread of this pandemic & have it eradicated, I am STAYING HOME and not going out unless really necessary.
Stay Safe, my friends.

Giant Seafood Platter @ Grandma Restaurant Sasaran Selangor (奶奶海鲜餐厅)

Jeram, Selangor, Malaysia - June 2019
We were on a cycling group ride from Ijok to Pantai Remis in coastal Selangor. These regular group rides to different destinations are usually organized by two teachers ("cikgus" in Malay language). I try to help out in their organizing by arranging for FB notifications of the ride, and also arranging for meals. For this ride, I was at a bit of lost of where to have lunch when the kindly Cikgu Chin suggested Restoran Grandma in Jeram.
Since there was a big group of over fifty of us, I called up to make reservations and spoke to Ms. Chris and also requested for recommendations. This restaurant is located in the coastal belt of Selangor, and one can expect good seafood at reasonable prices. I was expecting her to recommend some good fishes and other usual seafood dishes, but she surprised me by recommending just one dish. Yup just ONE dish, she confirmed; and directed me to their FB page to see what it's like. I went helter-skelter to their page and liked what I saw, yes it's just one dish..... but it IS a HUGE, giant platter almost a metre across (see photo above)!

Grandma Restaurant is located at Kuala Sungai Buluh on the outskirts of Jeram and sits within a ramshackle but cozy timber building that stands on stilts overhanging the mouth of the Sungai Buloh river.

The surrounding area is a mangrove swamp, and some of the trees have grown quite tall with many egrets coming to roost and nest.

DISH 1: We kicked of with a seafood soup made from a combo of prawns, pomfrets, flower crabs and some clams. Only a little embellishments were added - some slices of ginger and a sprinkling of coriander - which was better as then the pure essence of the sea-food came come out.

The serving in an aluminium bowl was a bit misleading, it made the dish looked simple. But don't be misled, there were a lot of oohs and aahhs as we downed the soup, and then "attacked" the prawns and crabs!

Aaaaaaannnnnnd.... Here comes the GIANT PLATTER!

It's a huge platter holding seven dishes. Usually it's eight dishes as the seafood soup is usually served together and put on this giant tray too. They had served us the soup earlier as many of us were already hungry from our cycling. It's a heavy load, the waiter serving this must really have very strong arms.
Our cycling buddies, didn't realized the food will be served this way, and when the platters were brought out, their grins showed that they were pleasantly surprised.

Okay, let's run through those dishes.
But first a disclaimer - some of the photos are not that clear; the platter was huge and unlike a normal small tray, could not be spun around for better photography. And often I could not run over to the other side of the table as I didn't want to interrupt my counterparts sitting opposite me 😂.
DISH 2: The above was the stir-fried mixed vegetables fried with slices of cuttle-fish. Taste-wise it was good with some cuts of dried chili to give it a bit of spiciness.

DISH 3: Deep fried fishes - pomfrets and sole fish, both slightly salted to bring out the fish flavours. I liked the sole more as the meat was sweet and easy to get off from the bones.

DISH 4: Stir-fried Lala (Asian clams). Simply done with garlic and ginger.

DISH 5: Squid, deep-fried with batter and coated with a light lime-caramel sauce.

DISH 6: A mountain of Chilli Crabs; the crabs were a tad small but their flesh were firm and fresh; sauce of just right not to thick or too chill hot.

DISH 7: Stir-fried Har Lok Prawns; sauce was a bit lacking, not in taste but in quantity.

DISH 8: Assam Curry Pomfret. It's a huge Silver Pomfret, super fresh with the meat going well with the assam curry.

It was a wonderful unique meal, I won't say it's the best but it was definitely a unique style. Pricing came to RM400 inclusive of soup and Chinese tea; that's RM40 per head, quite reasonable seeing that it include a large, expensive Silver Pomfret and a total of eight seafood dishes.
👍 A BIG THUMBS UP MEAL!

While there, don't miss out their home-brewed Chinese Herbal Tea; thumbs up for that too!

UNTIL WE GET TO GO OUT AND EAT LIKE THIS AGAIN,
STAY SAFE MY FRIENDS.

GRANDMA RESTAURANT

631/B, Jalan Tokong, Bagan Sungai Buloh, 45800 Jeram, Selangor, Malaysia.
Tel: +6012-2323787 (Chris) / +6012-5311688 (Jack)
Hours:
Mondays to Fridays - 7:00am to 9:00pm
Saturdays & Sundays - 7:00am to 10:30pm
(except on Chinese festival days, do call first)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sasarangrandma

GPS & Direction Map: 3.2589, 101.30446

(Click here for Google Street View)

Related Blogs :

Kuala Selangor Restoran Makanan Laut Ah Poh (阿宝海鲜餐馆)

Seafood cooked the way your grandmother would have done it, simple and tasty - Kuala Selangor, Selangor, Malaysia.

Sekinchan Porridge @ Restoran Sin Ming Kee (新明记)

Looking for good Sekinchan breakfast, try this simple but good porridge - Sekinchan, Selangor, Malaysia.

Ijok To Pantai Remis - A Rustic Ride To The Beach June 2019

An interesting ride to a favorite beach, via rustic kampungs and rural plantations roads.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

YummY! - Sri Lankan Crabs @ Ministry of Crab

You are at - Jotaro's Blog / FootSteps / YummY! / Western-Fusion Food / Sri Lankan Crabs @ Ministry of Crab

YummY!

Jotaro's Food Review

Sri Lankan Crabs @ Ministry of Crab

Colombo, Sri Lanka - December 2017
We ended our holiday in Sri Lanka with a grand finale, a meal of sumptuous Sri Lankan crabs at one of the most renown place for eating crabs - The Ministry of Crab. Yes, it may sound an odd or pompous name yet it was appropriate as here they take their crabs seriously, ensuring that they are fresh and of a minimum size. Their cooking too takes advantage of Sri Lanka as a hot spot for spices, coming in various styles of preparation: spicy ones (note that I use the term spicy to mean cooked with many spices) without being overly spicy to masks the taste of the crab meat; or those chilli hot ones tempered so that they are not too chilli hot for the Western palates.
Let's take a walk in.

The Ministry is one of many up-market outlets within Colombo's Old Dutch Hospital, a stately heritage building which has been refurbished and revamped as an up-scale shopping and dining precinct. Click here to read more about the building's history AND Click here to see some of the shop outlets at the precinct.

We walked in just slight before our reservation time of six. Yup, this place is frequently packed, so best to make reservations. They do take walk-ins if space is available but one may be asked to rush and finish eating before the next reservation time. Our tables were laid out with saffron yellow napkins folded to look like a coat, a small touch which forebears of great things to come.

Hold on to your... CRABS! We started of with an "appetizer", Huge prawns cooked in butter with sprinklings of crushed black pepper.

With half-peeled bodies their head looked gigantic and the flesh a light golden yellow, tempting us to take a bite.

We ordered a couple of plates of wood-fired Kade bread, these went very well with the lightly spiced butter sauce. But we saved most of the bread for the crab dishes which will come later on.

We had a prawn each, and I slowly pealed away the head shell tor reveal what lies beyond. Yes, there are some slivers of meat there, softer and juicier than the body meat.

But it's the firm body meat that got to me, the cooking had form an outer buttery coat. Taking a bite in, this tasty outer coat went very well with the firm and very fresh meat. Yes, this is a good start, an appropriate starter, a warming up of our palate and appetites for more to come.

Aiks! What's this? Where are the crabs?
Patience, patience... just after the prawns came several other medium offerings of other dishes to balance off our meal. Above is the Pol Sambol, a traditional Sri Lankan dish served with fish from the Maldives. The coconut used is hand scraped before being ground in traditional "miris gala" grinding stone.

Some stir-fried mixed vegetables...

and Kankun (water spinach) stir-fried with garlic bits.

And the ever-favorite staple, garlic fried rice. Their version is lightly fried and presented in the shape of an packed octagon.

I am getting into the mood of the place, it's cozy old-feel atmosphere. Despite the hard walls with any curtains, the place was not overly noisy; I guess the tall ceiling helped.

The kitchen is an opened one, patrons can view all the preparation and cooking in the clean-cut and hygienic place.

AAAAAND.... HERE ARE THE CRABS!
Food here is served pretty fast, with the first dish coming out between ten to fifteen minutes after after ordering.
The crabs we had were Colossal crabs, each weighing between 1.2 to1.4 kg. Though large, these are not the biggest, which is their Crabzilla which weighs over two kilos.
The above is the Garlic Chilli crab, with huge claws. No worries, steel pincers were provided to break these up for easy eating although I did find the pincers a bit too small to handle the thickness of the claws. For me, I prefer the body meat which tends to be softer and tastier.

The Black Pepper Crab.

The meat inside the claws - full and firm and best of all they do not stick to the shell.

We also had Curry Crabs, cooked with crabs of a smaller size. This was when we asked for more Kade bread to soak and lap up the tasty curry.
YummY!

Look at the size of that CLAW!

And LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT SHELL!!

For drinks we had the house concoction of Ice Tea Soda, with the tea and soda giving a double zing of peppiness.

And chilled king coconut water; this was not bad but not as good as the Malaysian Pandan coconuts.
Overall, it was a very fantastic meal; a very pleasant way to end our stay in Sri Lanka.
Price-wise it came to 12,000LKR, it was a tad expensive than the usual seafood places but then this is Fine Dining of the finest crabs cooked in the a most sumptuous way and eaten in a classy, cozy environment.

Below are the Food and Drinks menu. Pricing was at the time we had our meal: