Scrumptious Seafood!

sp joined her friends for a Friday night barbeque and that left me to find something to do that night. So I rounded up my friends and we decided to try a new restaurant on the mainland.

How do you tell if a restaurant has good seafood?

1. It's really hard to get to.
2. It's nowhere near dinner time but there's already a large crowd.
3. The decor consists of gaudy lights complete with mismatched tables and chairs in an alley.

The restaurant we went to had the prerequisites for a good seafood restaurant. It's roughly 30 minutes away from Penang Island if the traffic is good. It took us about an hour to reach Ah Ean's restaurant in a small village somewhere in Batu Kawan. The road leading to the restaurant is narrow, barely enough to fit 2 cars side by side, and had potholes littered liberally along the stretch. An encouraging sign that the food will be good.

We arrived at 6.30pm. It's a little early for dinner but there was already a large crowd there to greet us. Tables after tables were laden with seafood and the diners hardly looked up from their meal as we gingerly walked across the wet uneven floor to find an empty table. Big crowd and it's still early. Another good sign.

We found an empty table at the end of the alley that is the restaurant. Gaudy lights. Check! Mismatched tables and chairs. Check! We're going to have an awesome seafood dinner!


There were 4 of us and we ordered 7 dishes - crab cooked in sweet and sour sauce, soft-shelled crabs, spicy steamed fish, "la-la", "ikan bakar", "hair-ko" and deep fried "sotong". My favourites were the crab cooked in sweet and spicy sauce and the deep fried "sotong". The crab was delicious. I could get at the meat so easily and the sauce was matched perfectly with the crab.

My least favourite was the "ikan bakar". It wasn't authentic "ikan bakar". I guess Chinese restaurants haven't mastered grilled fish like the Malays. The "ikan bakar" was hard, dry and the sauce didn't do it for me.


We cleaned up all the plates. 4 people. 7 dishes. Nothing left.

I've actually been to this restaurant before. Eight years ago. The place hardly changed. There's much more parking space and maybe extra tables. I couldn't remember how to get to An Ean's restaurant, but luckily we had a map.

I'm definitely going back again. This time with sp.