Sunday, March 20, 2011

Melaka Trip Part 3: Seafood at Ikan Bakar Rose & Ali, Crystal Bay, Alai, Melaka

It was close to dinner time and we were hankering for some seafood. A suggestion to go to the Portuguese settlement for seafood was quickly refuted. Apparently there was a seafood place that is miles better in taste and price, located a little further out of town. With a few locals in tow, getting to the restaurant was a breeze, but I certainly would not have found this place without a GPS!

The restaurant is located in a food court-styled Medan Ikan Bakar, with various stalls displaying their catch to customers and a large tent to house up to about 200 customers. We were brought directly to store no. 7, Ikan Bakar Rose & Ali.




Ordering here is pretty fool proof. Choose from a variety of fresh seafood from their catch of the day, choose the style of cooking from the board and wait for the fish to be cooked to order. The shop owner was friendly and surprised us when she talked to us in Mandarin. There are plenty of sides to order and also nasi lemak in a basket for those who need their carbs. We went ahead with otak-otak to start with, some nasi lemak and kangkung belacan as sides. Otak-otak is a kind of fish paste mixed with spices, wrapped in banana leaf and then grilled over a fire. The otak-otak was fragrant and rather addictive. We finished them in record time, I barely managed to get a picture of the otak-otak.




Addictive otak-otak


Kangkung belacan


Soon our seafood made its way to the table. We started off with the LaLa Goreng Halia, which I found to be rather disappointing. The addition of ingredients such as corn into the dish and also the fact that the majority of the clams were empty shells, proved to be a massive letdown.


Check out the picture; we haven't even started eating!



No matter, as the rest of our dishes were more hits than misses. Next up was the sotong goreng served with a sweet sauce ala Thai sweet chilli. The batter was light and crispy, and quite tempura-like. Thumbs up for this one.


We had two types of fish, ikan pari and siakap. The ikan pari was cooked goreng sambal style, deep-fried and topped with a sambal. The siakap was halved and cooked two ways; goreng kunyit and sweet sour. I found the piquant sweet & sour sauce to be a great complement to the fish. However, the almost undetectable kunyit didn't do much to distinguish the other portion of fish from a normal deep-fried fish.

Ikan pari (stingray)


Siakap goreng kunyit


Siakap sweet and sour



Business picked up considerably as we sat throughout the meal, the tent filling up as we reached the end of our meal. Clearly they are doing something right to bring in all these customers. Although not without fault, we felt that the seafood here represented top value for fresh seafood.


The tents started filling up as the night progressed


Service: Casual.

Price: I lost the bill along the way but it was very reasonable, about RM80 including drinks and sides.

Location: Ikan Bakar Rose & Ali, No. 7, Crystal Bay, Sungai Punggur Alai, 75460 Melaka.

Tel: 019-6576068 (Rashidi)

GPS Coordinates: 2.173012, 102.31149


*This is a guest post by The Unc.

15 comments:

  1. Yea, It's always crystal bay or Sg Ujong (or somethin ) fr seafood if you are in melaka for dinner time..

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  2. food is usually good and reasonably priced outside KL.. :)

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  3. thenomadGourmand: I believe its Sg Duyung you are referring to.. Never heard of those 2 places before this trip though, me being an outsider when it comes to food in Melaka :)

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  4. ken: that is not always the case, sometimes you just need to look a little harder :)

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  5. Hooray, more food from my hometown - seafood ala ikan bakar can be really good here. :)

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  6. Sg punggur alai! That sounds really far away from the main city area! I'm originally from malacca too, but have never eaten on this part of the state =)

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  7. Michelle: Unbelievable isn't it?

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  8. Life for Beginners: It is fresh and cheap as well!

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  9. Sean: But you've eaten almost everything from KL! :P

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  10. All fried seafood? Malay normally like to fry the food huh... ^^

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  11. choi yen: well, they do have grilled and steamed dishes... I would have liked to try the 'bakar' dishes as well, didn't make the order though!

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  12. Really nice especially pari goreng bercili....yummmy!!

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  13. ada contact number tempat ni tak.. nak book.. :P

    mira.army@gmail.com

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    1. The number is at the bottom of the blogpost: Tel: 019-6576068 (Rashidi)

      Enjoy!

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