Stir-Fried Noodles was the first dish to arrive. Every seafood restaurant in Bukit Tambun has its own version of stir-fried noodles. The one at Prawn Village is stir-fried with bean sprouts, garlic chives, fresh and dried prawns, fish cake, egg and a sprinkling of fried shallots. The end result also had darker hue than other restaurants in the area.
The noodles retained a slight bite to them, as good fried noodles should. They are also not overly oily, which would be a sign of bad wok-work. I thought the taste was quite good but one of my lunch companions complained that it was a bit on the salty side.
Spiky Molluscs were served next. The only way to get at the flesh is with toothpicks, but I think some sort of bent implement, like a dental pick, might be just the thing to get at some of the molluscs playing hard to get (the cooking time is key; over-cooking shinks the flesh which recede too far into the shell). Once you get the flesh out, dip it in the garlicky chilli sauce provided and enjoy the crunchy texture while the taste of the sea, accompanied by the smell of garlic and chille, wafts onto your olfactory nerves.
Stir-Fried Cabbage Sprouts with salted fish were just quickly tossed in the wok to retain the crunch and the fresh taste of the vegetable.
Stir-Fried Rice Vermicelli had almost the same ingredient as the fried noodle, except that the garlic chives had been replaced with choy sum, or Chinese mustard leaves. The dish was served slightly moist, which suggests an impatient cook.
Razor Clams in Spicy Sauce was stir-fried in a sauce which consists of garlic, shallots, lemongrass, chilli, dried prawns and lots of curry leaves, resulting in a fragrant dish which one can smell long before it reaches the table. As soon as the dish arrives, you should stir the garnishing coriander into the dish to give it another fragrant component. The taste is wonderfully flavourful without overpowering the taste of the razor clams. Watch out for surprises if you are not partial to hot chilli. The green bits you see in the centre of the frame are actually chopped birds' eye chillies, so beware!
The next dish which arrived was called Three Flavours, comprising three kinds of deep-fried dishes: Reformed Tofu, Deep Fried Chinese Crullers with Fish Paste Filling and Deep-Fried Breaded Crab Sticks. These are served with three kinds of sauces: mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and a sticky sweet chilli sauce.
Now Reformed Tofu is not beancurd which has decided to turn over a new leaf. This is actually called Signboard Tofu (招牌豆腐) in Chinese, which would usually denote a chef's signature dish. However this term has been hijacked to describe minced tofu which has been mixed with primarily fish paste, but with an assortment of other ingredients like shitake mushroons, water chestnuts, dried prawns and carrots, all finely chopped. The mixture is then steamed to set the fish paste, which is then cut into cubes, lightly dusted with flour, and deep-fried.
The execution at Prawn Village was not bad, but there is no crunch at all to the deep-fried coating, so it might not have been freshly made.
Chinese crullers are Chinese fried bread, better known as you tiao (Mandarin) or yew char koay (Hokkien). The fish paste stuffing was bland and the crullers did not even have a hint of crunch in them. For me the crunchiness of the crullers is a prerequisite for this dish.
The breaded crab sticks is something you would imagine what an amateur chef might throw together before a dinner party to use up a newly discovered pack of crab sticks at the back of the freezer nearing their expiry date. Enough said.
As a side order we ordered Karabu Mango Salad, which did not taste like it should. There is no tanginess, which is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of a karabu dish. Fail!
Prawn Village is one of the very few seafood restaurants in the Bukit Tambun area which are open for business at lunchtime, but that is not a reason for the cooks to get sloppy. If I find better razor clams in spicy sauce elsewhere, so long, Prawn Village...
The meal came to RM60 for four people, which is quite reasonable.
Address:
672, bagan Bukit Tambun, 14100 Simpang Ampat, S.P.S.
Tel: 04-5880541, 04-5872206
Fax: 04-5887887
GPS Coordinates: 5.27079, 100.44336
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment