Evening… Pulau Aur, Day 3

Mr Chin decided to give us something special for our last night on the island. We were gonna have western food. So the preparations need to be started early. As early as 4 in the noon. It really hiked up our expectations. Everyone was keen in helping out for the preparations.

… portobello mushrooms. I wonder what would we have…

… we even have garlic, cut into slices.

… oh, they were to be stuffed into the lamb ribs. As instructed by Mr Chin, excess fats were to be removed as they are very unhealthy.

… everything was laid out while waiting for the garlic to seeps into the lamb.

… meat tenderizer was used of course, otherwise we would have to bring along minyak angin for our sore jaws.

… I do not recall catching these mackerels. I wonder if they brought it from the mainland. Anyway, they were to be stuffed with the chili beside it. The minyak angin was used to anaesthetize those fishes, because they were alive before this, in order to maintain the maximum freshness of our food.

… unfortunately, the minyak angin technique was not feasible for the lamb, otherwise we would be grilling the lamb in the whole, rather than in pieces of ribs.

… these french bread looked thin, but most of them were discarded because they were infested with ants.

… my share of the lamb rib. I was so hungry before I get my piece of precious lamb. The portobello mushrooms was made into mushroom gravy for the lamb. It was amazing how the place was well equipped with all the necessary eating utensils, even for up to 20 pax and more. (how would you think we made our ice kacang earlier?)

Rating: 8/10

It was really a memorable last night on the island. The food got better and better and better. We were assured that, even if we didn’t have fun on the water sports, we’d definitely had fun eating the food. It was so damn right!

Noon… Pulau Aur, Day 3

The lunch started a bit late today, but not as last as the day before, because the divers came back earlier with their catch. We had fresh fish again this time around, yahoo!

… a huge pot of fish head mee hoon, this time, it’s soup style. We had the dry style yesterday.

… a must for eating fish head mee hoon, chopped up chilies with soy sauce.

… good enough for 20 pax, I hope. I was growling already though I don’t fancy fish head mee hoon. My brother would’ve loved it a lot.

… this was what left from the aftermath by the hungry people.

Rating: 8/10

And again, we were pampered with the fresh fishes caught by them. The meat was heavenly sweet!

Morning… Pulau Aur, Day 3

Started the day off with a healthy breakfast. I didn’t expect I’d get 3 meals a day to fill my stomach. Even when I was back at my old place, I’d usually skip the breakfast, because I’d most likely woke up late, or too lazy to get something to eat. But here, everything was prepared for you. Just line up for your food, like convicts. Hehe…

… we were having porridge for the morning. It has century eggs, but did you notice that spoon of sesame oil? Oh boy! Oh boy!

… big pot of porridge. (told ya, line up like a convict)

… to start my day off in a better way, I decorated my plate of porridge. Not sure what it resemblance. Donnie Darko?

That little dab of brownish spot that made my plate of porridge looked like Gorbachev, was the mother of all condiments, sesame oil.

Rating: 4/10

I’m not fond of porridge, let alone porridge with century eggs. Luckily I have sesame oil to numb myself, which made the breakfast wasn’t that bad.

Evening… Pulau Aur, Day 2

Lunch was rather late, so the dinner was very light, we had satay (沙爹). In fact, I was still full from the lot of the fish head mee hoon that I had, because it was just so damn good.

… the standard companions for satay, raw onions and cucumber cutlets, and gravy.

… arranged nicely on the grill, ready to be grilled.

… the charcoal were burning red and the coconut fibers were crying for help. I was crying that time cause smoke gets in my eye.

… apparently, it wasn’t just me who was crying. It seems everyone else were crying as well. So someone volunteered to take care of the smoke. Yeah, all thanks for the night sea breeze, the wind was blowing at the wrong direction.

Rating: 3/10

The satay was so-so only and I didn’t eat much. Luckily I had a lot during lunch, so I wasn’t hungry in the evening.

Noon… Pulau Aur, Day 2

Our lunch was running late today because the gang of divers came back rather late. Fortunately, they brought back their fruits of catch for the day, hence we get to eat fresh fish!

… first off, we were enjoying ourselves by picking the ingredients for our very own DIY bowl of ice kacang.

… tasty? Yummy!

… we had fish head vermicelli (魚頭米). Wasn’t exactly fish’s head, but a whole fish and many fishes were in there. I wasn’t fond of fish head vermicelli (魚頭米), but this time, I had to admit, I loved it a lot. The fishes were really so fresh that I could taste the sweetness in their meat. Never have I tasted such fresh fish before in my life. Freshly cooked after it was caught. They weren’t cooked, just boiled. Which was a perfect technique to really taste the freshness of the meat.

Rating: 9/10

The freshest of the freshest fishes, the right amount of flavouring and sauces with chopped up scallions. The vermicelli was rightly cooked and abundance of fried garlic pieces. Result was heavenly!

Morning… Pulau Aur, Day 2

After a crazy night, I woke up to a simple and plain breakfast. But before I started eating, I checked the aftermath of the stove. After it was being torrented with tens of tens of fishes and prawns, even bananas!

… here was a leftover of a prawn head. I wondered who did not have his or her prawn head last night. If you stand near enough, you can actually sniff the fragrance of Mr Chin’s recipe stuck to the grill and the piece of prawn head, especially when the wind is blowing at your direction.

Ahhh… the smell of the sea breeze and the secret recipe. *drool*

… my breakfast was a plate of healthy salad, topped with some chopped up button mushroom (campbells?) and some french fries.

Rating: 5/10

It was too plain to be exciting. But the only exciting breakfast would be to have a really spicy and delicious nasi lemak. But I don’t think you could ever find nasi lemak on this deserted island, nor is there any delivery service.

Evening… Pulau Aur, Day 1

This was the first dinner we had on the island. My initial expectation was that we would stay in the local resort, catered for tourists. Boy, I was wrong. We, a total of 17 members, were staying at a friend of Mr Chin’s place. I believe it was his private property. So, we don’t get 5-star facilities, services or even food. Anyhow, the fun part begins when we started to indulge ourselves in our catch of the day…

… our wrapped mackerel (鯖魚) were already on the grill.

… a little coleslaw to go with the stuff that we were gonna eat. Stuff that would put most seafood culinary chain restaurants into shame.

… giant prawns, though they were not our catch. Ready to be grilled, but before that, they’ll be drowned in yummylicious Mr Chin’s secret recipe sauce. (note the 3 cups of secret recipe)

Don’t bother with the deck of cards. They were for scraping off those leftovers sticking to our fingers after eating our food.

… my starter. The queue was long, so I had to give ways to the seniors and main contributors to the catch.

… my friend’s bony mackerel, still hooked.

… the giant prawns, grand prize of the evening. Everyone were already drooling. No wonder the sea water got so high that evening. And I thought it was high tide.

… I wasn’t sure if the banana was there for flavouring or somebody just liked roasted banana. This was like the first time I ever seen anyone roast a banana.

Rating: 8/10

The mackerels were a little bland, probably because they weren’t marinated. I remembered I did helped wrapping up the mackerels in banana leaves, but all we did was apply oil to the fish and wrap the banana leave around it, then poke it with a stick. As for the giant prawns, the special sauce really hit the spot. I could eat 10 or even 20 of it. The sauce seeped deep into the prawns and the taste was accentuated after the grilling.

It was a fun night, I was sweating profusely, our clothes were stank with the smoke from the stove.

Seremban Seafood Village (芙蓉燒蟹海鮮村), Seremban

On my journey towards Pulau Aur, we stopped by Seremban for their infamous grilled crabs (燒蟹). This was another famous food that I had heard of but yet to have the chance to try. Finally, on this very special night, I managed to lay my fingers on them…

… not sure what vege was this, the soup was a little spicy. It was ok for me, until I discovered that there were slices of century eggs in it. It just doesn’t strike me as delicious for putting century eggs into other food. Hence, I was cringing whenever I had a bite on this dish.

Century egg is only good to go with pickled ginger. That’s it.

… jiu pai tau fu. A piece of large bean curd, laid with strips of fried egg (蛋絲). According to the boss, it’s the bean curd of their brand name.

Imagine you can spit on their name plate if the dish was bad. Fortunately, we aren’t savage and the chef saved their restaurant’s name plate from getting wet all over.

… I could have this all night long, it’s my favourite food, squids. It’s fried squid with egg strips (蛋絲) on top.

… the main protagonist of the night. The infamous grilled crabs (燒蟹). Finally! It was sweet and salty at the same time. I think it was covered with marmite. The fragrance of grilled crabs was mouth watering.

Rating: 7.5/10

Overall, the dishes were good, except for the fact that, I can’t accept century eggs, especially those with yellow yolks (WTF?) to be cooked with other food and be served as a kind of dish. It’s just not right for me. I can’t get over it. It even sends goosebumps all over my body. The crab was a wee bit too salty though. Would’ve been great if it was not that salty. Would give it another try if I had the chance again.

Sushi King, Subang Parade

Today, I was challenged by my vendor that, if I could eat a certain number of sushis, he would fork the bill. It was also the day that I started to notice the brilliance behind the Sushi Bonanza promotion offered by Sushi King.

… unagi sushis that usually served on the RM6/purple plate, now cost only RM2 for every pair of it.

Rating: 11/10

Never in my life have I ate that many pieces of sushi at 1 time, not even on 1 day itself. The bet was totally worth it and the unagis were great! My colleague even stuff the unagis into his soft shell crab temaki. I think I’ve had more than 30 pieces of unagi sushis and yes, I won the bet. Considered himself lucky, because each plate cost only RM2 and the bill was quite cheap, even though there were 6 of us.

At first, we weren’t able to fit ourselves at the seats by the kaiten belt. I was a little worried as I might not be able to pick my favourite sushi from the belt, being a little kiasu, I admit. Fortunately, during the bonanza promotions, purple plated sushis were served separately rather than placed on the kaiten belt. The store manager would personally take a big pan which was filled with only purple plated sushi (tempura prawn, unagi, etc…) and walk around serving everyone. We were lucky enough because we were near to the kitchen, and when she reached our table, more than 70% of the unagis would be placed on our table without question asked. I never knew being a censorship officer would be that fun!

Anyway, thank you Kenny for the lunch! I’m looking forward to the next round of bet!

Lat: 3° 4′56.31″N
Long: 101°35′9.08″E

PS: I went for the Sushi Bonanza again for another 2 more times. The promo lasted from Monday till Thursday, and I went 3 times for lunches! Had constipation for a week!