Petaling Jaya (Malaysia) - Pangkor Seafood Village

Second night in Kuala Lumpur and my dad insisted on eating fish head curry. Somewhere. He loves the gooey eyes and he loves curry. Not everyone's thing but definitely my dad's thing.

So off into Petaling Jaya with the relatives we went, to a typical suburban Chinese restaurant, which was strange since fish head curry is more of a Muslim Indian type of dish....

And in a typical suburban restaurant, your cutlery is served to you on your lazy Susan (why is it named Susan anyway...?) in a bowl of hot water, to make sure they're clean of course!

One thing these places usually aren't, is subtle. It's got tiles for easy cleaning, bright lights so you can see everything even as it darkens outside, bright orange plastic cutlery and plates (it's always orange!), brusque and occasionally rude service (but efficient), making it all quite spartan really. However, these places always fill up because everyone is there for the same thing. Good and quick food.

I love the variety of drinks you get in Malaysia, I think this was a really yummy lime juice a couple of my aunts and uncles had.

Whilst my dad was definitely ready to pounce on some curry, we had to of course warm ourselves up with some other dishes first! I do enjoy the simplicity of Chinese dishes sometimes, they're usually quick to be served (in Malaysia anyway), always nice and hot, satisfying and quite comforting as well. Which is what I can say about this beef dish, I love onions in general in my dishes, it just brings out the natural flavour in everything and the meat was lovingly tender.

I loved this dish, seafood tofu with a nice little sweet chilli sauce, a bit peppery and very lightly crisp on the outside from the frying. However, still nice and tender inside, a bit denser than usual tofu too, somewhere between a piece of tofu and a fishball. I could've scoffed these down like popcorn, but there's unfortunately, always got to be room for more!

Lala's in belachan, mmmm! I love the dried shrimp and the spice, small, but still very juicy. I do sometimes wish they would just load up the shells with more onions and what not...

I do apologise for the not so attractive photo! This was honey soy chicken and no matter what angle I took it at, it was just a black blob. Pretty much. I'm usually not so fond of this type of marinade on my chicken, I tend to class it in the 'lemon chicken' or 'sweet and sour pork' category of Chinese food, Chinese food designed for Western palates, but this wasn't bad. It was slightly sweet and the flesh tender. I suppose the difference is being at an actual restaurant rather than a food court...

Veggies for good measure, got to balance out all the protein!

And of course, the feature of the night, my dad's fish head curry, served with eggplant, tofu and lady fingers mixed in and a little burner to keep it nice and warm. Whilst I didn't have a lot of the fish as my uncles and aunts really got into it very quickly, my dad wasn't as impressed. Whilst the curry flavour itself was delicious, the fish wasn't really properly cooked through with the curry and hadn't absorbed everything. My Dad described it being like a fish being boiled and them tossed into the curry. Looks like if you do want good fish head curry, you gotta go to who does it best! (Although we still polished off two servings of it...)

I did gobble up all the eggplant before anyone else which had absorbed all the lovely flavours. It was surprisingly spicier than I expected, even one of my aunt's who had just been in Penang on an eating spree was finding it a bit difficult to deal with!

It's always better coming back to Malaysia and going out for meals with the whole entourage of relatives. I love a full lazy Susan that is quickly filled up!

I just couldn't resist these as they came around the tables. 6 ringett (2 AUD) for a huge bag of prawn crackers! Really?! Many omnomnoms ensued!

It's so difficult to not overeat when I first get back to Malaysia, the food is just so good, especially the flavour of the curries! And I had another 10 days of eating in front of me? The gym was set to become my new best friend...do you guys find yourself constantly eating while travelling too?!

Pangkor Seafood Village

59, Jalan SS24/8, Taman Megah, Petaling Jaya

Selangor, 47301