A visit to our very own Gold Coast
By Eu Hooi Khaw
AUG 15 — I never say no whenever I’m asked to go to Tanjung Sepat. It’s a seaside town near Kuala Langat, less than two hours’ drive away. You should have seen the food
The very fresh steamed pomfret.
shopping we did the last time we were there: pau, dragon fruit, coffee powder, fresh mushrooms, fish balls, tapioca chips and emping, and tomyam sauce.
The first is on my priority list but somehow we always end up going there last. There’s the dragon fruit farm to get out of the way first, the visit to the seaside (if weather permits) and the tapioca chip factory and mushroom farm before we have lunch at Hong Seng Seafood Restaurant.
Because we are on a local tour, the food has been set, but you can see how worth it the meal is when all you pay is RM200 for 10 people and you get: Sweet and sour crabs, fish ball soup, steamed white pomfret, sweet and sour prawns, clams in Chinese wine, deepfried chicken with Thai kerabu, oyster omelette, stirfried vegetables, and of course white rice and Chinese tea.
Not very imaginative but I can name three things here that I won’t mind coming back for. One is the clams in wine with lots of ginger and cili padi that I can’t get enough of, another is the very fresh white pomfret, perfectly steamed, and the sweet and sour prawns which are fairly large.
Fried Chicken with Thai Kerabu
The ambience is unbeatable. The Hong Seng restaurant, which is clean, big, open and airy, has a sea view. I spoke to Teh, one of the owners, and asked what other dishes on the menu would be worth ordering and he told me about his Hoi Seen Poh (braised seafood in a pot), big prawns in claypot and braised pig tendons with yue piu (fish bladder) and sea cucumber. And guess what, the restaurant has a blog: www.hsbseafood.blogspot .com.
Tanjung Sepat folks have certainly become more savvy with KL people, as well as those from other places (even school groups), constantly invading it. Case in point is the Hai Yew Heng pau shop. On a visit last year, we crowded the kitchen where the pau was made, where we grabbed sang yuk (pork), char siu, mooi choy (preserved vegetables), vegetarian, peanut, red bean and kaya pau. The most popular of these were the mooi choy and vegetarian ones.
This year, we found that the pau shop now has a spanking new kitchen across the road, where being exceptionally late (past 3pm) we managed to grab a few (grab is a very apt word here!). How not to, when you have orders from people back in KL hankering for the pau. Then we discovered this cute young boy selling pau from the steamer from the same shop across the road. Back we went, intending to stay for a cup of coffee and a pau or two. Again there was another pau rush! Poor boy, but his mathematics (and memory) was first class.
We had kopi-o here and some very nice kaya pau. The coffee is so aromatic and good that you are tempted to nip to the shop at the back to buy the freshly ground coffee powder home. No luck, as the bus was waiting.
Bags of pau and satisfied customers at Hai Yew Heng
Back to the pau: my personal favourites are the sang yuk pau with hard-boiled egg inside, which reminds me of Ipoh’s famous big pau. The meat is lean and bursting with ginger flavour. The vegetarian pau is mainly filled with shredded yam bean, again hot with ginger, which I like, while I’m not so fond of the mui choy one, being a little too salty.
A Tanjung Sepat tour is not complete without a trip to the tapioca chip factory and mushroom farm. From the first I recalled buying a delicious tomyam sauce so I came out of it loaded with packets and bottles of this, and some emping and tapioca chips. I use the sauce for a dip for these chips. Everything here seems to sell at RM10 for 4 packets. And you get a tasting before you decide to buy. At the mushroom farm I was most interested in the fresh muk yee (wood fungus) which you seldom find in KL.
It’s quite painless driving to Tanjung Sepat, and we may just make another trip there on our own. Believe it or not, it is tagged as our very own Gold Coast, and you can actually see a sign while driving along the road to the LCCT. The Hong Seng Seafood Restaurant is at 71, Jalan Tepi Laut, 42800 Tanjung Sepat, Tel: 019-378 1788, 03-3197 2487.
The Hai Yew Heng pau shop is at 405, Jalan Pasar, Tanjung Sepat, Tel: 03-3197 414, 012-272 9009. It’s open from 1pm to 6pm daily, and from 10am on public holidays.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Please stay away from the chips factory. The chips are coated with plastics to maintain its crispiness. This “rumour” have been in circulation for many years in the internet regarding use of plastic and straws added into boiling oil in goreng pisang stalls.
Let me tell you my experience. We visited one of these factories in Sg Lang, just after Banting. Went round observing including the frying area. Later as I was standing about 20ft from the frying area, I observed the guy scooping something grey in colour from a bucket on the floor into the oil. Later he went away and brought in the “raw”chips to be fried. I couldn’t figure out what were those grey chips he scooped into the oil. Only upon reaching home did I realise that those grey chips could be plastic chips. No wonder the cooked chips look so shiny. If I had realised then, I would have gone over to check out what’s in the bucket. I cannot think of reason to add any other “spices” to fry chips? Next time you go there be quietly observant and confirm this with a few factories. Let us know to expose this health hazard practice. I have stopped buying chips but I don’t fancy them anyway.
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