Overkill

They say KLites are insane food connoisseurs, willing to drive hours on end in search of the best something something. And drive hours on end we did.

3 hours all the way to Sitiawan. 

Endless vegetation along the highway.

Designated driver was Sean as he had a glorious Alphard with super comfy seats.

Tecky on the floor.

Problem was that we had 8 people. So everyone took turns sitting on the floor on a beanbag.

Now back to Sitiawan. Heard from a few sources that one could find extremely tasty Foo Chow cuisine and cheap seafood at Sitiawan with the main attraction being the Oh Jiens.

Matt and Jon had relatives from Sitiawan (Mum and Aunt respectively) and they said the food in Sitiawan are to die for, especially the Oh jien.

Confirmed by Christophertine. Reliable source as he'd just been there a few weeks back with some of his friends who were actual locals. Said they sapu-ed mountains of soft shelled crabs and har gou and the oh jien was to die for.
 

First stop: Bei King restaurant, apparently one of the best Foo Chow restaurants in Sitiawan

Bei King. Said, by Matt, to house the super crispy super divine oh jien.

Oh jien #1: Not so crispy

But our faces fell when it turned out like this. -_-"

From what i read online it wasn't supposed to be soggy, but crisp on the outside fluffy on the inside with fat little oysters. I guess the chef was having a bad day. Matt kena-ed a buttload of flak for this. Taste-wise it was quite OK as it was moist in the centre with this herby taste that i couldn't identify.

Plus, things couldn't go too wrong when you have Kg Koh chili sauce.

Kg Koh chili sauce

Also at Bei King:

Huge ass pile of vege

Foo Chow fishballs, stuffed with mince meat. Awesome.

Har Gou #1: Kung Pow

Red wine mee sua: Famous Foo Chow cuisine

Fried squid - passable, but forgettable

Har Gou #2: Butter - grotesque

Stuff worth mentioning: The red wine mee sua. Home made red wine from some sort of red grain. The de facto Foo Chow cuisine. I think it's sort of acquired taste. I've never been a fan of alcohol-infused food items so i can't really comment but it's one of Bei King's bestsellers.

Kung Pow har gou was delightfully crispy, but so crispy that it felt as if we were eating Kung Pow crisp. Couldn't taste the prawn at all, but hell it was delicious. Wish i could say the same about the butter har gou, but it was a failure.

There are 2 types of butter har gou. a) stringy egg floss  b) butter sauce. This was just har gou coated with pieces of egg, completely tasteless and oozing oil with each bite. 

Bei King didn't seem up to standard, at least, during our trip. So we traipsed over to Oasis.

7 dudes and 1 chick - chick taking photo

Oh jien #2: Crispeh~!

Oh jien #2 was satisfactory. Light and crispy, as advertised. But it didn't taste as good as the one at Bei King. Maybe because i was feeling incredibly cloyed and nauseated by all that fried stuff, spillin' oil into my mouth with each bite.

Har Gou #3: Oat.

Har Gou #3 was fascinating. Super crispy, wonderfully fragrant.

Deep fried soft shelled crabs with Thai dressing

Soft shelled crab!! First bite was a cacophony of flavours in my mouth. Sweet, sour paired with the crunch of onions and fried crab. Oh my... But after a few pieces i surrendered. Would have been divine if it was the first dish to be sampled...

Next stop: Gong Piang / Gong Pian / Kong Piang etc

The locals pronounce it as Kompiang. With extra nasal emphasis on the "piang"! Like.. ker-piang!

Sitiawan Gong Pian: Local delicacy

On his previous trip, Christine bought 50 of these, and sucked down 20 on his way back. So we thought, wow! and decided to give it a try.

Gong pian: Onion-stuffed biscuits

So at first we didn't know gong pians looked like that. Size of each was approx 1/2 palm (guy's palm la), almost 3 inches in diameter.

Heavenly aroma of onions was wafting from the stall when i went down with Sean to scout. And then we saw these!

Huge ass donut shaped breads with a slight onion-y aroma

Double the size of the gong pian. So a fat question appeared in our heads: wtf how did he eat 20 of those. 0_0!! But given Christine's blackhole of a stomach we didn't really think much and Sean bought 8 of them donut breads.

Horrendous!!

Not gong pians! These were just some sort of sweet bread. Tough, dense and chewy. We tried to compress them (like how Gardenia bread gets all flattened if you squash them) but guess what, our attempts were.. abortive. xD

Omg-this-bun-sux

Smart asses insisted on taking omg-this-bun-sux pics.

Omg-this-bun-sux big time!

"You know this bun how suck ah?"

Sean was still bitching about it in the car.

Store owner stuffing onions into the dough

It turned out that the biscuits weren't ready yet as they were still stuffing them. Placed an order for 160 of them.

Tandoor oven

When we came for collection, we were fortunate enough to arrive just when the biscuits were almost ready in the oven. So we could see the bakers in action.

Gong pian, stuck to the oven walls

Baked like a naan. 

Equipment: reminds me of spear-fishing

The bloody oven was hot and the heat came out in waves. So they spear the biscuits off the walls into the net catcher thingy.

160 pieces of gong pian

We initially thought that 160 was quite a huge order but the store owners were unfazed. "160 is nothing. 500-600 is just a medium order." They had 4 ovens there, each could churn out a 100+ pieces so i guess it's just child's play.

Final Stop: Villa. 

Villa Seafood Restaurant

Clockwise from top: Oh jien, clams, steamed fish teochew style, vege, prawns.

By then the mere mention of food just turned me off and i just lay in my seat.

The fresh coconut was heaven-sent and refreshing. Phew.

They also ordered a bottle of Toddy, but somehow i didn't snap a pic of it and neither did Shirley. 

Oh Jien #3!!: Crispehhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh jien #3 was super crispy. And i think, with great crispiness, comes the oil. Like har gou #1, we could only taste the crispy, and the oil. Nothing else. And we couldn't find any oysters amidst the... crisp.

Large prawns

Didn't touch these due to my allergies. Couldn't trust foreign prawns. xD

Simple dish of vegetables

Yes simple, but to me it was the most welcoming dish of the day, after all that oil and crisp. Ahh..! And this is coming from a carnivore.

Steamed fish, teochew style

Teochew steamed fish not up to standard for this teochew kia (hybrid lol!). But i ate almost half of this fish as, like the vege, it was the only dish that didn't make my stomach turn.

Lesson of the trip: Never never plan a 1 day trip if it involves consuming 9 plates of fried stuff within 6 hours. Was a tad overwhelming. 

Xtine was stunned when he found out about the dishes we ate as he enjoyed them immensely, spread out over 4-5 days. Plus, he went with his local friends whose connection netted them heavily reduced prices. He reckons that we'd been sliced and diced as tourists.

Sunset

Sunset outside the restaurant was stunning.

Mid air shot: Fail!

Sean and Tecky wanted to do mid air shots against the evening sky. I was the camera man. Must have taken 6-7 failed pictures. 

Success.. I think

Stupid camera had a delay so the timing was a bit off.

To end this post. Know what happened to the 8 pieces of sucky bread?

Monkey

Fed them to the monkeys at the mangrove trees.





p.s. From what we could gather... There is an inverse relationship between crispiness and taste when it comes to oh jien. =D