Lumut Sojourn – Dinner @ Hailam Seafood Village

As we were quite unfamiliar with the area, on the way to the hotel, we kept our eyes open for any possible place for food. At the traffic lights junction forking out to Lumut Port, we spied this restaurant’s banner hung on a pole by the road side. Seeing that this place was pretty near our hotel, we decided to head there for our dinner on the 1st night.

Typical of seafood restaurants in the vicinity, this restaurant was built in its natural surroundings, ie a wooden structure amidst oil palm trees. It was pretty dark when we reached there (about 8.30pm), so I didn’t manage to take any pictures of the exterior. Wary of mosquitoes, we headed straight to their air-cond section.

We relied on the captain’s recommendations as well as from looking around what other diners were eating. The table behind us had some kind of steamed fish… the captain told us it was Steamed Fish (ang-cho) Thai-style…so that was exactly what we ordered! It was a pretty big fish, even for 10 people. The Thai-style gravy had lots of chinese cabbage, carrots and sweetcorn and the sauce was piquantly sour and spicy enough to qualify as mediocre Thai. I would have preferred some bunga kantan & galanggal (as those are typical Thai flavours) but maybe my idea of “Thai” has been warped by our Klang Valley influences?!

LL had to have his prawns…he insisted must order prawns! So, to appease his craving, we ordered his favourite Butter Prawns. It turned out to be a good choice as the prawns were very fresh and succulent and the mandatory buttery crumbs were full of creamy goodness, very well enhanced by the tart zingy chilli padi and curry leaves. Every single piece of crumb disappeared in record time!

I needed my vegetables fix so we ordered double doses of vegetables. First was the BabyLettuce stir-fried with garlic. It was done just nice, with the lettuce lightly tossed in high heat, leaving the leaves still green and crunchy…
The next vegetables dish was recommended by the captain – Mixed Vegetables. It had my favourite tunghoon in it and slivers of mushrooms. With these 2 vege dishes, I was completely satiated and had my fill of fibre for the night!
Next on the menu was Chicken Fried with Salted Eggyolks (recommended by the captain) and again, this turned out to be a winner. The bits of salted eggyolks were absolutely yummy, mixed with the tasty crunchy batter that coated the well-marinated chicken.
As we had 2 kids with us, of course we needed to order a kid-friendly dish and you can’t go wrong with beancurd, can you? So, their Signature Beancurd Dish came – with lots of gravy, soft silky smooth taufu, babycorn, mushrooms, carrots and shrimps – everything needed for a kid’s diet, haha!
Ahhh…the most favourite dish of the evening – Orh Chien (Oyster Omelette)! Everyone loved this coastal-town-style Orh Chien so much that we ordered a 2nd helping of it – serious! The light fluffy omelette has been quickly dipped in very hot oil as the outside was light & crispy while leaving the oysters inside still soft with their fresh flavours intact. Yummmm!
Service was fast and friendly…we polished off all the above dishes in less than half an hour…wahahaha! Together with rice and chrysanthemum tea all round, the bill for all these very-generous-portions dishes for 10 adults + 2 kids came to RM168. Good value, eh?