Sen Mei Fong: phoenix rise from the ash

Yeah, it is time to add the figures to the cholesterol level again. So, bunch of us decided to pay Tanjung Tualang another visit for nice seafood. Since the food is not from sea anyway, but river, would you still call it river-food? Beats me.

Anyway, from friend's recommendation, Sen Mei Fong is our choice this time. Tanjung Tualang town is rather small, and all the restaurant do aggregate around the market, so just drive around and one will find the shop. It in the middle of one of the small roads.

The shop was burnt down few years back. And there are lots of photos to prove this. Not very sure whether it is built back again on the same site or not, but judging from the sunday crowd, it did not affect business. There is even photos of popular HK star, Sit KaYin eating here; probably the food is nice.

Coming to Tanjung Tualang, prawns must be on the dish. We ordered 3 prawn dishes the other day. The "qingching" or steam prawn was bit disappointing. It is good, but we expect brilliant. The prawn meat was good, but someone lack the freshness there. Dont misunderstand me, the prawns are fresh, swimming happily in the aquarium, waiting for their turn, but they lack the sweetness along in the dish. The 2nd prawn dish was "laiyao" or ?butter prawn. This was nicely done, one of the better ones I had tasted. Prawn meat nicely blended into the butter. Bit of spice but not too hot to take the centre stage. Really good dish to go along with rice. 3rd prawn dish was "gonchin" or ?pan-fried prawn. It was not as dried as I thought, but the taste is equally good. The prawn is so crispy that one can eat the shell together. Just nice!

Other dish that we ordered did not disappoint at all. Crispy tauhu was good just like that. I am still not sure what the century eggs were doing there as it did not blend in with the tauhu. Kaku vegetable, was nicely done, though I am not sure how it was really cooked. The last dish to arrive is the crab. Cooked in "kamheong" style with bit of spice in curry leaves, it is rather nice, though by then, we had bitten more than we could chew, so it did not appeal anymore.

Overall, good food. We paid RM30+ each for the HUGE amount of food here. Worth it? Probably, coming here is rather for the novelty. I am sure there are other place who cook equally good food for cheaper price or less travel. But coming here, the food would not disappoint.

ratings: 3half poink! (minus for the rather steep price, but then again, most shops here would charge the same price)

comments: do come and taste it for yourself.