Pantai Seafood @ Kayu Ara A.K.A PARKING HELL

I really really do not like the parking at this place. Food here is awesome yes but for the sake of my precious ( i.e car ) sometimes i think twice about eating here. Pantai Seafood has a reputation for the worse parking ever in town but gee... the food is really that good that it keep the masses coming. The last time i was here, i parked in some one's garden for a fee! Like RM10 bucks a parking!! This time i ended up near the bridge - thank god Precious was ok but with a minor scratch on the side. Well, really, i forgot about precious 1/2 way through... Too hungry to remember. I also missed out a few dishes but anyway, ..the posts will be spectacularly long if i had all the pics up.

Pantai was chosen as a farewell dinner for one of my ex colleague who is leaving for the land down under. If calculation are right, he should be happily be in Melbourne now, soaking in the cosmopolitan lifestyle there. I must say it is quite a shock now to have farewell every so often, we will be having one more in February. It saddens me but everyone has to make a different path if the current one does not offer much hope for all.

While waiting for the rest of the crew ( who some got lost, while some tried to defy gravity with their style of parking outside ) my ex colleague used us that day as his "dumping" ground for open and unfinished hard liquior collection. Yeah. It was a lot. I lost count at six bottles. Don't believe me? Look at this:

I must admit though, i can't really stomach alot of this. I nursed my lychee liquor for the whole duration of the dinner ( excellent liquer ) and only had JIM BEAM or 2 in that Dentist Chair game. -_-.  Thank god the next farewell is more tasteful - since it is a girl's farewell. Suffice to say, everyone did get home safely and there were no stomach turning tragedy like the last Sau Gong Chau. Anyway, enuff of the alcohol ( not the important topic )

Pantai Seafood has been around ages and is still one of the more popular places for seafood. The original place for seafood, Pantai Seafood owner has spawned Unique seafood branches around KL and PJ and even Ipoh. However, Unique serves to a bigger crowd besides Chinese, so bet you some of the dishes in Pantai cannot be found here. :)

I am starting the sequence of dishes a bit backwards here ... but since it was weeks away from New Year, we ordered Yee Sang. Er this was sitting on the side there for a while, while everyone was busy.. drinking. And vodka infused? Someone decided it was fun to douse the yee sang with Vodka. Rather strange taste it produced. In fact it was down right bitter. Didn't go well here and i was a bit disappointed though. So far the 5 yee sang's i had this year didn't taste so good except one at the Summer Place so I was hoping we had a good one here. Unfortunately not the case. Mental note to self:  Put Yee  Sang at high up place to avoid people pouring vodka into it. Quite sad though, this dish was not finished.

Customary greens here. This is potato shoots done with some mild bird's eye chilli. Quite nice and a rare change from our meat inspired menu most of the time.

Since our last outing at Unique ( which i have not posted yet. Lazy Again ) we ordered the above taufu and some gourd dish. It looks like "Cheng Kua" to me or green gourd. Actually the sauce is pretty nice and goes very well with rice. Plain enough without being boring, yet tasty. One thing i did notice about this chain of restaurant, the food servings are not really large. In cantonese we call this "hau" or thick and despite us eating rice and almost about 8-9 dishes, you don't really feel very full. Something to note if you have a hoard of relatives you want to feed and have large appetites.

Now... the distinguisher of Pantai seafood, is the Pork Knuckle. I find it funny a chinese restaurant serves up pork knuckle similar to the German style and this is no small knuckle here. Alot of people come here for this but i really find this dish so so only. Give me the meaty bits like Far lam anytime. But if you love pork knuckles, you can't miss this out. One note though, i don't find this really meaty, more like fat and skin most of the time. I remember the previously there were more meat on this - probably the day we went alot of Sau Kong Chao was in full swing.

Up with the seafood next, otherwise it won't be called Pantai Seafood! Prawns are always good here and i love the fresh taste of the prawns and it will be spoilt if it is cooked any other way except steamed. I don't even eat it with chilli as i like the taste of the prawns just as it is.

I find this their signature dish in my opinion. Pepper and Salt Squid. There is a slight batter to this dish but it gives it a nice crunchy coat. If you dip this in the chilli sauce provided, it gives it a nice kick. Pretty awesome dish but must be eaten when it is hot otherwise it can be a bit jelakky.

Fish was up next, we had fried fish with Soy sauce. The last time in Unique, we had this with "lion fish" ( i hope it is not the fish i was thinking about ) but this was another type of fish that we had. I could not resist the "help me bit there" ... i love the combination of fried, with some sauce on top, crispy yet soft.

Crabs came next, kam heong to be exact. Can't really remember eating this dish though. Probably there was too many things happening that time - to remember.  

 

At this point, the late stragglers came in but some of the food was already finished. We decided to add on more dishes so they can eat and the rest of us can eat some more.  I am not a fan-see of shell fish but i did taste some of this Siong Tong Clams - ... excellent. Enough ( or more ) chinese wine to give this a kick + a lot of ginger. I must say the soup is much better than the Lala Chong place. :)

I also skipped the next dish of Ribbit. I mean Frog. Done in ginger style. Some how or rather this is not so exciting for me. I have eaten frogs before but i still seem to picture them jumping up and down while eating. Nevertheless my fellow table mates habis everything.

Perennial favorite Sweet and Sour pork was ordered. Besides being a perennial favorite in most Chinese restaurants, my family always orders this dish in new tai chou's. It's like a test dish, if you pass this and you pass most of your dishes.Pantai passes with flying colors!! :)

I think i missed out 3 dishes, one was the snail ( yark ) and ginger fried slice fish ( pretty good ) and toong fun i forgot what i was doing that time! Could be all the alcohol floating around!  All in all the food was great... ambience was meh... we were trying to compete Yam Seng with some other tables in the same room. Parking - Horrible. Service - not too bad. Very obliging with the ice and the ridiculous antics of some people.Would i come here again - yeah, probably not near the festive holidays. :)

You might want to bring your kids here as well. The live aquarium is pretty fascinating. I saw a lobster trying to run out of his tank. Prison Break Season 5!.

Pantai Seafood Restaurant

Lot 13575, Jalan Cempaka PJU 6A

Kg Sg Kayu Ara

Petaling Jaya