Restoran Bahtera Nelayan

This was a Saturday morning foray with George... we went to a couple of places and Restoran Bahtera Nelayan was one of them. It was opened in May this year. And a week ago, they just had an official ceremony there. It seems this place was built 7 years ago at the cost of RM6 million. It is now run by the Fisheries Association. There were shoplots in the adjacent block but they were all empty. The covered space would be great for skating.. 8)

Tucked in an obscure corner of Kg Kelonchor in Kubang Rotan, it requires a little effort to get there. The road leading to the restaurant is built on a bund and is rather narrow. There are also no street lights which means that it can be quite a challenge trying to manouver your way there at night. A wrong turn of your steering wheel might land your car on either side of the road... which is a slight drop.

The place is scenic enough but like most of our mangrove swamps, you can see rubbish everywhere. That is our Malaysian trademark, sad to say. They actually built this walkway which leads you to the river but beware not to pull your hands along the railing as the wood chips might find their way into your hand. The bridge looked hastily built, though; according to friend, like it's not made to last.

We enjoyed watching these 'red crabs'. There were very beautiful. Other Half tried to catch one but they disappeared down their holes as soon as he feet landed on the ground! LOL! Nancy wanted to take the rubbish scoop to scoop them up! Also a no go! Okay, next... the food!

Talked to the waitress what their special dishes were. Mee udang is one of them. I've tried the mee udang from Teluk Kumbar in Penang and also some other places... This one boleh tahanlah. It's a bit too sugar sweet though.

We ordered a ikan jenahak... asked them to cook curry with the fish head. This is a forgettable dish. The curry was very bland and tasted watery. Maybe because the fish head was not big enough.

We asked them to grill the rest of the fish, plain. It was okay. You can't go very wrong with grilled fresh fish. Daughter enjoyed the fish quite a bit.

Anyway, it was nice to sit in an idyllic setting and while away your time while watching boats of different sizes chug past, leaving in their wakes, ripples of water which swooshed their way into the mangrove swamp. Also, the tide was coming in; you could see the water line rising and what little mangrove swamp being swallowed up.

But given the location and also that the food was so-so, it would take some effort for us to go back there again. They have a set table kinda thing at RM350 for 7 people but going through the menu, I find it rather expensive cos for that kind of price, I can go to any of the restaurants in town and get a very good seafood meal; same price for more people. So, if I were to come back here, it'd be more for the nature experience than the food.

And oh! BTW, this is perhaps one of those RM6 million structures where their toilets don't work. You can spend that much building it but not make sure the toilets work... so if you do go, make sure your bladder is well emptied first.