RiverSide Seafood Resto
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Location : Punggur. Google Search "SMPS Maitreyawira" (temple) - resto is just next it.
Food : 4/5 (for the freshness)
Value : For such simplicity in cooking/preparation yet significant distance-traveling - no rating.
Conclusion : So long as seafood is live - meat will always be sweet. In such circumstances - sauce and complementary taste to the meats become the next crucial factor (in a shoot-out). Riverside is very, very simple and minimalist. Anyone can cook at home with minimal ingredients. Lack for a better description would be "no passion in dishes". It is, however, a very good seafood resto for people staying near there (up to 30 mins drive, no more).
Caveat : This FR is personal L2E view. My expectation of this resto was prior set high by Ibu - as high as against Marine and Tg Piayu. The bill from Marine's previous dining is compared, to obtain a collective conclusion (next post : shootout).
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2nd Jan (Sat). We drove off from Legenda to Punggur. Traffic came to a very slow crawl about 150meters away from the Punggur ferry terminal - jam like nobody's business due to the holidays. Once past the terminal - it was just a 3-5 min drive. We took our table - and glanced around - perhaps is due to the heavy rain, the traffic terminal jam, and early lunch hour, that only 2 tables including ours got customers. I was quite happy actually - as the cook was not under pressure to rushing the cooking.
Ibu (she's a *regular* here) ordered the dishes - as far as possible same as what we had at Marine on 31st Dec. While waiting, took photos.
Kitchen. The boss' wife is the cook. Spacious.
Live Seafood stock kept. Unlike Tg Piayu - customers are not allowed to venture further, not safe enough.
The scenic lullaby view from dining area
The dishes came.
Udang Goreng
No live prawns (no more stock due to holiday crowd) - only frozen ones. So ordered the goreng one instead of DP/steamed. It's a simple deep-fry, the batter provided for the taste. Due to unfair comparison (with Marine's DP) - no judgment - just eat. It's ok.
Sotong Goreng
Same batter used and same simple deep-fry as with the Udang Goreng. They dun have Sotong Sambal Petai in their menu.
Garoupa cooked "Hong Kong" style
The fish was fresh and meat sweet
That was that. The sauce was just soy sauce (and msg) - it was soy-ey to taste. The ginger strands was not cooked in the sauce or not cooked long enough (lack aroma). Notice it is served in a plate - not metal plate with small fire "stove" under the plate like in other restos. Can infer on the tastes and textures without such a setup for a such a dish. We noted the garoupa is smaller than the one we had at Marine (compared the fish-heads - Pak only eats the fish-head).
Scallops (*Mantap*)
The scallops - fresh therefore sweet. Very simple preparation but it just tasted better than any tried elsewhere. I thinking "it's live... so same as other live seafood restos - how can it taste so delicious !?" ... I scooped the sauce alone, tasted and found the key ingredient in the sauce - it's rice wine. The rice wine sauce complemented the natural taste and texture of the scallops
MANTAP. We ordered a 2nd portion loooooool. Agreed with Ibu - that their scallops is simple - but undoubtedly a redeeming superstar. Recommended.
Kangkong. We ordered 2 portions - one cooked belacan (in photo), the other cooked non-spicy.
It's ok. They don't serve pakis polos, or perhaps the pakis ran out as with the live prawns.
Steamed Flowercrab
Ibu ordered 6 flower crabs. Dish came and they were
baby/small flowercrabs - much smaller than at Marine. No sauce, no garnishings, just a shell-cracker LOOOOOL. Meat was
super sweet. But the effort to peeling the shells to yield trace amounts of meat....
That was our lunch.