Due to the rapid expansion of fishery, Sekinchan is more or less alike to other small towns and villages in the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia where seafood rules the dining experience. Eating seafood becomes an important aspect of daily living in Sekinchan and plays an important role in the culture there. Seafood restaurants can be found at every corner like how 7-elevens are placed in the city of Hong Kong. Seafood in Sekinchan is prepared in many different ways unimaginable to the mind. They come in pastes of balls, braised, fried, steamed and many more. The rows of seafood restaurants lined up and mouthwatering signature Teo Chew styled dishes are the reasons why many Malaysians flee to Sekinchan whenever they have seafood cravings. Here are some of the food and dishes in Sekinchan most popularly served and eaten.
One of the typical traditional kampung style restaurants is the Cha Po Tian at 9990B Jalan Besar Bagan Sekinchan 45400. One of a must try for noodle lovers is the Spicy Sour Vermicelli or Meahoon Seafood Soup that comes with fishpaste balls. This restaurant is fairly crowded with customers at peak hours but it is easy enough to get a table and fast service. This dish has a mixture of sour and spice and is ideal to eat as a starter dish to kick up that appetite. The fishballs are freshly made as you take a bite of the spongy and firm texture.
The Baby Shark Fin Soup is also worth a try. It comes with some fish and fishballs. If you are concerned with animal and environmental rights, you may want to skip this dish. Another staple food other than rice of the Teow Chew sect is broth, which also uses the form of rice only that it is cooked with double the amount of water till it is soft and watery. This Seafood Porridge which is not as heavy as rice and is tossed with a good amount of seafood creatures like lala, prawns and fish meat slices.
Other than soup based dishes, there are plenty of other killer dry dishes such as the Deep Fried Calamari that is served fresh from the sea waters and are firm and bouncy. Served with chilli sauce and covered with carefully fried batter, this is a dish not to be missed, even for children.
One of the many local’s all time favourite is also the Superior Soup Lala with Ginger (Xiong Tong Lala). The lala used for the dish is with hard and thick shells accompanied with strong ginger tasting soup.
If you wonder what Sekinchan has to offer besides these big conventional restaurants, you may enjoy some of the best seafood prepared in a more open and nature-ful way found near the Sekinchan beach. Although the Sekinchan beach is not ideal for swimming as it is muddy and relatively polluted, you will find small local shops along the beach cooking up some hot fried lala, deep fried mantis prawn and lala (not oysters) chien, which is an eggy pan fried dish in a big wok with blazing fire.
On weekends, Sekinchan is busting full of tourists and plenty of food stalls. Along Jalan Bahagia you will find many stalls selling fried food. This is one of the places to indulge in oil and gluten and forget about conscious eating for a day or two. There are some stalls selling cucur udang which are local prawn fritters, which are more than just deep fried prawn fritters. It is a mixture of dough and fritters with some onion chives and small sliced carrots in them. They are deep fried and taste savoury and delicious when eaten with sweet and usually homemade chill sauce.
Sekinchan also has it’s specialities in ligher dishes and one of the places to experience this is a restaurant in Sungai Janggut called Kedai Kopi Sin Lok which is well known for its “woo kok”, a kind of taro mixed with sweet char siew filling pastry that is crispy and crusty on the outside.
Not too far lies a restaurant in a fishing village called Sg Janggut Seafood Restaurant at Lot 139A Batu 15, Jalan Bagan, Sungair Janggut 42200 Kapar. One of the most peculiar dishes that can be discovered here is the Coconut Tom Yum Prawn. The prawns with Tom Yum is presented in an actual coconut. The Tom Yum is said to be prepared together with the coconut juice resulting in an exotic taste of sweet and sour. For those craving for some meat, there is a special dish named Germany Pig Foot which really means German Pork Knuckle in short. This German Pork Knuckle is not braised like how it usually is in Germany but is deep fried plainly instead. Despite the simple preparation, the dish turns out to be tasty with an amazing crisp. Having a glass of cold beer together with this makes it even better.
There are a plethora of dishes that one can endlessly explore and indulge in like steamed crabs, fish maws, fried anchovies, crab meat tofu and more. However, the dishes above are some noteworthy yet simple enough to experiment and try for just about any food lover.
