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| Enjoying Seafood in Kuala Perlis | |
by
Farah 'Fairy' Mahdzan
(9-Sep-2003) | Readers Say |
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 If you're a squeamish sort of person, you're probably irking at the sight of that ketam (crab) up there. If you're a seafood lover, however, then you're probably daydreaming about how absolutely delicious the shelled fellow would taste cooked in your most favorite style of gravy. If you're the latter, then selamat datang to Kuala Perlis! Certainly, one of the things I most look forward to when I make a trip back to my Dad's home state of Perlis is savoring all the mouth-watering and easily available seafood. Not only is seafood fresh in Perlis, but it is relatively cheaper than it is in the capital city.
We have a favorite ikan bakar place we frequent in Kuala Perlis: Lynda Ikan Bakar & Makanan Laut. My Dad, the prideful Perlis man that he is, enjoys taking his kids and grandkids to eat there. Mention ikan bakar for dinner and watch us all dart maniacally into the car!
Select Your Seafood!Half the fun of eating seafood is selecting the exact critters that you want seasoned, cooked, fried, barbequed, grilled, or sautéed, and served to you.
 A designated person at your favorite seafood gerai (stall) will usually assist you in physically picking up the fish or group of prawns that you so desire.
 The chosen seafood will be weighed on a scale to determine how much your dinner will cost in the end. It is for this exercise that seafood gains its notorious reputation for being pricey. In addition, seafood prices fluctuate depending on fishing season. Here you see our guy fearlessly holding up some slimy sotong (squids) that we chose to be deep-fried. We also picked 2 other types of seafood for dinner: a type of fish Malays call ikan jenahak (Mom says it's a type of carp fish), and udang (prawns). (It is a nightmare to translate fish names from Bahasa Malaysia to English. I would never in a million years knew what ikan jenahak would be called in English had my mother not come to my rescue. Thanks Ma!) After selecting all the seafood you could possibly stuff your face with, you then tell your chef exactly how you want your seafood to be cooked. What will it be, prawns in sweet and sour sauce? Squid pieces deep-fried in batter served with sweet dipping sauce? Fish cooked in curry? The choice is up to you.
 Meet the makcik who was furiously cooking our fish over burning coal into succulent perfection! She gave me an appreciative grin and a salute with her charred fan after I took her picture.
KetamMy brother-in-law had his kids screaming in fright when he picked up a lifeless ketam with his bare hand and started jingling the legs around like a puppet on strings. Hehe, children are so easy to scare.
 Crabs here are usually cooked and served in gulai, a curry-like type of gravy that is a little spicy and yellow in color. The crab shells will turn orange in color when you cook them for some reason. And a good thing too; blue crabs don't look too appetizing swimming in spicy yellow gravy! Crab meat is white in color and tastes wonderful when cooked right. Some people will also find sucking the juices and pieces of meat out of the crab legs to be a fulfilling task indeed. It's gooooooood.
Kerang Another set of seafood that didn't quite make our cut: kerang or cockle shells. I'm not too fond of them, but some people will eat them by the kilo. The mussel inside the cockle shell is sometimes used in a dish called char kuey teow which is a flat noodle dish that's stir-fried with oyster sauce, bean sprouts and loads of other stuff.
SateWhile we were waiting for our grilled fish, our order of sate ayam came first. These little bits of barbequed skewered meat are a popular dish amongst Malaysians (Indonesians and other Asians too). The kids were certainly having a ball with it.
Ikan Bakaq! The grilled fish looked so enticing that in a blink of an eye everyone had a generous piece of it on their plates! Eating this deliciously seasoned grilled ikan jenahak with plain white rice and its specially-prepared spicy and sour sauce was just heavenly. Of course everything just tastes better when you eat it with your hands, which we all did! Take caution however if you're eating this type of fish, as God was generous in giving this fish bones, and I mean plenty of 'em! I took extra care in picking out the bones before enjoying the fish. Having a fish bone stuck in your throat isn't exactly a warm bedtime story - it's seafood hell!
UdangRight after our grilled fish, this steaming plate of udang masak masam manis (prawns cooked in sour and sweet sauce) finally made it to our table. My, my, big fat giant juicy prawns! Are you drooling yet?
 I understand that some people have allergic reactions towards some seafood, including prawns. My sister was sensitive to prawns, so she stayed clear of it. The rest of us were silently rejoicing as it meant more prawns for us! By the time our last seafood dish came - a plate of deep-fried sotong covered in flour batter - my right hand was no longer clean and free hand to handle my camera, so you're just going to have to imagine the scrumptious squid sensation that I was to indulge in! :)
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| WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT Enjoying Seafood in Kuala Perlis: |
#32. eh..selain myindo ni, mana lagi nk contact farah egh? Posted by n a i m on 18-Mar-2009, 16:45 MYT
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When the locals go out to eat seafood, they'd usually refer to the outing as pergi makan ikan bakar ("go eat barbequed fish") or in true Northern Malaysian dialect, pi makan ikan bakaq! The term "ikan bakaq" just serves as a generic term to include all types of cooked seafood, so if we say we want to go out to eat ikan bakaq, we were implying on indulging in some other type of seafood too. After all there are so many types to choose from; surely we aren't going to limit ourselves to just fish!
tapi kalo korang rasa best, mai la noh 
Perlis seafood cheap oso what. 
I'm really homesick now! Haha! Nasib baik I balik for raya. Farah, jom, kita pergi makan ikan bakaq with me, ya?