The Dragon's Lair: Baywatch Restaurant

The weekend short trip to Tanjong Sepat, Jenjarom & Sepang Goldcoast turned out to be a fun and outting of discovery. I personally like to visit small towns in Malaysia as they have other sights to offer. Having stayed in the concrete jungle of Klang Valley for more than 15 years, it’s good to have a different kind of “feel” to bring some stability to our hectic lifestyle.

Our stop at Tanjong Sepat started with lunch at Baywatch Restaurant. The entrance of the restaurant is decorated with a “sampan” (fisherman’s boat). Afterall, Tanjong Sepat is a fishing village where seafood is at abundance. The decoration at the restaurant is simple but tastefully done up. It’s also lined with coconut trees for the beach and “kampung” feel.

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The Sampan welcomes its diners to Baywatch Restaurant

Stepping into the restaurant, I saw a poster with our local TV celebrity Axian. Axian has came here before to do a TV food programme’s coverage of this restaurant. Hmmm… It should be not bad then since Axian has recommended this place to his TV viewers before.

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Axian was here

As we were on a trip, our lunch menu has been pre-booked. We didn’t get to see the menu or check out the pricing of the dishes here. However, I would expect it to be cheaper as it’s a fishing village as I have mentioned it earlier and the sea is just next to the restaurant. However, I would share the dishes that we had and how they fared.

First to arrive on our table was the steamed chicken with soya sauce. From the texture of the meat, you can tell that it’s not kampung chicken. However, it was not a letdown, never! The steamed chicken actually tasted NOT BAD! The flesh is steamed just right, not overcooked. The skin is smooth and it’s a thumb’s up for me!

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Steamed Chicken with Soya Sauce

Next up was the fishball soup. Tanjong Sepat is known for its fishballs. Therefore, you will find the fishballs being served in most of the restaurants here. Nothing special about this soup. Throw in some fishballs and some leafy veggies and there you go – fishball soup….

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Fishball Soup with Leafy Greens

The next dish – Stir Fried Mantis Prawns with Dried Chillis, The dish was served straight from the wok as you can still taste the crunchiness of the deep fried mantis prawn. And, they are fresh too. It tasted right although I would have prefer it to be more spicy.

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Stir Fried Mantis Prawns with Dried Chillis

The next dish is something that I like – prawns and more prawns! We opted for the prawns cooked with Baywatch’s special sauce. It tasted something like the XO sauce – sweet & salty taste. Since the sea is just next to the restaurant, the prawns should be as fresh as you can get. So, one should not expect anything lesser than fresh prawns :-) The XO prawns did not come disappointed as you can literally taste the freshness of the prawns.

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Prawns in Special Sauce

The next dish is one of the “must have” when my daughter is around. She loves marmite over her meal. It’s the only gravy which she loves. Hence, having a dish of Marmite Pork serves as a taste bud opener for her. The pork are cut into bite size pieces of about an inch thick apiece. The pork pieces are deep fried and doused with marmite sauce and given a quick toss in the wok for the marmite to seep into the pork pieces. This dish did not disappoint too. It got the “thumbs up” from my daughter.

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Marmite Pork

The next dish is not something which I could comment as I don’t like to eat this dish. It’s called 4 Heavenly King locally. For those who’s not familiar with Malaysian local Chinese food, this is actually 4 different types of veggies, stir-fried with belacan (“a type of chilli paste”). Since I’m not a fan of lady’s fingers, I gave this dish a miss.

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4 Heavenly Kings

Crab is not something that I fancy when I’m on a road trip since I’m not good with “dissecting” crabs. The presentation of the next dish, Sweet & Sour Crabs, looks good but again, I gave it a miss. I did note that the gravy look a bit watery though. My concern was correct when I tasted a spoonful of the gravy. Baywatch Restaurant should have served the diners with toast bread or bun for those who would like to enjoy the crab’s gravy.

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Sweet & Sour Crabs

The final dish; Hot Plate Tofu, came with generous portion of Japanese tofu. The thick gravy makes a good meal mixed with rice. I would prefer if Baywatch Restaurant had added in some salted fish or silver anchovies to add in some saltiness to compliment the tofu and the gravy.

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