In the short two days, one night Bintan trip with my polytechnic classmates, a friend proposed having dinner at a kelong restaurant and although i have reservations, given that the standard of seafood in Singapore is one of the best in the region; i must always go back to the basic blogging advice of "never try, never know".
The cars arrived on time to pick the twelve of us from Angsana Bintan; for free transportation, we must spend a minimum of one million rupiah which we figured would be achievable since there were a total of eleven adults and it worked out to be about slightly more than S$10 a person!
Within fifteen minutes, the cars dropped all of us outside the 'grand' entrance of Bintan Mangrove which was very near to the local market; hm... did the person mistakenly bring us for a different thing!? It didn't help that i was feeling rather hungry at that time.
Guidelines for your reference before you enter the mangrove attraction; don't think i have the means and capability to hunt animals or even fell the trees.
There was a slight drizzle; definitely not the best time to visit the mangroves. Nevertheless, the person bringing us in didn't say a single thing and i guess then that there shouldn't be any mistake that we needed dinner.
A few structures in sight; okay, so that's where our dinner would be!
Wrong again! We would require a boat ride to the kelong restaurant and this would be the place where we would take the speedboat.
Need insect repellent? You may purchase it from the above shop within the jetty, together with snorkeling sets, sandcastle kits, caps, snacks etc.
This jetty is actually the starting point for the bintan mangrove discovery tour which was the gold award winner for PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) 2003. p.s. i did note that it's been more than ten years.
All of us had to put on smelly life-jackets that had been reused many, many times! Okay, i exaggerated a bit; it didn't smell that bad once the boat sped away.
Preparing to board!
Boat ride was only about five minutes and if not for the sky's continual tearing, it would have been pleasurable to have the nice sea breeze brushing against our face
Arrived at the restaurant - it's not exactly kelong in my opinion since i was expecting something in the middle of the river or offshore but this was connected to the mainland. Oh well, i had faced similar situations before so it might be my misconstrued perception.
It was a relatively small restaurant with just about five to six round tables and aside from one small group, we were the only customers. Strange to have such low numbers on a Saturday night!
These structures next door appeared new and seemed to be chalets with balcony.
Live seafood - grouper and crabs! We actually wanted to go with the live grouper but it was too big at about 3 kilograms and if i recollected correctly, it's going to be very expensive!
Operator got us a smaller one which we thought would be more manageable on both our tummies and also wallet. There's absolutely no problem in attaining the minimal spending of one million rupiah!
Orders were made (menu would be shared towards the end of this post) and it's now just a waiting game for us while the chefs whipped up the delicious dishes for us.
Boom - the lights went out. It's not a marketing gimmick to let us have a romantic dinner and our group was actually quite chilled about the power failure; we even joked that we might not even know what was served to us since we can't really see under the candlelight!
The lights came on just in time for us to take a picture of the blackberry juice; thought it looked more purplish than black. Anyway, it was pretty good with a strong yet sweet berry taste.
Salted Egg Sotong (Large) - in spite of the bright yellow coloring, this didn't taste heavy of salted egg yolk even though it was appetising enough for us to overlook the lack of it.
Gong Gong (Large) - my first time trying the dog conch and i must say it's interesting; like eating crab meat with a harder texture. Kind of regret not trying it for the past 37 years.
Broccoli with Mushrooms (Large) - average.
Cereal Prawns (Large) - Even though the prawns tasted accepted, the cereals were just not fried long enough on the wok as i could hardly get a whiff of the aroma that's supposed to make this dish irresistible.
Chicken Satay (20 Sticks) - well seasoned and nice although they didn't feature the sweetness we were more accustomed to in Singapore.
Salted Egg Crab (1 Kilogram) - this was surprisingly good with shell that you could probably use your teeth to chew through and reminded me of the non-creamy, crunchy one at Yi Jia South Village Seafood Restaurant. Only problem; not sweet enough.
Chilli Crab (1 Kilogram) - even though the crab was fresh, i didn't quite like this as the spiciness was just a hint and it's actually quite salty.
Steamed Grouper - the best way to eat a live fresh is to steam it alive! The statement may sound extremely cruel but holds true among the Chinese. Poor fish must be in agony.
Despite my expression of pity towards the fish, it was downright the tastiest fish i ever had in my whole life; it was so fresh and sweet that we should have gone with the 3-kilogram one!
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Location
Within the Bintan Resorts Vicinity
Bintan Island, Indonesia
To Book for the Kelong Dinner
Email : spadbs@gmail.com
WhatsApp / Line / WeChat: +62 813 6381 0181
Packages
My friend actually shared the link that he visited to book for the kelong dinner. There are packages for those who prefer to have massage plus dinner plus firefly tour etc. You may click here for more information.
Menu
As above. p.s. i think i missed out a few pages.
Pricing
No individual pricing as i forgot to ask for the receipt from our class treasurer. If my memory serves me well, i think we spend about 3 million rupiah on our meal.
For my 2 days, 1 night travelogue to Bintan Island, click here.
