Kim Hoe Stall @ Pulau Ketam [23rd January 2010]

On my previous trip to Pulau Ketam, we chose to have seafood as our dinner since Pulau Ketam is renowned as fishing village. We have difficulty choosing the right stall since there were many of restaurants to choose from. I recalled that one of my ex-colleague do came from Pulau Ketam. Without thinking further, I gave her a rang, asking for recommendation based on the criteria of cheap, nice and delicios food. She told me that she always frequent this stall with her family called "Kim Hoe" if they want some seafood dinner. I suppose this is an indirect way of recommendation and was expecting a good seafood dinner.

Kim Hoe literally means "Golden River"

All of us were very hungry since we did not have our tea time. Our first dish came after 25 minutes of wait.

Sword Fish Fishball
The fishball was decent as it tasted very pure with fish paste.

Steamed Bun
We ordered some steamed buns to go with our sweet and sour crab. When it came, it really caught us by surprise on why they were so colourful. First bite of it leads to more disappointment. The bun were flavoured with pandan and chocolate and doesn't blend with the sweet and sour gravy. We conclude that they get these buns from the supermarket instead of home made.

Sweet and Sour Crab
Another very average tasting dish. Well, how wrong can a sweet and sour crab goes?

Kam Heong Bamboo LaLa
The bamboo lala was big, succulent and juicy. However, the preparation of it was a pity. It does not taste like "kam heong" at all. The main ingredients such as curry leave and dried shrimps were missing. To make things worse, it tasted very salty and kills off the sweetness of the lala. What a disgrace to the "kam heong" style.

Salted Egg Crab
When it came to our table, I was speechless. I just couldn't see it in any way it was a salted crab dish. It was too oily and very watery. I was hopeful that maybe it was their way and hoping that it will taste decent. However, my first bite enough to declare this dish was a failure. It tasted sweet and there was a very strong hint of butter. I can't taste the Salted Egg Yolk at all! I wondered since when mixed vegetables was used as ingredients. Are you sure this is Salted Egg Crab?

Steamed Lala
The Lala meat was too tiny. To make things worse, the gravy was way too salty. Again, the sweetness taste was lacking.

Stir-fried Mixed Vegetables
It was way too watery and lacks the charred smell. Bland is the right word to describe it. I felt cheated too as they just dumped in some carrot, capsicum, cabbages and cauliflower for this dish without adding at least some prawns or even fish cakes.

The last dish that came to our table was the steamed fish. We were hoping that the steamed fish will at least tasted better since they took quite a while to prepare it.

Teochew Style Steamed Silver Pomfret
The gravy was near to tasteless and consists of oil only. The condiments of pickle vegetables was very little and tau foo is missing in action. To make things worse, the fish was over steamed resulting to a very rough fish meat. It was just too pathetic. It seems like another disappointment.

The bill for the dinner came to RM 202.50. I suppose the price was a little pricey considering the fact that we were having it on Pulau Ketam. The dinner was just too disappointing. It would go down as the worst seafood dinner I ever had. Nonetheless, it was worth mentioning that the seafood were very fresh though. It was just that the preparation was very out of the world!

Atmosphere: 4/10
Food: 2/10
Price: 4/10
Verdict: To avoid this stall unless you want to taste some "out of the world" food!