THIS week, the Food Trail leads us to Sungai Besar town near Sabak Bernam district in Selangor.
For those of you who are familiar with travelling along the coastal road from Klang to Teluk Intan in Perak, Sungai Besar is one of the many small towns where you can actually detour for makan as well as picking up a good bargain when it comes to fresh seafood.
This fishing town is located about one hour 45 minutes’ drive from Kuala Lumpur’s city centre.
Simple method: The steamed white snapper.To get there, you will pass through towns like Batang Berjuntai, Ijok, Kuala Selangor, Tanjung Karang and Sekinchan.
My wife Michelle and I, including several friends, took the adventurous route by riding our Dahon folding bicycles from Tanjung Karang to Sungai Besar and back, covering a distance of 87km.
Our primary goal was endurance and fitness conditioning and to cover nearly 100km on a folding bike was a decent achievement.
One of the programmes in our schedule was to check out the food in Sungai Besar.
There are some good makan places here, but it is scattered around and several good seafood restaurants are found some six kilometres from the town square.
But after a 40km ride from Tanjung Karang, our priority was to look for a decent makan place and Chong Thai restaurant (GPS coordinates: N 03 40 442, E 100 59 083) located along Jalan Menteri in Sungai Besar came highly recommended.
Since we arrived early, the crowd was slowly picking up.
What caught my fancy was the interior decoration of this eatery.
There are many photos on the wall, some depicting events with MCA party leaders and the town’s residents.
This is also the place where the locals hold major events like weddings, birthdays and anniversaries.
And when it comes to choices, there were plenty of good seafood dishes here.
Tender goodness:The Gung Po Squid is anote worthy dish with a good balance of taste.To got the ball rolling for my hungry cyclist friends by ordering a Steamed Ikan Jenahak (white snapper), Fried Herr Guo (mantis shrimps) in Butter Sauce, Koo Lou Yuk (sweet and sour pork), Cheng Chaur Yau Mark (stir fried Indian lettuce) and a plate of Gung Po Squid.
I found the steamed fish to be a bit dry and the reason behind this was the fish was not steamed but simmered.
The noteworthy dishes were the Fried Herr Guo in Butter Sauce and Gung Po Squid.
And when it comes to pricing, one cannot complain as the bill came up to RM160 for 11 people.
Chong Thai Restaurant opens daily from noon-4pm and 6pm-midnight.
This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by StarMetro.