Restoran Todak (Orang Asli)

Saw my friend posted photos of this place on facebook a few weeks back, and when I asked where the place his, he and his friend offered to bring me there. So after a couple of mails, we decided today is the day!

We left Chinese Garden MRT at 630pm and beating the crazy friday causeway jam, we arrive at the place I think around 8. (For those who has a gps, the place can be found under the malsing maps, search for "todak"). The last stretch of road to this place is pretty deserted and narrow too, so for those driving, do drive carefully.

When we were there, the place was around half full. There are seats under shelter and open air as well. Originally we went for the open air seats by the sea, but because it was going to rain, they moved us to a table within the shelter.

The seafood here is similar to those at Ah Yat Seafood, where the seafood are live in tanks. The selection range from shell fish like clams, scallops, to the usual catch like crab, prawns, lobsters and fish. I was recommended to try to chilli eel there by another member, but it seems that eel was not available today. For the garoupa, there are actually different kinds of garoupa available. I rank them those who live in hdb (those in blue plastic tanks), to condo (those in properly fish tanks) and semi d (2 fish share a single tank), and of cos, the price of the fish is priced according to where they are placed.

We went for the red garoupa (七星斑) which are probably mid grade at RM180/kg, while the 老鼠斑 can go for RM360/kg. Our fish came up to RM108. The crab were RM60/kg and they are pretty decent size. On the bill, the crab are supposed to be superior category. Other seafood we had include the pearl scallops (RM18), prawns (RM16, RM80/kg), kang kong and hokkien mee. Total bill came up to RM260.82.

For the garoupa, we had it steam, and being live from the tank, the fish was very fresh and tasty. The meat was very tender too. The prawn was cooked curry style, and this is one of the best dish of the day. The curry is spicy with lots of chilli padi. The gravy taste great when eaten with rice. The crab were prepared in 2 style. Ops...can't remember one of them, but the other was black pepper. The black pepper crab is pretty good, and pretty close to the legendary black pepper crab at Still Road in Singapore (yes...5min walk from my house)! The other one was pretty good too. The scallops are pretty good too, steam with garlic and spring onion if not wrong, which was highly recommended by my friend. The kang kong was normal, while the hokkien mee was probably average.

Though there's no service charge, the waitress are pretty good and constantly fill up our glasses with tea, which I feel is pretty commendable, especially we sometimes have to pay service charge in restaurants, and yet the service is absolute crap.

Overall, I think for Singaporeans will definitely find the seafood here cheap and good, especially given the pretty favourable exchange rates now.

Thanks Ed and Shawn for making this makan trip happen! :)