Final night dinner@Pulau Perhentian

Demona: On our last night in Perhentian, we'd chosen to unzip our flies, loosen our belts, added extra folds on our tummies by having a scrumptous seafood dinner by the sea. The weather was kind to us. Despite hearing growling thunders, and dashes of lightnings in the midst of thick clouds up ahead, it did not rain. We had the whole chilly windy night to ourselves until the clock struck 12 to kick start the day our country gained independence.

There were several BBQ dinner places along the beach. However, being kiasu flers, we chose to dine at the restaurant which had the most patrons. Many people = Possibly better food and service.

Demona: Viv and Dogma went over to the BBQ area, where all the sizzling action took place. Readily marinated raw seafood were displayed on trays and all we needed to do was..point, point, point. Before you knew it, they had nicely landed on the hot BBQ grills heated by burning charcoal.

This was the parrotfish meat. Not much taste from the marination was locked in and the meat was particularly tough! It was my first time eating a parrotfish and personally, I wasn't sure if the fish was overcooked or the nature of its meat was tough itself.

Demona: This was another type of grilled fish. I could not remember what fish it was, Dogma, any assistance on this? All I could remember was that this meat had more flavours: sourish salty, slightly spicy with a hint of burnt grill taste at its ends. The meat was much more tender too, making it much more favourable than the parrotfish.

Demona: This was the sting ray meat. Somehow rather, the sting ray meat that you eat at foodcourts baring fairly famous names for grilled seafood stalls eg: Asia cafe, midvalley cafeteria etc could grill better sting ray meat than this. After the third trial of grilled fish, we lost specificity in the different tastes. They began to taste alike, except that one meat might be slightly tougher than the other, or more tender. Hmmmmmm....

Demona: We also had some grilled prawnies. Again, nothing much to shout about. The prawns tasted pretty bland... and boy oh boy, we were all too lazy to peel those shells off!

Demona: Each grilled dish came with a rice platter, comprising of some salad (horribly yuckified), a slice of watermelon, and a slice of banana cake...? This was my first ever encounter of having served banana cake with rice.

Thankfully, the few bland grilled dishes were rescued from further disappointing remarks from our fiesty, good food craving tongues thanks to their excellent home made spicy dipping sauce. Initially, it tasted sweet. Slowly, the fragrant onion taste started to unfold, and then.. KABOOM! Hot spicyness hit our tongues, caused by the chopped chilli padis.

Demona: Each of us also ordered a grilled baby crayfish/lobster? for ourselves. A seafood dinner ain't complete without one of these babies! The meat was quite tender and sweet, but I could not force myself to dig in and indulge on the roes that were still attached on them.

Demona: The squids were slightly over grilled also, making them tough. We surely were testing the durability of our teeth alright.

Demona: p/s: The fish with the tender meat description was almost immediately whalloped clean. What was left was its bone. Boy oh boy, we were human-like piranhas yikes!

Verdict: Even though the grilled seafood barely earned the rights to be name delicious, taste wasn't the priority in our to-do list for dinner. We truly enjoyed eating them, while having the salty sea breeze blowing on our faces, laughing at silly lil' jokes, gulping down cans of beers etc. The company and its warmth was what made this dinner most meaningful for this entire trip.
So Viv, Mich, Dogma. Let's plan our next beach trip, with more of us flers next time around. YK's suggestion: Nusa Dua, Bali. Or Cebu? Gosh. I'm excited already writing all these down.