Hello! It's me again, Tortoise~ This time I flew to Kelantan to visit a "special" friend, and she brought me around to some of the best food in Kelantan! Kelantan is situated at the north-east corner of peninsular Malaysia, bordered by Thailand to the north.
 |
| Yours truly ^^v |
Day 1 - Touch down in Kota Bharu:
Took the 8am bus from 1Utama shopping mall straight to LCCT, had a light breakfast while waiting for the 11am flight before flying 1 hour to Kota Bharu. From the airport, we went straight for lunch at Kebun Sultan hawker center. Unfortunately most of the stalls aren't open, so I settled with a bowl of claypot noodles. Before leaving, I bought some 烧包 (siew-pau) for breakfast the next morning.
 |
| The bus from 1Utama to LCCT... |
 |
| A novel to pass time while waiting... |
 |
| On the way to lunch in a rented car... |
 |
| Kebun Sultan hawker center |
 |
| Claypot noodles |
After lunch, we went to Prima Inn to check in (only RM35/room per night) and rested for a while before departing to the waterfront. The room is very clean with a single bed, desk and stool, a cloth hanger, and it's air-conditioned. There are several shared bathrooms which are very clean and spacey as well. It is also very near to a few shopping malls, thus very convenient. After resting for a while, we proceeded to the waterfront. The water of the river is yellowish in color, probably due to some sand mining activity nearby. Then, we left the place for dinner in the city center.
 |
| Prima Inn, my stay for 2 nights~ |
 |
| There's a floating restaurant... |
 |
| Look at the color of the river!! |
 |
| There's a clock tower at the center of the garden at the roundabout... |
We had our dinner at 168 Seafood Restaurant in Kota Bharu. We ordered claypot curry fish, stir-fried vege, and hotplate bean curd. Although we ordered 'small' for all the dishes, the portion is quite big! The curry is really good and appetizing, not too hot and doesn't have the strong coconut milk smell. The fish is served in chunks. The bean curd is served with actual squid rings and eggs at the bottom of the hotplate. When we entered the place, there weren't many customers, but as time goes by the restaurant starts to get filled up!! The place was really clean and it's air-conditioned too. Overall it was very fulfilling and satisfying, and it is really cheap (below RM40) considering the portion we got, so I'd recommend this restaurant!!
 |
| Look at the portion of it!! RECOMMENDED!!! |
After dinner, we went back to the inn to rest for the night because she has some other things to tend to. I spent the night with the novel again.
Day 2 - A visit to Rantau Panjang, Pasar Siti Khadijah, and Pantai Cahaya Bulan:
I had a simple breakfast bought from the hawker stall the day before. We departed from the inn before noon and headed to Rantau Panjang, a town near to the border up north, took about an hour to reach from Kota Bharu. Rantau Panjang is a free trade zone, and there are many duty-free shops there selling all kinds of goods, such as cashew nuts, keropok, shirt, pillows, utensils, etc. The price are fairly cheap, I finally decided to buy some anchovies and keropok back home. Before lunch, we tried the Baba ice-cream, which is a cup of assorted ice-cream served with bread cubes and some other ingredients (e.g. jelly, corn, etc) topped with some dressings.
 |
| On the way to Rantau Panjang... |
 |
| Baba ice-cream |
We also ordered Somtam, a Thai papaya salad, where shredded unripe
papaya is served with lime, tomato, chilli, nuts, dried shrimps, beans,
etc. It tastes like pickled papaya, but the taste of the ingredients
blend into each other to produce a very unique sour spicy taste, with
the added texture of nuts and beans. Therefore I'll recommend trying out
this Thai dish!! Initially we wanted to have mango rice as lunch, but
unfortunately it's not open. So we settled with beef noodles at the
nearby stall.
 |
| The Somtam stall... |
 |
| Somtam, looks delicious isn't it? RECOMMENDED!!! |
 |
| Beef noodles, tender and thinly sliced served in a rather strong beef broth... |
After lunch, we left the place and stopped at Masjid Beijing, a rather odd-looking mosque that resembles a Buddhist temple. First glance at it, I would have no idea that it is actually a mosque!! We took some photos outside the mosque, and we moved on to the next stop, Pasar Siti Khadijah. Pasar Siti Khadijah is a huge market that sells almost every local flavors in Kelantan. There are fresh vegetables, dry food (e.g. keropok), cooked food (e.g. ayam percik, fried snacks), local kuih and fruits, etc.
 |
| Masjid Beijing!! |
 |
| The center of Pasar Siti Khadijah, the signature view of the market!! |
 |
| Some ready-to-eat kuih... |
It was hot in the afternoon, thus we decided to chill out in the nearby mall for a moment before heading to Bubble ice Cafe, for desserts. We ordered a bowl of mixed mango strawberry ice. It's a rather small shop run by only two people at that time, so the service was a little slow. Nevertheless it's a good place to rest in a hot afternoon. When the weather is cooler in the evening, we headed to Pantai Cahaya Bulan.
 |
| Bubble ice Cafe menu... |
 |
| Our mixed mango strawberry ice!! |
Pantai Cahaya Bulan is one of the main beach attractions in Kelantan, and a crowd is already formed there when we reached. I'm quite sure it is initially a sandy beach, because the granite rocks doesn't seem to be naturally formed there, or even transported there via natural means. That aside, the rocks actually made the view at the beach very nice. It was windy and cool, with perfect lighting for photo shoot. There are a lot of stalls by the roadside selling Maggi Ketam (crab noodles), but unfortunately I didn't try that as we had other plans for dinner.
 |
| Relaxing on the rocks... |
 |
| From another angle... |
Before heading to dinner, we stopped by at Pintu Gerbang Kota Sultan Ismail Petra, another major landmark to visit. There's a grand palace here but it's off-limits to visitors. Again we stopped for a moment for photo taking before heading off to dinner.
 |
| Pintu Gerbang Kota Sultan Ismail Petra!! |
 |
| Ready to launch!! |
Our destination for dinner is none other than the famous Nasi Kerabu Golok!! Nasi kerabu is a Malay cuisine where the rice is cooked with juice squeezed from some kind of blue-petaled flower, hence the blue-colored rice, served with crackers, kerisik (fried grated coconut), fresh ulam (assorted raw vege), chilli, salted duck egg, and protein of choice (i.e. chicken/ fish/ beef). They grilled the chicken outside the stall, the fragrance from the grilling was really mouth-watering. With their grated coconut fried with spices of their own recipe and the nicely grilled chicken coupled with the fresh ulam and the crunchy crackers, this is one of the best dishes I've tried in Kelantan and I highly recommend this!!
 |
| Nasi Kerabu Golok!! RECOMMENDED!!! |
Before heading back to the inn, we stopped by a nearby mall to buy bread for breakfast the next morning, and called it a night.
 |
| The 1kg of anchovies (RM25) and 8 packets of keropok (RM10) from Rantau Panjang! |
Day 3 - KB Mall:
After checking out by noon, we headed to another famous stall in Kota Bharu for lunch, which is Yati Ayam Percik!! Usually we have the option of serving it with nasi kerabu, but then again it was not available so we make do with white rice, but with kerisik and fresh ulam. The marinated chicken is charcoal grilled, topped with their signature percik sauce, which is a type of sweet spicy creamy sauce. The restaurant is clean and air-conditioned, highly recommended to try this out!!
 |
| White rice topped with kerisik and fresh ulam... |
 |
| The ayam percik topped with signature percik sauce... |
 |
| Ready to dig in!!! RECOMMENDED!!! |
After that we visited the KB Mall, the biggest mall in Kelantan. We strolled around KB Mall for a few hours before moving on to an early dinner near the airport. We planned to try the famous satay stall but then again, it was not opened, so we circled around the area and ended up at a nasi kukus (steamed rice) stall, which is also very good. The rice is steamed in small bowls and served with a variety of curry, cucumber, and protein of choice (we chose chicken). This is the usual way of eating by the majority of people in Kelantan, which they often call it nasi berlauk. After that, we went to the airport and that marks the end of my journey in Kelantan.
 |
| Nasi kukus, flooded with variety of curry... |
All in all it has been a wonderful journey filled with spices. Although there isn't much to see or do in Kelantan, these exceptionally delicious food is not to be missed!! If I had the chance to come here again, I'll definitely try out the dishes which I have missed in this trip, especially the famous satay and nasi dagang~
Recommendation Summary:
Food
- 168 Seafood Restaurant
- Nasi Kerabu Golok
- Ayam Percik Yati
- Somtam
Inn
That's MY story, what's YOURS?
No comments:
Post a Comment