School Break #2: Cherating - FOOD

Food in Cherating was not bad at all. So much better than P.D or Bkt Tinggi.

However I cant remember when hotels started serving below average hotel food. Long ago, hotel breakfast buffet was the most anticipated moment of the trip. So many choices to choose from, all delicious, you can't get enough of one, yet you have to save some stomach space for other equally tempting food. Now..... don't even hope for any decent nasi lemak or fried meehoon. Long expired bread comes out from the fridge to the buffet table, fried mee or kuey teow looked like yesterday's buffet dinner, sausages, bacon and chicken ham are drenched in oil, and baked beans poured straight from the cans onto the serving tray. I wonder if this is only happening in Malaysia hotels?? Anyway enough about bad hotel food.... let's see some food pix:

most appetising and healthiest food in the morning but dunno clean or not :P

the chicken ham - which part of the chicken do you think makes this ham?

oily sausages and dry/tough baconsunny boy's oily egg sandwich

We had no choice but to have dinner in the hotel. Sunny boy was too hungry and we didn't want to take the risk of hunting for food in unknown territory. The only place open was Mario's Steak House. Totally empty, deserted more like it.... We ordered the safest food.... mee mamak and kampung fried rice.

Both were........ edible? Only if you were hungry and have no choice!

We had a welcome drink coupon for 2. We were expecting some freshly squeezed orange juice with a tint of vodka or red wine, by the looks of it... but boy oh boy.... I was like OMG... what was that??? What did they put in there? Potent! Only one small sip and that was it. We didn't touch it forever. Sunny boy had the guts to eat up the 2 cherries. Bleh...

The following day we went to check out Hai Peng Kopitiam in Chukai, about 20min from Cherating. I've read from a few blogs that Hai Peng food and drinks are good, and is a must to visit.

Sunny boy hungry and tried from all the swimming

hot milo, and lime twister which was very good, the dark green bits are minced lime leaves (daun limau purut)

sardine sphagetti with an Asian twist - most horrible sphagetti we've ever eaten. Damn right about the Asian twist!

spicy tuna sandwich - probably straight from the can

toast with egg with special curry sauce - really bad too! What curry?

In my opinion, Hai Peng Kopitiam is nothing to shout about.... maybe their drinks and toasts with kaya and butter are good, but the 3 things we ordered were so bad, it left us with a bitter experience ;(

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by this keropok stall simply because it has the most customers. Cherating is famous for their keropok lekor and sata (not satay, but sata!)

5 pieces for RM1 - yummy! so unlike the ones they sell KL. This one's soft and chewy inside.

3 for RM1. Sata is made of fish meat and grated coconut with some chilli padi and shallots. So tasty, smells like otak-otak but has a sweetish taste from the coconut.

I couldn't get enough of this - went back the day after to get more ;)

For dinner the second day, we decided to see what's outside the hotel. There were 2 chinese restaurants opposite each other just few blocks away from Holiday Villa. We chose the one with the most people naturally. The more the people, the longer the wait! It took nearly an hour for our food to arrive.

kangkung belachan


kum heong lala shrimp omelletekung po chicken with cashew nuts

This was our best meal by far! Everything was tasty...They ran out of crabs... so that must be good too :) Definitely a must visit when in Cherating.

to be continued...