Singaporeans are known for driving across the island and enduring queues of an hour to satisfy their taste buds. But cross the stormy seas and brave the wildest elements for a taste of good food? If you said why not, then it would be no sweat for you to catch an $8 per person, 45 min-ride on a bumboat from Changi Jetty that will bring you to the Malaysian island of Pengerang where a slew of delicious and inexpensive seafood await discovery.

The Chinese-dominated Xi Wan (4th District) is home to the Good Luck Seafood Restoran. However, it only opens at 5pm, which means you’ll need to spend the night in 1 of the many affordable hotels since the last bumboat back to Singapore departs at 3pm.

UrbanWire recommends the rundown 3-storey, shophouse-turned Let Seng Hotel in Jalan Besar, the district’s main thoroughfare, because it’s not only conveniently located in front of the taxi terminal, the rooms also have the basic amenities. Although nothing like home, the room (RM50 for a room for 6) offers the welcome surprise of a working toilet, warm water and an air-conditioner that cools the room quickly.

Once you’ve stocked up on bottled water and a myriad of snacks from the provision shops downstairs, you can don your elastic pants and baggy t-shirt as you’re in for a feast at the Good Luck Seafood Restoran.

Seafood Sensation at Good Luck Seafood Restoran

Good Luck Seafood Restoran is popular not only with the occasional visitor, but, as testament to the good food, it’s also a hotspot for wedding dinners. However, there’s no need to worry about having a place to indulge because the congenial owners will always find a table for you.

To whet your appetite, begin with the sambal kang kong [water convolvulus fried in dried shrimps and chili], RM7 (S$3). When ordered in zhu chao [a la carte Chinese dishes] stalls in Singapore, this dish tends to be a little oily with cloying chili oil clinging unceremoniously onto the long leaves of the kang kong. But here, little chili oil is used and the most of the flavour comes from the fragrant hei bee hiam [spicy dried shrimps].

It wasn’t too spicy when taken in slowly but should the heat get too much for you, down some fresh coconut juice (RM2) straight from the husk and that’ll assuage the burning from the pungent sambal.

The kang kong is sliced so you just have just enough stem on the leaves to give that bit of crunch. Eaten with rice and a dab of soy sauce, the starter marks the beginning of a delectable meal.

A complement to the spicy first course is steamed fish or ngor he (RM40). Your choice of fish will depend on how the fish is to be cooked but no matter what you choose, it’ll be cooked just right, firm yet not dry or sapped of all its juices. Garnished with ginger, salted vegetables, fresh mushrooms, tomatoes and cilantro plucked right from the shrub, the ngor he has no trace of fishiness. The mushrooms soak up all the goodness from the fish and tomatoes and offset the saltiness from the vegetables quite wonderfully, making this dish palatable even for those who shun the slimy skin and muddy aftertaste.

No true-blooded Singaporean will leave out crustaceans at a seafood feast, especially if they’re so fresh you’ll suspect that they’ve been hauled up from the slightly murky Telok Ramunia beach nearby.

Instead, as in many seafood restaurants, the lobsters and crabs come from a tank in front of the very busy kitchen and the owners confirmed that their supply comes from the other side of the island.

While Singapore’s always claimed the chilli crab as their national dish, you might change your mind after tasting the chili crab in Good Luck. The crab comes drenched generously in the special chili gravy for the sole purpose of dunking your golden-brown man tou [buns that can be steamed or deep fried] (RM5). Scoop up the gravy with a bite-sized man tou that’s crispy on the outside and insanely soft on the inside and you’ll soon be calling for more than the 12 buns that you’re served.

Some might worry about looking unrefined while prying open the tricky shells but you’ll have no such concern at Good Luck since the skillful chefs have strategically cracked the claws to allow the right amount of sauce to seep in and flavour, but not engulf, the mouth-watering crab meat.

The cracks coupled with the tempting freshness that has the meat falling easily out of the shell, will spare you the arduous task of picking and digging furiously for the juicy pieces.

With 3 crabs, at least 2kg in total and all with the savoury roe for only RM85, you’ll have an excuse to go the whole hog and order the butter crab, the black pepper crab and the lesser known steamed crab in herbal sauce since they’re all equally inexpensive.

If that isn’t enough for your raging appetite, it’s time to bring out the dish we all flock to the Restoran for – the tantalising lobster salad (RM70).

You’ll need to preorder the salad by calling the restaurant (0207-826-3555) at least a day ahead because much preparation goes into the dish. The care that goes into cooking the 2 lobsters, shelling the meat and weighing out the fruits and mayonnaise is obvious when you’ve had the opportunity to savour the succulent lobster.

While the mayonnaise was a smidgen too much for me, my dinner companions wolfed down the entire plate of salad; paying no attention to whether they were chomping on cool cubes of apples, cucumbers, pineapples or the chunks of lobsters.

In contrast to the cold dish is the piping hot baked lobster that is geared towards debunking the myth that if seafood isn’t steamed, it isn’t fresh.

The batter that coats the lobsters (6 good-sized lobsters for RM85) makes the lobster crisp so you can chow down on the lobster legs (it’s not creepy, it’s delicious!) and helps the flesh retain all its sweet juices.

It’s a noisy dish to have, with all that slurping and crunching but one that you cannot miss out on.

The service at Good Luck isn’t air-conditioning units should have replaced the ancient ceiling fans long ago but it doesn’t matter that they almost served the lobster salad to the wrong table or that it took awhile for the food to arrive because the relaxed atmosphere and sincere apologies remind you of the quirks that make up the kampong [village in Malay language] charm.

Besides, there’s no need to ask for more when the entire seafood pig-out costs less than half of what it would cost in Singapore.

The Morning After

After a night of gastronomic indulgence, a light breakfast is called for. Just across Let Seng Hotel and in front of a coffeeshop stands a lady in her 50s with a huge, industrial steamer. She’s standing next to a red bucket and has hands that no longer shirk from the billowing steam.

Every day, from 6am to 11am, the lady pours and spreads the batter onto the steamer with her bare hands and sprinkles prawns and char siew (sweet roasted pork) with abandon onto the almost-cooked batter and slams the lid shut.

A few seconds later, she whips the dome-shaped stainless steel cover off and flings the cheesecloth holding the batter onto a board coated with oil. Using spatulas, she deftly fashions the paper-thin chee cheong fun (steamed rice sheets) into rolls before drizzling aromatic soy sauce and tossing on fried onions.

Some might choose to take the bits of onions off but the flavoursome, crispy fried onions sit nicely with the chee cheong fun, providing a lovely contrast to the translucent rolls and tender prawns.

The breakfast staple costs RM3 for 4 rolls (2 prawns and 2 char siew) and that’s not expensive considering the large serving and the many luscious prawns.

Unlike the hard and sometimes rubbery ones that you get in Singapore, the chee cheong fun here is delightfully soft and even after the long boat ride home, it keeps its shape and refuses to shrivel up or harden.

The Road Home

Once you’re done with the wholesome breakfast, grab a taxi to the jetty and a bumboat back to Singapore for just RM11.

In an effort to distract yourself from the choppy ride back, you’ll reflect that while Pengerang isn’t dotted with megamalls or high-end restaurants, it has an abundance of friendly faces and a kind generosity that’s untouched by rapid modernisation.

The bucolic kampong feel makes for a perfect accompaniment to simple yet fulfilling meals. With such magnetism, stormy seas will not stand in the way of your returning to Paradise Pengerang.

Address:

Good Luck Seafood Restoran

No. 86 Jalan Telok Ramunia, Sungei Rengit

81620 Pengerang, Johor

Tel: 0207-826-3555

Opening hours: 5pm 12am every day