BIRTHDAY BASH AT BALI HAI RESTAURANT

Last night, a few close friends of mine celebrated my birthday with me at Bali Hai Restaurant, one of the leading seafood restaurants down at Penang’s famous seafront, Gurney Drive. There were 7 of us namely myself, Johnny, Jason, Kit, Sky, Adrian and Yuan. Initially, most of them do not know each other, but after a few introductions, they got accustomed to each other and the environment became more homely.

It was almost 10pm when everyone arrived. You can see through their faces that most of them skipped lunch knowing that this is going to be a seafood dinner. Haha…just joking guys! To start the dinner going, I ordered some Satays as the main appetizer. The Satays were big and succulent and the groundnut sauce was just perfect for everyone. They came with lots of cucumbers and onions. I was wondering why hardly anyone touches the onions. I guessed most of them are afraid to pollute the environment later on. Good and loyal citizens! Hahaha…

The first dish that came out was Deep Fried Spicy Sotong, nothing fanciful. They just dipped the squids into some spicy flour and deep fried it. Next that came along was Kerabu Cuttlefish, something that I will not recommend for those elderly people. It’s too tough for the teeth. I thought it was going to be fresh cuttlefish but it turned out to be some mixed pickle vegetables topped with some rounded cuttlefish cracker. I could say I wasn’t too impressed with that dish. Honeyed Sesame Chicken was next. Everyone was “ooo”ing and “ahh”ing over this dish. The chef coated the chicken slices with some kind of crunchy flour and sesame seed. They then stir-fried them with some honey paste. This dish is damn good.

Next on the list was Stir Fry Mixed Vegetable. This dish maybe rather pricey for some people, considering that it’s just some mixed vegetables. If you look closely at the ingredients, you will see that they have added in some slices of big clam, prawns and sea perch meats. Well, I won’t argue on the pricing as clam meats are rather pricey. While we were enjoying the food, the waiter brought out the Clay Pot Homemade Bean Curd. The “tofu” was real smooth and delicious. Combined with some vegetables, mushrooms, prawns, fish slices and the correct gravy, it’s the ideal dish to have with hot steaming rice.

They brought in the Pungent Balitong next. Balitong is actually a kind of shellfish that is sticks to the rocks. I was jokingly telling everyone that this dish is meant for “suckers”. Well, Sky was voted the “Best Sucker” of the night as I can see that he enjoyed the dish very much. The chef did a good job here by stirring the balitong with some curry leaves, dried shrimps and some nice spices. I would give a “thumbs-up” for this dish. To end the course, we were served with Fried Oysters. They marinated the oysters with some spices and fry them with eggs. At least the chef did a good job in getting rid of the fishy smell and sands in the oysters.

After the dinner, a few of them went to take some shots of the exotic sea creatures which we consider as food. The aquariums there exhibited some of the weirdest creatures I have ever seen. Jason did a good job in uploading all the photos in his blog. Maybe you guys would like to have a look at them. I was about to pay the bills when suddenly the waitress brought out a cake. I was so touch. Adrian bought the cake and did some personal decorations on it. The cake was delicious and not too sweet after all. Thanks Adrian for your wonderful cake!

We ended the dinner with Sky going to Mambo for another friend’s birthday party. The rest of us were indecisive on where to go next. Finally, we sat at the seafront, chit-chat for awhile and went home to our warm beds.