Gertak Sanggul Tua Pek Kong Seafood (美湖大伯公海鲜) is a popular 15-year-old seafood eatery helmed by the articulate, super-efficient Hakka owner-chef, Evon Chin.
The rustic, tin-roofed eatery has a beach-front setting, right next to a Tua Pek Kong Taoist shrine which lends the restaurant its name.
Fishing boats are berthed nearby. Gertak Sanggul has a largely Hokkien and Hakka fisherfolk community. As a result of its location right smack in the middle of a fishing village, the eatery boasts of the freshest selection of seafood possible.
Our lunch consisted of:
- Boiled baby octopus tentacles, lightly salted and drizzled with garlic oil. Perfectly-cooked, with a toothsome texture.
- Chili crabs, served with steamed mantou buns. This is the light, tomatoey-sweetish version which is close to Singapore-style chili crabs, not the strong-flavored “kam heong” version which Kuala Lumpur folks like.
- Steamed sting-ray fins, drizzled with light soy sauce and garlic oil. Again, the dish was seasoned as lightly as possible, to let the freshness of the seafood to shine through. Best rendition of this dish I’d ever had - the delicate, sweet, moist meat was an absolute delight.
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Stir-fried “la la” clams with fermented brown soy beans, ginger and garlic. The seasoning was subtle, and complemented the sweetness of the clam-meat perfectly.
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Steamed mantis shrimps - this is another dish given the barest hint of seasoning: Chinese wine (?), sesame oil (?) - barely detectable, but there to give the shellfish meat the gentlest lift in flavor.
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Soy-caramel prawns - a Cantonese classic and executed very well here. Best-tasting dish for this lunch.
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Stir-fried green dragon vegetable & beansprouts in garlic oil and soy sauce.
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Mee Udang - noodles in a prawn-flavoured gravy, garnished with shrimps, fried tofu, hard-boiled egg, slivers of fresh tomatoes and Chinese lettuce leaves. Unfortunately, the version here is quite bland, and not as strong-flavoured as the famous Malay ones.
Except for the last dish, the others were some of the best seafood we’d tasted in Penang.
Address
Gertak Sanggul Tua Pek Kong Seafood (美湖大伯公海鲜)
Gertak Sanggul, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +6016-433 0077
Operating hours: 1pm to 9pm daily, except Wednesday.
— he used to go to the docks at the crack of dawn to buy them off the boats, before restaurant buyers cleaned out the whole catch!
