Ikan Bakar Tampin (Johor Bahru）

[JB, MALAYSIA] If you like your spice and your seafood, this is really one place you need to go in JB. We ate so much and yet only spent about $15 a person! Food was absolutely delicious as well 😍

Everything was cooked on a banana leaf, which really alleviated their flavours. Their Sambal Stingray came in a huge generous portion (in fact we got 2 plates of this size) and it was meaty and perfect with their homemade sweet and savoury sambal. Everyone attacked the dish so fast and it got devoured very quickly!

Even if you don't take spice, their Salted Egg Prawns are pretty fantastic as well. The sauce was so rich and full of umami that we had to scoop every drop of it into our rice! The prawns themselves were very meaty and pretty huge. The only downside was that it was not cooked in the sauce for long, so the salted egg flavour did not penetrate the prawns.

Vegetables are needed for every meal 😂 and Sambal Kang Kong was one of the best renditions I've had. Crunchy fresh stalks were well coated with their sambal, which did not have too much heat but the shrimp umami flavours came out strongly. Absolutely delicious!

Both the Sambal Sotong and Otah we ordered were good as well, with the Sotong being very bouncy and not hard, and the Otah having loads of fish meat within.

Finally, as for the carbs, they offer Seafood Mee Goreng which was pretty splendid. With a sweet and savoury base, the noodles were stir fried very well and remained rather al dente. Although there was no wok hei present, it was still very tasty and we cleared it up quickly too!

The total bill was about RM300 which was really affordable for 6 people considering the amount of seafood we ate. Do expect queues and a waiting time of about an hour during peak timings!

I am back here again in less than a month. This is now my go-to place for BBQ seafood in JB. Tried the salted egg prawns previously and I loved it. Now I am having it together with squid to have the best of both in a dish. The grilled prawns were still as good and the sotong was cooked just right, chewy but not rubbery.

Prawn 》RM23
Squid 》RM29

Crunchy lady finger grilled with sambal 》RM10

After having so much seafood on the table, it's good to have some greens to go along. I like how my greens are even grilled over banana leaf which gives an additional smoky and earthy flavour 》RM10

This is one of the popular BBQ restaurants in JB where it gets really crowded on weekends (not sure about weekdays). I placed my orders at 9:30pm and waited for 1.5 hours for my food. They serve up a wide variety of fish, seafood and vegetables. Choices of fish range from groupers, pomfret, sea bass and stingrays. Other choices of seafood include crayfish, flower crab, clams, prawns, squid and otah. There is no menu over here. Ordering works by choosing our choice of seafood followed by how we want it to be cooked. Some recommended dishes shown on the wall are sambal sotong, white pepper crab, scallion broiled fish, sambal noodles, Portuguese fish, sambal stingray, salt-grilled crayfish and ginger scallion lala.

The salted egg prawns are nicely grilled and pair well with the creamy and savoury salted egg sauce. The ginger scallion lala was fragrant, slightly salty and paired better with rice. The salt-grilled crayfish was my favourite and I regretted not ordering more. It was plump and juicy while retaining the natural sweetness of the flesh. Very fresh and sweet. I also had the sambal stingray that came in a generous portion. The fish was fresh, moist and meaty and the sambal used was a little different but it tasted so good and spicy.

Salted Egg Prawns 》RM35
Ginger Scallion Lala 》RM17
Salt Grilled Crayfish 》RM30 (2pcs)
Sambal Stingray 》RM29