(Old) Lai Huat Seafood Restaurant

My family has been going to Old Lai Huat Seafood Restaurant for their signature Sambal Pomfret ($38) since I was young. The deep fried pomfret is covered in a generous amount of fried belacan that is super fragrant and crispy. The chili is so good I can literally finish a bowl of rice just with it. Although it looks very intimidating, the spiciness is actually quite manageable. Fish wise, the deep fried pomfret is crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. The Deep Fried Baby Squid ($12) is pretty good too - it is sweet, tangy and crispy and I can’t stop popping them! To be honest, the signature sambal pomfret is probably quite unhealthy but I guess we all can indulge in a little guilty pleasure once in a while🙈

Ordered the Luo Han Guo drink as it’s labelled “Famous Luohan Longan” in the menu but it turned out to be a pre-packed one from a distributor so it’s definitely not brewed by the restaurant. I’ve had this Luo Han Guo drink at multiple restaurants before and it’s always consistently good. Not too bitter nor too sweet. The number of longans does tend to vary from cup to cup though - mine had only 3 halves but my mom’s cup had more than 10 but that’s a small matter. Would order this as a safe comfort drink at any restaurant that stocks this distributor!

Another one of the signature dishes here, the live prawns are super fresh, succulent and sweet. The soup is also incredible, it’s not too heavy on taste, but has a good amount of hua tiao wine to impart a pleasant aroma and reinvigorating taste! We finished all the soup because it was just too good to pass up!

Was initially going to order the sweet potato leaves but opted for this milder vegetable option as we already had a spicy sambal chilli dish (sambal pomfret). While this dish isn’t something to rave about, it was a good contrast to the strong flavours of the fish and mee goreng. The gravy was fragrant with minced garlic and not too salty. The cabbage, mushrooms plus carrots retained the taste of the yummy gravy pretty well. Once again this dish came with pork slices and crystal prawns - didn’t like the thick pork slices but the crystal prawns were good.

This isn’t one of their signature dishes and it’s probably the dish we least enjoyed from today’s dinner. While the bean curd skin is really crispy and crunchy when you bite into the prawn roll, the filling is on the soft mushy side. I prefer my prawn roll stuffings with a springy and bouncier texture, so this one fell short for me. Tastewise, maybe it was eclipsed by the sambal pomfret chilli, but I didn’t really taste much of the prawn roll. Resorted to dipping it into the sweet sauce. Wouldn’t order this again the next time round though.

This dish was amazing! Like wow. I can’t even begin to describe how mind blowing this was. I’ve never actually had sambal fish before apart from sambal stingray, and I’m pleased to find how much I like it! Old Lai Huat deep fries the fish to a crisp, and every part of the fish leaves a super satisfying crunch - from the fin tips, to the bones, to the head. Yet the meat remained tender and sweet. This was the first time our fish was picked completely clean - even the head (as we don’t usually eat that part)! The sambal isn’t too spicy nor salty, and it’s perfect to eat with plain white rice. Would love to da pao the sambal chilli if possible too 😂