Food Glorious Food.

Steamboat – or the tale of two drunken diners.
Saturday night came around and we felt the need to celebrate, after much nonsense talk of hitting Nav’s or Goats or maybe the Boch, (Blenheim’s Nightclubs) we decided on having a Steamboat meal, a Chinese/Thai meal involving the cooking of many different types of food on your table, you have your own little burner, a huge platter of fish meat seafood, shellfish, vegies, and odd mushroom variety’s even seaweed, once its all cooked and eaten you are then supposed to drink the wonderful broth that has been formed in the special divided pan it is all cooked in, one half had plain chicken stock and the other a hot spicy Tom Yum Thai soup- I used that one.
Sounded like a great idea, so we dressed up a little, had a couple of rums, and caught the shuttle to the Oriental Pearl Restaurant. Why oh why, did we decide then to stop off and enjoy a few happy hour cocktails; Pina Colada is so yummy, we were having a fun time! Joyfully we tripped to the Oriental Pearl, ordered our steamboat, which takes quite a while, now what possessed us to have a nice glass of wine while we waited!
Thoroughly three sheets in the wind, we manfully attempted to make a start on the truly delicious food, using chopsticks for a short time before we resorted to the ladles! We munched our way through the mainly lovely tasting goodies we managed to fish out of the boiling steamboat pan, slopping quite a bit all around the table. Little Chinese were asking if everything was ok? Wonderful thanks we trilled! Tossing, a shrimp and catching it deftly, sort of.
Suddenly we looked at each other and realized that one more mouthful may have us bringing up the lot. Safe to say by now we had the full compliment of sheets billowing in the wind. I airily told the little Chinese to take the steamboat away to the kitchen and let all the staff enjoy it – we only got about halfway through and certainly never even tasted the delicious soupy broth, they said yes they would all eat it up it wouldn’t be wasted. Then, while we were almost incoherent, it was give our chalet number for them to charge the meal against- it was such a hard number to remember 4137 I do believe we gave them every combination of those numbers plus a few others, before we waved the room key at them, held on to one another and staggered out, poured ourselves into the shuttle and entertained the driver all the way to our chalet where we fell on the bed and watched the room go around and around. Taxi drivers that hardly drink should never go out celebrating!
Oh Yes; I told the Oriental Pearl I would rate their performance on the Internet, I can safely say their steamboat is very good – I think! Sure wasn’t expensive thank goodness.
We were awaken an hour or so later, the phone rang and a little Chinese voice said ‘ah so that is your room number.’ And hung up, THE CHEEK OF THEM!
Tiger Prawns or the most expensive meal we have ever eaten.
Several days later the money was still holding out ok so instead of eating at the Food Court we drove into a tiny fishing village to look out a restaurant of some kind, and found it. Virtually just a shack made of three sheets of corrugated iron, on the side of the road, we were seated out under the pretty red bougainvillea and we ordered Tiger Prawns or rather I did, Erle went for a whole snapper. The man asked how many Tiger Prawns I would like and I said oh two or three I might share them with Erle, I wondered why he was rubbing his hands together happily. And No we would not like any drinks thankyou!
Very shortly out came the man staggering under a huge platter holding 3 massive monsters of the deep, pick of the catch, Tiger Prawns that were about 18 inches long and 3 inches thick looking more like lobsters than shrimps. (Then again with a large snapper cooked just right.) Good job I was really hungry. They were perfectly cooked as I asked; deep fried in batter with garlic, the batter was full of slithers of garlic and tasted wondrous as did the tiger prawns, ofcause I shared with Erle as he shared his snapper and all the vegetables and fried rice we had ordered too. Took us a long time to get through it all but get through it we did.
We decided it was the most delicious meal we have ever eaten, then the bill came RM$214 .00 = NZ$107.00 like WOW. I paid; thankfully we did have enough – just! So now its back to the Food Court again! We always order and pay for breakfasts when we book our accommodation so we were never in any danger of starvation, the breakfast buffet was also the best I have come across, and I have come across many really good breakfast buffets.
Oh Yes the rating for Simi’s Outdoor Seafood restaurant; not withstanding that he could see a ‘very rich tourist ‘ coming, and he knows how to charge like a wounded bull, we have got to rate it the top meal we have eaten in years, very well cooked nicely served in nice a outdoor setting on a lovely evening, we didn’t regret the huge bill and I would go back again. Top notch Rating.
Um I have been asked whether Erle might have had his credit card with him since I had left mine at home, well Erle has not got a credit card and never has had, so yes we could have been in deep do-do. Was only by being careful and spending wisely except for the tiger prawns!, and being lucky, that we managed. But it will never happen again, I try to learn the first time.