New Kukup Restaurant

New Kukup Restaurant is one of the seatown's oldest establishments.

This is the first seafood restaurant in Kukup Laut, the row of shophouses which is built on the sea in the district of Pontian, Johor. We would not have eaten here if not for the lady owner whom we interviewed for a book we're working on. She was quite insistent that we have a meal at her place, and so, that first day, we put ourselves into her hands and she served up some real good seafood.

She started us with the chilli clams. Folks in Pontian like this sweet chilli-based sauce. I found it pretty yummy with the clams and it went perfectly with the fluffy white rice.

Chilli clams (lala).

Next came the very fragrant crayfish, in a waft of steam and pepper. These flat prawn-family critters don't have very much meat on them. They look big, but there's very little eating to them. The market price per kilo is RM64. With most of that being shell, it's not a great investment. Also, the style it was prepared in made the meat a little too tough, although the mixture was really fragrant, with black pepper and salt and spring onions.

Deep-fried crayfish in pepper.

More shellfish came in the way of the Nestum prawns. These were absolutely delicious.  Deep fried with a coating of batter and Nestum, the prawns came out smelling so sweet that the mouth just waters at the scent. This dish did not suffer from the overcooking of the crayfish, and so it was a joy to rip off the shells and bite into a succulent, briny sweet prawn.

Fried Nestum prawns.

The crabs were her piece de resistance. A specialty of the restaurant, these salted egg crabs were amazing. Quite the best I have eaten. Usually presented quite dry, the dish here is moist, with lots of crumbed salted egg bits sticking to the crabs. The flavour is rich and intense. Salty, peppery from the curry leaves and dried chillis, and sweet from the moist flesh of the crabs. It was a shocker to learn that six salted eggs go into a plate of this size! That's a lot of cholesterol, but a lot of flavour too!

Salted egg crab was the bomb!

We rued our late lunch as it was so salty it quite dehydrated us when we were in the mangroves photographing. Kit lamented the lack of vegetables in our meal, but we decided that it was because the lady boss was insistent of showcasing her best wares.

Ong Mei Ling, the owner and second generation of this restaurant refused to take a sen for our lunch, which was no doubt quite pricey. So of course I made sure we returned for another meal. One which I paid for.

That happened the next day, after a bumpy boat ride into the Straits of Malacca, a visit to a charcoal factory and a dead end to hoped for meeting with the indigenous people of the area.

With a party of six, there were more people to share more food. As such we were able to try a bit more variety, beginning with a yummy fried rice with seafood which cost RM9 for the portion.

Seafood fried rice.

I made certain greens were on the menu this time, so we had kangkong belacan at RM10 a portion. The belacan (dried shrimp paste) is made from prawns caught around the area, so it was fresh and pletiful.

Kangkong belacan.

The pea sprouts (dao miu) in garlic was the opposite of the fiery belacan, and made for a greeny, raw lift to the meal. It was also RM10 for the portion.

Pea sprouts with garlic and onion.

The large fish in sweet and sour style was RM37 and very yummy. Fried just right, the skin was crunchy, while the flesh was still white and tender, full of bite and sea freshness. The fish comes from one of the many fish breeders in the area, so was also local produce, by my standards.

Sweet sour fish.

Mei Ling suggested the Creamer Prawns which she said was a creation of her sister's who went to eat a KL restaurant four times to get the flavours down pat so she could replicate it in New Kukup. It was sinful. Sweet, tangy, creamy, delicious, it was a helping of steamy goodness which came with a plate of fried buns. The prawns were RM36, the buns RM5 and I would eat the combination again in a jiffy. I can smell that good, rich fragrance as I write and remember!

Creamer prawns.

Fried buns to soak up that amazing prawn gravy with.

We also had the kam heong clams. 'Kam' means 'gold', after the yellow of the turmeric (kunyit) used in the mix. 'Heong' means 'fragrance' which comes from the combination of pounded, dried shrimps, chillie, ginger and other spices. The clams were plump and succulent and were completely enjoyable for RM20 a helping.

We had the signature chilled lime juice to drink. The salty sour drink is RM2 a glass and quite refreshing. Along with the wet towels, the meal came to RM146. It was a happy parting of cash from this writer!

New Kukup Restaurant
1 Kukup Laut
83200 Pontian
Johor
Tel: +607 696 0216