The big Honchos, Kota Bahru

When one is in Kota Bahru, there's 2 restaurants purportedly so famous that if you didn't try the food there, your trip was deemed incomplete. Or so I was told.
Diha, being the efficient hostess that she was, managed to slot in both Hover and Yati's to ensure we didn't miss the local favourites.
We tried Hover first, for an extremely late lunch..

Hover was buzzing with activities- waiters running about with plates of dishes, rice or drinks. I was interested with the array of dishes placed at the entrance, and wanted to start ordering but the waiter kept insisted that we should Duduk, duduk, duduk! (sit!)

Erm, okay...

And so we sat. It took them about 10 mins to start serving...and serving they did. Hover's style was to place as much dishes they could on our tables until we had to stop them. And they were not bothered if we wanted the dish or not. If we didn't eat it, then it's considered not sold. Hmmm, means I've got recycled dishes brought over from other tables?? ._."

The must try was the ayam kampung while the rest are nasi sumatra dishes. The chicken was too salty and sligthly dry, so it was not fantastic. The daging dendeng was mediocre, while the gulai ikan tongkol was too fishy. The pickled whole garlic was interesting, but not good enough draw to make Hover a fantastic meal. Overall was an average experience.

Yati was our last lunch before we left Kelantan..I only had one aim- to try the ayam percik. Diha can choose whatever she like for me to try :). There's no way you could miss Yati, the whole road looked foggy- came from the smoke while grilling the ayam percik.

We got some ikan sumbat (stuffed fish) and salted eggs..

Really cute way of preparing ikan sumbat, they didnt really stuff the fish- the fish was minced and mixed with desiccated coconut and herbs before reshaping it to fish shape and deep fried. Quite tasty, the flavour reminds me of satar.
The itik serati was a first for meNever had a Malay duck dish before, this dish was a pleasant surprise. Rich in spices, the duck was tender and had soaked in the flavours of the spices; this goes very nicely with white rice.

Diha loved the clams in sweet spicy sauce. It reminds me of typical chinese style cooking, a thick sauce version.

The piece de resistance..

Although the chicken was grilled until it's slightly smoky and dried, but the meat was very juicy, fork tender and well marinated. The creamy, sweetish coconut sauce was a delicious complement to the nicely charred chicken. Yati got my vote :p

Restoran Hover is located at 1963-A, Jalan Dato Pati, Kota Bharu, Kelantan
Yati Ayam Percik is located at 847, Jalan Long Yunus, 15200 Kota Bharu, Kelantan.