Seafood at Miri town

Miri was a stop over before we flew to Mulu.

A quiet town, it was quite easy to explore this town was by foot. As Bollywood Queen did a last minute cancellation to join us, we didn't really know what's good in Miri..so we followed the easy rule to find a good makan..walk around and see where's crowded :p

The first dinner place came about when I was in my hotel room and I took a look at the hotel's surrounding. I noticed that this restaurant has customers trickling in at 5pm. Food should be good ;p

So we popped by Shanghai Seafood centre..

We were recommended to try the '3 types vegetables' (RM10)

I had the impression it'll be like the '4 heavenly kings' sort of dish, but to my surprise it came in 3 sections- bidin ccoked in thai sauce, stir fried vermicelli in some local veg and stir fried cassava leaves with egg. A nice variety to try, but I thought the bidin sauce was too sweet. The stir fried cassava was top notch, the wok hei was fantastic for this dish.

Since it's a 'Seafood centre', we had to order some right?

Had the steam prawns (RM14)

Oversteamed. Such a waste. Rather ex too for 7 midsized prawns...

Since many tables had crabs, we decided to order 1 each :p

Cooked in their sambal, sweet spicy sauce, the crabs were so fresh and sweet. The springy flesh goes very well with the thick, spicy sauce. The sauce was extremely addictive- had hints of sour plum sauce too- was somewhat different from those I've tried in Peninsular. And the happiest part of this meal? This big plate of crabs only costs us RM14 :D

Our second dinner was chosen as the restaurant was really packed with customers..

Located in the city centre, Meng Chai is hard to miss during dinner time.

We chose the seafood from the front counter and asked for some recommendations..

But it was ultra busy, the lady didn't have time to recommend much :(

We ordered some veggies while waiting for the seafood..

Local bidin with stir fried with belacan..

This was way better than Shanghai Seafood's version in thai sauce.

We still liked a portion of the cassava leaves stir fried with egg..

Pretty good but not as delicious compared to Shanghai Seafood's.

We asked for some mantis prawns and squids cooked in belacan (RM20)

A large portion given the fact that the mantis prawns had been shelled. The flavour was just ok, there was not much spiciness or pungentness of sambal belacan.

Every table had a large plate of foiled dish..And we got ours too..Giant river prawns cooked in chinese wine (RM28 for 2 prawns). The river prawns here are humongous, it's head was the size of my fist. The wine was strong but aromatic, the prawns was ultra fresh, the flesh was very bouncy and the thick roe melted into the sauce perfectly. So very unforgettably scrumptious, you must order this if you're at Meng Chai's.

Shanghai Seafood Centre is located at 544, South Yu Seng Road, Miri, Sarawak.

Meng Chai Seafood is located at Jalan Merbau