Cherating & Restaurant Tong Juan @ Kemaman Town

Cherating beach may not be the most beautiful beach in Malaysia but it still holds a little spark. It's one of the cleanest beach I would say. Cherating Beach is a laid back surf town, perfectly designed for people who want to take a break from hustle and bustle city and people who are stucked in 9 to 5 mundane work. Cherating exists longer than I know but over the recent years, it's fallen out of favour for some reason. Probably I'm the last person to visit Cherating but better be late than never. One of the turn-off about this place is, there are limited restaurants surrounding cherating. Unless you're too rich to spend big bucks on Club Med then you need not worry about everything.



Despite the turn-off, we had to drive out of Cherating to Terengganu for food. The first town that we encountered was Kemaman or also known as Chukai and it's located approximately 20km north of Cherating. Having tucked in a row of restaurants that serve stuffed crab, we patronized Tong Juan that was said to have served the best stuffed crab. Some said, they are the pioneer in stuffed crab. Or rather some said, Restaurant Malaysia is the pioneer. Who is?!

Sambal Sotong - RM20

Fried Chicken (Boneles) - RM20

Kangkung Belacan - RM10

Ginger Lala - RM16

The food were decent - nothing to shout about. I was quite disappointed with the impulsively expensive fried chicken that was apparently fare higher than lala. The batter was fried up to crispy and crunchy but the meat was depressingly dry. The lip-smacking sambal Paul was amazingly good and the dish was jazzed up by rich sambal paste. Kangkung belacan and ginger lala were just fine I would say.

Stuffed crab - RM8 each

Stuffed crab was also so-so. The crab shell was stuffed to the brim with flavorful combination of minced crab meat, onions, parsley, blanketed with a layer of doughy batter and deep fried to golden perfection. Served in piping hot, the dough was a tad oily but the fillings goes well with the condiment nonetheless.

The total bill came up to RM127 for 5 of us. Everything tastes good to Kim Leong partially due to the late lunch we had and hence "everything tastes good when you're effin hungry" kicked in. I would say it's a pricey lunch affair which doesn't warrant second visit.

K117, Jalan Sulaimani,

24000 Chukai/Kemaman

Terengganu