Remember Port View Restaurant?

I HAVE a soft spot for seafood. Despite all the warnings about high cholesterol and all that. I would throw caution to the wind the moment I see delicacies like baked crabs or steamed lobsters on the table.

Many of us would recall with certain nostalgia the Port View Restaurant at the old jetty in Port Klang. The restaurant was my favourite before it was demolished for some unknown reasons.

It could not boast of five-star ambience. It was just an old colonial building with a wide veranda built on the jetty but the food was good.

The restaurant was sort of a landmark in the nondescript small town and I believe it was run by a Hainanese family.

It had a certain charm, especially at sunset, when the tide rose to cover the muddy seabed and a gentle breeze rocked those small sampans tied to wooden poles.

Port View was popular and it used to cater to seafood gourmets for generations before those open-air seafood stalls started mushrooming in the villages on the outskirts of Port Klang.

Friends recalled that their parents used to take them to the restaurant when they were still kids and later, it was their turn to take their children there for an evening of good food and a leisurely stroll on the jetty. It is such a pity that the younger generation is missing all these as what remains now are just fond memories locked away in the hazy past.

Since its demolition, I have been to other seafood restaurants elsewhere in Port Klang, Sepang, Kuala Selangor and beyond but they are never the same.

Their food is good, there is no quarrel about it. But in most cases, these are restaurants converted from village houses or makeshift buildings, some fronting busy roads while others swampy seafront.

Mostly, it is a case of don’t look up, don’t look down and don’t look into their kitchen; just eat, pay up and go. 

The ceiling could be covered with lizards hanging upside down having their dinner too. The floor could be strewn with food remnants, tissue paper and discarded drink packs. The toilet and kitchen? Well, I shall reserve my comments.

We Kuala Lumpur people still have this caveman instinct to hunt for food which outsiders find difficult to understand. It is the most popular pastime besides going to the shopping malls.

Call it escapism if you like but I must admit that food is also therapeutic.

We don’t mind driving to all the nooks and corners, with the family or friends in tow, looking for the best food, be it jibao gai (baked chicken wrapped in paper), hakyi gai (baked chicken wrapped in clay), lailiu har (a kind of crustacean that looks like a flattened scorpion) or fish-head curry.

I was once taken to a very popular open-air restaurant that simply called itself Under-the-Coconut-Tree. To reach that exotic eating place, one must drive through a kampung along winding dirt roads on the outskirt of a seaside town.

When we arrived there, it was lunch time and I was duly impressed by the number of luxury cars and MPVs parked there – an eloquent testimony of its popularity.

The food was good and the place offered lots of novelty dishes. But what struck me was the environment.

In between swatting mosquitoes and flies, I noticed there was also a big population of dogs and cats picking up food remnants from the floor.

It was facing a swampy seafront and I had a strong suspicion that some of the buildings were formerly part of a pig farm!

My friend, who was a regular there, in addition to the main dishes, also ordered four bottles of barley water and I thought this guy must have been told by his doctor to drink more barley water to cleanse his body system.

When the drinks came, they were in four two-litre plastic bottles and were off-white in colour. My friend chuckled and poured out a big glass for each of us. “It cools your system,” he said.

I took a gulp and was in for a big surprise as the “barley water” turned out to be toddy, a local brew made from coconut water!

Don’t ask me where the restaurant was as I was in quite a stupor after the meal.