Melaka Trip Part 3: Seafood at Ikan Bakar Rose & Ali, Alai, Melaka

It was close to dinner time and we were hankering for some seafood. A suggestion to go to the Portuguese settlement for seafood was quickly refuted. Apparently there was a seafood place that is miles better in taste and price, located a little further out of town. With a few locals in tow, getting to the restaurant was a breeze, but I certainly would not have found this place without a GPS!

The restaurant is located in a food court-styled Medan Ikan Bakar, with various stalls displaying their catch to customers and a large tent to house up to about 200 customers. We were brought directly to store no. 7, Ikan Bakar Rose & Ali.

Ordering here is pretty fool proof. Choose from a variety of fresh seafood from their catch of the day, choose the style of cooking from the board and wait for the fish to be cooked to order. The shop owner was friendly and surprised us when she talked to us in Mandarin. There are plenty of sides to order and also nasi lemak in a basket for those who need their carbs. We went ahead with otak-otak to start with, some nasi lemak and kangkung belacan as sides. Otak-otak is a kind of fish paste mixed with spices, wrapped in banana leaf and then grilled over a fire. The otak-otak was fragrant and rather addictive. We finished them in record time, I barely managed to get a picture of the otak-otak.

! Addictive otak-otak

Kangkung belacan

Soon our seafood made its way to the table. We started off with the LaLa Goreng Halia, which I found to be rather disappointing. The addition of ingredients such as corn into the dish and also the fact that the majority of the clams were empty shells, proved to be a massive letdown.

Check out the picture; we haven't even started eating!

No matter, as the rest of our dishes were more hits than misses. Next up was the sotong goreng served with a sweet sauce ala Thai sweet chilli. The batter was light and crispy, and quite tempura-like. Thumbs up for this one.

We had two types of fish, ikan pari and siakap. The ikan pari was cooked goreng sambal style, deep-fried and topped with a sambal. The siakap was halved and cooked two ways; goreng ku! nyit and sweet sour. I found the piquant sweet & sour sauce to be a great complement to the fish. However, the almost undetectable kunyit didn't do much to distinguish the other portion of fish from a normal deep-fried fish.

Ikan pari (stingray)

Siakap goreng kunyit

Siakap sweet and sour

Business picked up considerably as we sat throughout the meal, the tent filling up as we reached the end of our meal. Clearly they are doing something right to bring in all these customers. Although not without fault, we felt that the seafood here represented top value for fresh seafood.

The tents started filling up as the night progressed

Service: Casual.

Price: I lost the bill along the way but it was very reasonable, about RM80 including drinks and sides.

Location: Ika! n Bakar Rose & Ali, No. 7, Crystal Bay, Sungai Punggur Alai, 75460 Melaka.

Tel: 019-6576068 (Rashidi)

GPS Coordinates: 2.173012, 102.31149

*This is a guest post by The Unc.