Sunday, July 17, 2016

Smith Marine Floating Restaurant off Pulau Ubin, Singapore

Smith Marine Floating Restaurant

How cool is this place?? Allegedly Singapore's first floating restaurant, it's basically a local fish farm but with a restaurant attached. To get there, one grabs a private ferry from Changi Point Ferry Terminal for a short ride over to the kelong, which is just south of Pulau Ubin (01°23'52"N, 103°57'42"E, 9792-7609). That ferry isn't cheap at S$100 (US$74) round trip, but it also seats 12 people, so if you bring a big group along, then the transportation cost isn't that bad on a per person basis.

HK-style Red Snapper

Anyway, being on a fish farm means that you can also catch your own fish. The word "catch" is a bit of a stretch though, as they basically help you lower a baited line into one of the fish farm holding areas. Unlike my experiences with prawn fishing, I had a bite here in less than five seconds, quickly reeling up a red snapper. They immediately escorted you away from the fish ponds back to the restaurant for a photo; sure, it just an over-glorified version of scooping a net into a fish tank at any other seafood place on land. But I have to admit that it was kinda fun, and that "Hong Kong-style" cooking that they did with it hit the spot.

Gong Gong

Other items that we got included the gong gong above, as well as sambal sotong and a homemade tofu. But far and away the best thing we had was their lala bee hoon, whose moist rice noodles were infused with both the savory taste of the clams as well as a fragrant black pepper. We easily could have eaten many more orders of that dish alone. Too bad that they don't serve alcohol though; you can BYOB, but it must be consumed out on the planks along the side of the restaurant rather than indoors.

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