After a long break (to give way to the Fifa World Cup 2010), the Celibacy Club has been officially re-enacted last Friday. The destination this time was Sekinchan Ikan Bakar Restaurant. Though the name is Sekinchan which is a small town in the state of Sekangor, it's actually situated in Taman Setiawangsa, Ampang. The very crowded part of Taman Setiwangsa that is.
There are 2 ways to get to this place - either via the Middle Ring Road II or Jalan Jelatek, Ampang road. Since MRR2 is forever prone with traffic jam, I opted for the other route which is not that much of a difference as compared to the MRR2. After 40 mins battling with the traffic, we reached the place @ approximately 9 pm. As mentioned earlier, the restaurant is located at the busiest part of the area & looking for a parking spot that night was a real pain in the ass.
The crowd at the restaurant was reasonably huge as well. I'm quite sure it's due to the "promotions" they got from TV3 where they have been featured in the recent episode of the Jalan2 Cari Makan series last Sunday. It's a good thing that the restaurant is quite spacious to accommodate all its patrons comfortably.
Overall, in terms of restaurant's setup & facilities, theirs are not that bad. Apart from having the ample spaces, they also have this big screen TV & above all, while having their food customers will be entertained by the performance of their live band. It was a big restaurant with a number of counters - fresh seafood counter, BBQ counter, Ulam counter, nasi lemak counter& of course, the cashier counter.
In my honest opinion, the food is a bit too pricey - especially with their super-slow service. We ordered squids, fish & cockles which took them more than an hour to deliver. I guess that's where they got the name Sekinchan from. The time taken to prepare the food will be as tho they have to fetch the seafood all the way from Sekinchan it seems.
These drinks are called "Jumbo Juice" - RM8 each. Imagine, we started ordering @ 9.30 pm & we only got to eat close to 11 pm. Rather than having dinner, we've ended up with supper instead ~ big sigh ~. Another mistake we made (apart from choosing this particular restaurant to dine in), was to complain their slow service to the wrong person. There's this old chap aged somewhere late forties or maybe early fifties, who simply cant stop talking when the only thing we've asked was our food. This guy could talked & talked as if there's no tomorrow it seems. It was so bad that we have to avoid any eye contacts with him every time he passed by our table - coz once started, he could never stopped.
Basically, what they have here is plain rice or nasi lemak, paired with variety of grilled seafood. The nasi lemak was quite good actually especially with the sambal kerang ( or is it "rendang kerang" since there's stripes of daun kunyit in it). Unfortunately I've to give way to K.Mimi on the sambal kerang as there's only one portion left.
As for the seafood, this is what we took : ikan keli, squids & cockles. For these seafood, you'll have to personally handpick them from an array of seafood at the counter. There are varieties of seafood available, all the way from prawns, squids, fish, crabs, lala & cockles. Once you've made the selections, you'll be directed to the weighing counter where all the seafood will be weighed & priced. Then, just go back to your table & wait for at least 1 hour before you'll get re-united with your seafood !
All & all, it's place I dont think I would go for a second time. Firstly, the food is just not worth waiting for. It's not that great of a food & practically nothing to shout about. Secondly, I feel that it's a bit over-priced. Imagine, 2 medium sized squid can cost RM16 & 2 small sized catfish is priced at RM18.
With that amount of price & time of waiting, one might as well drive all the way to Umbai, Melaka for a much, much more satisfying seafood dish !
