Budget constrained fish meal@Fatty Tiger Restaurant, Puchong
Demona: The images of rows and rows of fishes on this gigantic banner hanging outside the restaurant was definitely an eye catcher to anyone who passes by. So much so that even if you were standing on the other end of the lot, you could still faintly see it.
However, it wasn’t the fishes which caught much of our attention. Instead, it was the two digit number that was printed next to the fishes, the beautiful number of 1 2 and the two alphabets before them, R M.
RM 12/ one full fish woey.!?
We could hardly believe our eyes. Well at least, for KL’s price of fishes, that is.
Demona: Fatty Tiger was fairly packed, so we proceeded upstairs. Biz looked good for the taukehs here as several tables were occupied upstairs as well. The menu boasts of a huge range of river rishes, which a frog-under-the-coconut-shell person like myself, wouldn’t know how to differentiate except some obvious difference in shapes and sizes between the several few.
Some fishes had golden bar price tags, potentially costing a mere fish head alone to be several hundred bucks (WOW!)
We hunted for the RM12/fish but couldn’t spot it on the menu. The waitress came up and explained to us that there was such a fish at such a price. These particular riverfishes are reared by the taukeh and sold at a real good deal price, and they do not make much profit out of this. Instead, their profit targets are more on the higher end river rishes eg: the golden price tag fishes.
Demona: Poor RM 12 river fish, you. Fed to the right size, and scooped right out of its pond and in it went, into a pack of ice, waiting to be served fresh to the next customer…… US.
Demona: Sorry, fishy fish. You were the chosen one to serve us. Cooked assam nyonya style. Initially, the sauce was really spicy and sour, yet at the end palate, the sweetness of the pineapples showed up. The fish meat was fairly fresh. We had this fish, cooked plain steamed before, and my gf who joined in the dinner mentioned that there was a slight muddy taste to it but thankfully, wasn’t obvious enough to put you off eating it further. With the assam nyonya paste, the mud taste was of course, covered.
Anyhow, in usual circumstances, almost all self reared riverfishes couldn’t run too far from having the distinct muddy taste to their meat as they have less room to freely swim about, unlike their wild river fish brothers.
Demona: Dogma ordered a Dried Chillis Fried Chicken rice to eat along with the fish. The chicken meat was quite tender, with a nice fragrant aroma of ginger, onions and dried chillies absorbed into the meat. Deliciouso! As for me, the usual rice skipper…. I also stole half of Dogma’s chicken slices away. Grrrrrrrrrr.
I’m guessing the owner will shake his head whenever he sees people like us coming in, as we chose the cheapes fish, and ate the least (some more share meal!). If there are more of us diners coming in, the restaurant’s profit margin’s going to decline drastically.
On the contrary, the owner came up to us instead, with a big sincere smile, explaining to us about the fish which we ate, as well as the other fishes that he was selling, and even brought those expensive dead fishes on a tray, just to show us. He did subtly mentioned that the profit earnings for the RM12/fish was not much but that did not affect him severely as this strategy also earned him more happy return customers who potentially have golden goose pockets, and willing to explore more than just the RM12/fish deal.
This is one restaurant that we shall always come to whenever we feel like having good olde’ fish meat to eat and not having to burn our wallets too much.