All we have again…

I went out for dinner with Huai Bin when he was home for a while and when I asked what he would like to have, he said that he wouldn’t mind having the creamy butter prawn balls that I took him for once and he enjoyed it a lot so we ended up here at this restaurant again and of course, we had the much coveted prawn dish…

Ming Mei Shi creamy butter prawn balls

The serving certainly seemed a lot bigger than when we had that the last time around and yes, they were as nice as ever. For the uninitiated, prawn balls are actually simply prawns with the shell removed and fried so they would curl up like balls – they are not anything like fish balls, not at all.

I did not want to order the usual stuff that I would usually have before so I asked them what new items they had on their menu and the lady suggested this claypot venison/deer meat…

Ming Mei Shi claypot venison

…and we were glad we ordered that as it was indeed very very nice. Normally, they would just fry the meat in soy sauce with lots of ginger and serve, often in a hot sizzling plate and I had never been a fan as to me, it did not taste any different from the rest like beef, for instance, as the flavour would have been drowned out by the ingredients used. This one was different – I could actually taste the venison and the gravy was really great and went so well with rice. I certainly would want to order this again the next time I drop by this place.

For our vegetable dish, we had their asparagus fried with canned topshells…

Ming Mei Shi fried asparagus

…and this too was very nicely done.

As for the soup, I ordered the Foochow chao cai (preserved vegetables) with fish soup…

Ming Mei Shi chao chai fish soup

…and I would declare that this was the best I have had anywhere in town! For the fish, they used tapah (wallagonia/boal) which certainly does not come cheap and it was so fresh and absolutely delicious…but if you’re having this, do watch out for the bones! Most places would just use the frozen fish fillet, dory, which is often jelly-like and absolutely bland or tasteless and some people even insist that it has an unpleasant smell. The soup was thick and flavourful and needless to say, this would go into my must-order list for my subsequent visits to this restaurant.

I would not say the dinner was cheap though – the bill came up to RM67.80, inclusive of rice and drinks, but for some reason or other, the lady boss just asked for RM67.50. However, we had prawns and the fish would be mighty expensive and asparagus do not come cheap here either…and the servings were huge enough for at least four people – we certainly had quite a bit of difficulty trying to finish everything, the two of us. I think if one goes in a group of 4 and order for 2, there would be enough to go round and at this price, it may be considered very cheap then. Still, considering that we enjoyed everything so much, I would say we did not regret picking this place to go for dinner that night and I, for one, would certainly want to go again…

By the way, if anyone is interested to dropping by this restaurant and still doesn’t know where it is located, you can find it in the Fortune Commercial Centre, among the shops behind the Rejang Medical Centre. Turn into the road between Mitsu Shabu Shabu and Loke Ming Yuen coffee shop, go past Sushi Tie (on your left) and Uncle Dom (on your right) to the small roundabout at the crossroads right ahead – Ming Mei Shi Seafood  Restaurant, that’s the name, is to the right in the corner of that next block of shops.