JB Attractions –Seafood Dinner on stilts (Malay aborigine’s style)

JB Attractions –Seafood Dinner on stilts (Malay aborigine’s style) 

Johor Bahru started as a fishing village years ago and some of the Malay aborigine group had since built their homes near the waters. To keep their fishes fresh, after catching them from the waters, they arehoused in Kelong.  

Kelong is floating wooden house with platforms of wooden planks, making out square opening in the water, lined with fishing net under the water. The caught fishes are then kept in these square openings. Different species in different square opening. As and when the fisherman wants to sell or cook the fishes, he will pull the fishing net under the water up, this will reduce the swimming space in water and when shallow enough, you see the fishes jumping in the air fighting for water space. This way, the fisherman can relax and take his time to choose his fish. 

 Of course, they are not all fishes. I have seen prawns, lobsters, crabs and shellfishes in these kelongs too.  On average, each kelong has about 5 to 10 square housing of sea creatures.  

As kelong keeps fish at their freshest, seafood restaurants begin to spring up near kelong, by the waters. In order to build their restaurant as close to their kelong as possible without heavy duty renovation, they did it the aborigines way – that is building restaurants like how they build their house. Their house are on strong wooden stilts, so is these seafood restaurants.  

Some restaurants house their fishes provided by kelong in fish tanks as showcase to guests and you can pick and choose your fresh seafood from those tanks. You will be amazed by the variety of seafood, from fish, crab, lobster, abalones, prawns, crayfish to shellfish such as bamboo clam, la-la, chu-chu, gong-gongetc. The last 3 are not accidental typing. They are real seafood names known locally. Check with our friendly driver to point them out to you at the restaurant! 

Some restaurants who own their own kelong build a showcase kelong right next to their seafront restaurant. You can walk down the wooden platform to the kelong and enjoy your first kelong experience! It is really fun to visit your dinner ingredients’ living environment! Note that there is nosafety barricade around kelong, so small kids need to be companied by adults.  

When I was young (again – those were the times you enjoy the most isn’t it?), I remember we almost have weekly kelong seafood dinner at Pasir Puteh. It is aptly term by my younger brother as JurassicPark as we had to drive through a golf course. As we were driving through, a helicopter landed on the golf course and he shouted ‘Jurassic Park’! Just imagine amongst a green lush of expansive golf course, background with palm tree and jungle, suddenly a helicopter landing? Ain’t it a scene out of Jurassic Park! The adult name to this place is called aborigines’ village or Orang Asli village. Orang Asli is the aborigine’s tribe occupying that area. It takes about 1.5hours drive from JB custom to reach there. Because it is so secluded, its seafood dinner is fresh as we can get and cheap in comparison to elsewhere. It is so far from JB town that our mobile signal swapped to Singapore’s provider. Just right opposite is Singapore that you are looking at, probably some vegetation in Sembawang. But that was again years ago. Last heard, this little gem has become very commercialized and so had the Singapore side. Another famous place to go for this experience is at Kukup, which is about 1.5hours drive from JB custom. For that place, it is better to do a half day trip.

Oh before I forget, I like to share about my kelong experience at Jurassic Park. As I said, we go there so often, the kelong is like a playground to me and my cousins. We will run down to the kelong with ourparents. They do the serious adult choosing and bargaining of seafood while we play. If you look down into the square opening of net, you cannot see the sea creature because they are often deep in the net,maybe 5 to 8 metres below water surface. In order to see them, we did what the fisherman did – pulling the net up. Wahaha.. We are like terror monsters, pulling up the nets we are curious about. In one square opening of net, we saw some spikes poking out of the sea water. ‘Hhmm, what is this?’ our curious mind asks. Naughty is our hands that cannot help it but grab the spike to pull out the mysterious sea creature. Lo and behold – it’s a massive lobster! Bigger than the usual ones we see housed in fish tank. When we pull it in the air, it wags its tail. To put it back, we ain’t gentle of all. We threw it in! So everyone of us tried to have a go at grabbing these poor lobsters, disturbing their late afternoon sleep.  

Usually by the time we finish dinner, the sky is getting dark. That did not keep us from playing at the kelong. There was once we went to the kelong after it was dark, real dark. We saw in one square opening little dots of glowing balls. It is amazing! Utterly amazing to a bunch of 13 years olds. We kneel down and trying to see what creature that was, but it was way too dark to make out. We related this strange observation to my daddy (probably your driver) and he said they were prawns. Are they really prawns or some planktons we are not sure. But it is our mysterious encounter with this scattered glow-in-the-dark dots. 

As a tourist to Johor Bahru, there are some kelong restaurants nearer to town which I highly recommend - experiencing your first seafood dinner on stilts (Malay aborigines’ style). You are rest assured that our friendly driver will assist with the ordering of food. And as a disclaimer, we have no link or interest in any of these seafood restaurants, so we won’t unnecessary over-order. This is not our style. You can be assured.  

The first time I brought my husband for a day trip in JB, I brought him to a kelong seafood dinner. During our December holiday in 2002, we arranged a day trip to JB. Supposed to go with 2 other friends, butthey fly aeroplane last minute, leaving us to go on a date ourselves. The kelong seafood dinner was at Permas Jaya, around 20mins from JB custom. Of course, he performed very well. He peeled the first prawn for me! I was sold! Hehe.. So sweet right? And till date, he continues to be peel prawn for meduring seafood dinner! *love seafood dinner

Anyways, back to your seafood dinner experience. You should try it!