Harbour Steamboat

Another food expedition, this time in Sri Petaling for a steamy steamboat meal. Unfortunately, it's not the all-you-can-eat type, but a la carte steamboat. Hmm, maybe I should say it's fortunate instead of unfortunate. You know how bah the quality of buffet steamboat ingredients can be right? 'Fresh' out of the cans and whacked onto serving plates like outcomes of a factory mass producing food.

The interior of the place used to be available for patrons to scribble or leave their marks on the walls, which, looking at some photos from other blogs seem somewhat unhygienic and distasteful in certain ways. However, when we were there, 80% of the walls have been repainted, so no more 'graffiti'.

The girls

There is usually a long queue out at the entrance, but Grace has already made reservations (at 7pm) but knowing the level of punctuality of those girls, we arrived fashionably late (not). We had to wait out for a while for one of the tables to finish and cleared. But no harm done - we had the menu and after a heated debate finally made our choices - all while my stomach was growling.

Pork and beef slices. We decided to boil the pork slices until they are fully cooked as we are not going to take any risks whereas the beef slices only require 5-8 seconds dip in the boiling broth before consuming.

Oh yes, we decided to have the herbal soup broth for our steamboat. At first we weren't sure if we can have 2 choices of broth and a quick glance around the restaurant we decided it's not plausible. However, upon further investigation (admittedly, it was on blog entries, so it was a bit too late by then) you can actually ask for 2 different types of soup broths. Ah well.

Herbal soup broth contains corn, kei ci (wolfberries), Chinese red dates, and two extremely ginormous pieces of pork bones. No kidding.

Among other things, we also ordered enoki (straw mushrooms), sai yong choy (watercress), mushroom pork balls, sotong balls, glass noodles and goodness I can't remember what else. Blame it on the tummy that I neglected to take more pictures.

The mushroom pork balls are highly recommended by moi. Compact little pork balls, they are really juicy and sweet. Or at least something different from the usual fishball la.

Harbour also offers three different types of sauces/condiments for you to dip your balls in (wtf...urh..). Here you see the sambal heh bi (dried prawns chili), chili sauce and a sort of fermented bean paste (which tastes a lot like mustard to me). Eve-Lyn had the idea of mixing them all up together to create this unique tasting dip. Fantabulous! I also took the liberty to cut up some eye-popping hot cili padi from SP, neh, the very light green type that I so love.

Imagine uh, chopsticking (what? got a word called spooning, so much have a word for chop sticks loh) a particularly juicy piece of beef slice then dipping it into soy sauce which has absorbed the spiciness of the cili padi. Walao! The perfect combo.

Actually hor, if got tu tor (pig's stomach) with the soy sauce and cili padi then it shall be a more perfect-er combo loh.

Which reminds me - apparently Harbour also offers pork liver which you can medium-cook and have them all bloody and chewy and gross. Ugh. Better not let Mr-I-become-a-black-hole-when-I-see-spare-parts see this.

Bill came to about RM18 or so for the five of us. Which I think is a great value for the quality of the ingredients served. Plus, the place is air-conditioned so it's a great place for first dates where you get to look all clean and fresh after a heavy duty session of steamboat without having your mascara melt and eyelash lopsided aye ;)

Harbour Steamboat Restaurant
No. 19, Ground Floor,
Jalan 13/149L,
Seri Petaling,
57000 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-90594353

Open from 6pm-11pm