On the waterfront, next to the fruit market, dried fish market and handicraft market is the "night market" which is basically like a big outdoor food court. We thought it would be fun to go there for NYE dinner.
There were also people grilling chicken wings, etc (you can see this in the background above). Unfortunately, if you look closely, none of the fish or seafood is on ice (and it was still 90 degrees outside with high humidity) and there were piles of fish and seafood that were precooked and sitting around for who knows how long which is what you would be served if you ordered something, which made us really uneasy. We felt much better about grilled seafood in this type of environment at a hawker area in Penang where all the fish/seafood was kept on ice and grilled to order. You could see nothing sitting around and it took like 20 minutes to get your order.
So, since it was NYE and many of the other places I had heard about were closed, we decided to get room service in the hotel again because the restaurant was having a big buffet dinner with mostly western options - it was packed full of locals though!
Crispy shrimp
Nasi Goreng (fried rice) with grilled chicken and fish crackers
I had ordered a fish dish, but the oxtail dish came instead but without the assam pedas and bitter bean fried rice... and then about 20 minutes later, it arrived as well...
Grilled fish with sambal - it was no (Old) Lai Huat in Singapore
And because it was new year's, we got some dessert:
Pandan coconut cheesecake with gula melaka (palm sugar from Malacca) and grated coconut
We were in bed by 9:30 or 10 (still a bit of jet lag and we're early birds now) so we missed the fireworks display that was going on over the water - we probably would have had a great view of it from our room. I remember waking up - it sounded like it was right outside but I didn't want to get out of bed!
