I always love all-you-can-eat steamboat buffet. It's like a unique hobby that I take pleasure in that I only partake rarely. It does come with a side effect thought. That is the feeling of regret and hating food after being stuffed like a stuffed toy.
So, my bro went to this Village BBQ place with a bunch of his friends two years back. One attractive thing about it is that they have this live prawn catching activity. You eat them fresh as how you caught them. My bro have told me about this a long time ago. I just kept it in my to do list till now.
Getting there is half the challenge. Using e-hailing services is cool but it would cost like 40 pieces of gold for the trip there. We didn't have our own mode of transport back then. Neither a donkey nor a horse.
Opportunity came and we finally have a way of getting there with the most comfortable means possible. Bro drove there after work. We arrived early and walked around to explore the place. The restaurant opens at 5pm. It was incredibly windy. It rained a short while after we arrived. We stormed the restaurant after and got a seat. We were the first to arrive.
We checked out the food that they have before going for our seat. They got huge clams, weird shaped white seashells, snail with weird giraffe pattern, normal clams, prawns and there's one cracked open with a chunk of flesh stuck to it. I'm excited to eat these weird animals.
After a few bites on their seafood, I've came to a conclusion that I only like the prawns thanks to their natural sweetness. The others tasted normal. It would be a huge upgrade to their tastes if they're cooked with ginger sauce or something. Boiling itself doesn't do justice to the potential that they have. My bro isn't exactly fond of seashells. There has been a news that someone got hospitalized for eating seashells that contain flesh-eating parasites. News like this really freaks people out. We ate some and I started to get sick of it. It tasted bland and not that tasty. It's better if it's cooked with spicy ginger sauce or something. Boiling and eating is only good for prawns and crabs. Speaking of crab, they're so small that it doesn't worth taking any. It's also dangerous for my tooth.
It was a non-stop mouth stuffing adventure. I ate more than I should. My bro gave up eating before me. The fruits were good. There's watermelon, guava and papaya. The ranking would go from watermelon to papaya and guava being third place because they're not sweet.
They also got this grill placed next to us to be shared with other customers. Because it was just me and my bro at that corner, we drag the grill thing closer to us so we don't have to get up if we want to smoke some skewers. The whole grill was just for us.
A couple suddenly came by and ask if we've done eating. We said yes and I proceeded to the counter to pay. It costed over 100 bucks for the two of us. I spent some time walking around trying to get my tummy feel better. As I walked, it gets harder. I'm bloated. Standing straight turns to be an impossible feat. I have a food baby. Is this how pregnant mother feels like? Bro went in a bakery across the road to check out some bread. I just walk around outside the shop regretting and trying to not die. It was late and bro had to go work tomorrow. So, we got into the car again and drove back. I kept quiet for the first few moments of the ride because the food baby is really doing something weird to me.
I burped little by little. With every burp, I released the horrendous souls of the weird animals that I ate. After a few burps, I felt better. I am no longer a bloated balloon. One thing for sure is that I've never exceeded my limit like this. Made me hate steamboat at that moment. I was at one of my weakest point of my life. A sniff of the smell of food would have destroyed me. You gotta be really careful with the water that you drink. The first few gulp is like Thai massage to your throat. Soothing and pleasant. Right until it reaches the stomach where all the mix of food is, that's when the bloating starts.
So, will I ever go back to this place again? The attraction being the live prawn catching is fun but it's extremely limited. It ended too quickly and the restaurant kinda being stingy with restocking the live prawns there. It was an eye-opening experience especially among kid. There's also unique seashells around with fun skewer grills to cook things up. Those are like the good points. Deducting the distance and the price which is over 100 pieces of gold for two person including tax... it's kinda not worth it in the end. Good experience though. At least there's some unique factors to it.
CONVERSATION