Kedai Makan Dahlia (Sedili)

After a rather stressful ride on some gnarly trails heading out from a beach campsite, I was eager for a nice and quick seafood lunch at Sedili, a tiny seaside hamlet north of Desaru in Johor. As luck would have it, probably half the state had decided to go to the same spot, so the famous fried seafood restaurants near the end of the fishermen's jetty were jam-packed full of diners with plenty more lined up outside waiting for a table. This solo rider does not wait. Heavy gray clouds were rolling in and I still had a few hours' riding left to get home. I decided to turn back and stopped by Kedai Makan Dahlia, a small restaurant in the middle of the village.

Unfortunately, most of the local traditional dishes had run out. No more grilled fish too, but there was a plate of fresh cockles waiting to be grilled. So I had that and a plate of rice with jackfruit cooked in a spicy turmeric sauce.

The jackfruit at Kedai Makan Dahlia was meaty and flavorful, having absorbed the peppery heat from the sauce. It's a traditional Malay dish that's usually overcooked, rendering the jackfruit a mushy mess but this place gets it right. The cockles were cooked just enough to avoid intestinal troubles later on. They remained juicy, thanks to them being wrapped in a piece of banana leaf. The sweet and spicy sauce helped to round out the iron flavours from the shellfish.

The friendly proprietor of Kedai Makan Dahlia also serves fried banana, plantains and prawn fritters after lunch, a good snacking option for the long journey back.