finally revealed!

as usual, i wont go home without anything in my hand.. been searching what to put inside the box since last thursday evening.. then i suddenly remembered that everywhere in Sandakan we can find cheap fresh seafood.. Sandakan has rich diversity of marine life with a large variety of seafood, most of which i rarely had before (because its very costly back here in KL).. The seafood is very fresh. The price are affordable and reasonable.. heaven for seafood lovers like me..

so, the time has come so lets me reveal what inside my polystyrene box even the Customs people at the airport cannot traced it..hehe
(consider myself as a smuggler) 

what inside this white polystyrene box???

I love fish, any kind of fish and of course king mackerel (Tenggiri) is always my all time favorite. unfortunately found none of it at the market.. so, i decided just to buy the red snapper since it looked very fresh and it has a great, firm texture and a sweet, nutty flavor..

2 red snappers appx 2kg each (Rm10/kg)

the flounder makes my mouth water just thinking about it! At any rate, flounder are one of my favorite fish.

2 flounders appx 1 kg each (Rm7/kg)

i always wanted ketam masak lemak cili padi dengan nenas all this year around.. i just cant get enough of it.. i suppose you can call it crabs cooked in spicy coconut gravy with pineapples. i like the surprise of cracking it's tough shell and see if i've hit the flesh jackpot.. for this time i managed to find some flower crabs instead of stone crabs which are more solid flesh and for a lack of a better word, are crunchier and more filling..

2kg of big fresh crabs (Rm10/kg)

a very best friend of mine text-ed me if there any calamari there in sandakan.. i said dont worry i'll find some for you..

1.5kg of big fresh calamaris (Rm15/kg)

there's nothing in this world can beat my mum's cooking especially when she cooks fish head curry! a signature of her own.. The texture of the flesh from the fish head is so smooth and surprisingly there was quite a lot of flesh to eat. As my sister did not like the idea of eating the head, my mum added fish fillet so that she can enjoy the dish as well. i love every single thing from the fish head except the eye balls..

i still remember when I was a child, my brother chased me around with a  fish head and he convinced me that the fish was going to eat me up! hahaha very funny...

a very delicious fish head curry cooked by my mum

fish head curry goes well with fried salted fish.. a very good combination. simply delicious.. these salted gelama fish were given by miss Zila all the way from Tawau.. so sedap!

fried salted gelama fish with big onions and cili padi

so there you go.. a hand carry box of almost 10kg! no wonder my arms feel so ache!!