The Kelong Restaurant (Bintan)

Went over to Bintan with her over the weekend [2days 1 night] =). Stayed at Nirwana Resort Hotel. Its called a resort for a reason. Food prices there are pretty expensive.. a meal there can set you back by SGD15 to 35 per person per meal. The Nirwana Resort Hotel has 3 restaurants located in the hotel, food there are similar no matter which restaurants you go to. Luckily for us, we decided to take the internal shuttle bus to The Kelong Restaurant. We actually took a long time to decide where to eat for dinner as the food in the hotel was lousy yet expensive.

Am blogging about this restaurant as it is a place with real good, fresh and cheap(compared to other restaurants) food.

Close up of the lamp

The Kelong Restaurant is set up on stilts in the sea. It has a open concept so that the breeze from the sea will blow in. Its a pity there was no breeze when we were there.

The Kelong Menu

Tom Yam Soup $14 (big bowl)

The waiter served the Tom Yam Soup for us into 2 smaller bowl, yet there was still half a bowl of soup (See picture above title :  Tom Yam Soup $14 (big bowl)) remaining filled with ingredients. This bowl of Tom Yam Soup was spicy yet sour.. totally my kind of tom yam soup. Surprisingly, inside there’s even about 4 pieces of flower crab! The flower crab was fresh, the meat did not stick to the shell and it was sweet. In addition, there are four pieces of prawns, squids, mushrooms, clams. These ingredients are all fresh and well cooked. The squid was not over cooked. The prawns were firm and v fresh! This bowl of tom yam soup is certainty much better than most in Singapore. Although we find it spicy, but its so good that you can’t stop drinking. Of course we ordered two bowl of steam rice.

Crispy Chicken (Half Portion) $13

Crispy Chicken. The chicken should be similar to that of a spring chicken. The skin is very crispy and its finger licking good. But certain parts might be abit dry. Still this dish was cooked much better than the crispy chickens from most wedding dinners.

Stewed Beancurd with Vegetable and Seafood $12

From the menu, we thought that this was a simple dish.. but when it came, I was WOW. Never did I expect so much. I have badly underestimated this dish. Besides vegetable, beancurd, mushroom and carrot, there was squid, 4 pieces of prawns (again) and even scallops. The prawns and squid were fresh as with the Tom Yam Soup. The surprise was really the scallops, hidden under the mushroom and carrots. The scallop was damn fresh!

Stirred Fried Prawns with Butter and Oats $22

The most expensive dish of the meal, took quite a long time to come. We did not know the previous 2 dishes will come with prawns too, hence the overdose of prawns =). Prawns were very fresh. But was disappointed that there was virtually no oats. Still a decent dish. But after the last 3 dishes which were fantastic and exceeded my expectations, this dish is definitely the worst dish when compared to the whole meal.

The Bill

The damage, total cost SGD76.23. The preferred choice of currency is Singapore Dollars.

I would say it was quite a worth while meal as it would cost the same eating elsewhere in Bintan and the food variety will be lesser and of worse quality. If you are going to Bintan, this place is highly recommended. Food quality wise it is very good. Although the place was crowded, there were many serving staff. The service there was very good, fast, prompt, friendly and polite. They are very approachable and will willingly take pictures for you or even teach you how to eat crabs (as we saw a waiter teaching 2 Koreans/Japanese how to eat crab. Kudos to this place.

The Kelong Restaurant is definitely a ‘Die die must try‘ place to go to in Bintan.

The Kelong Restaurant (far view)

The Kelong Restaurant
Nirwana Gardens, Jalan Panglima Pantar
Lagoi 29155, Bintan Resort 
Tel: (62) 770 692 789
Opening Hours: Daily 11:00 – 22:30
There are free shuttle buses within the Nirwana Group of Resorts that will make a stop here.