The Porky Gourmand

Canton Malaysia chinese restaurant is in downtown Mombasa, on a side street off Moi avenue between Castle Royal hotel & K.R.A Mombasa offices. A good friend of mine recommended this place for lunch, it is owned by a Malaysian chef & his Kenyan wife. They also personally supervise service which means the service is always top notch.

Being in Mombasa, right next to the ocean. The obvious choice for lunch was seafood & boy was it great…. No regrets at all.

First up was lobster with ginger & green onions(scallions/shallots). The lobster meat was sweet & cooked perfectly, the ginger scallion sauce is a classic chinese combination. I first ate the tail meat before foraging within the shell for more meat. The lobster was extremely fresh and after I made the order for the lobster, the waiter brought the uncooked lobster for inspection & our approval. The waiter also informs you about the weight & cost, this lobster was about 900 grams, restaurant charges ksh 200 per 100grams. You can figure out how much it cost.

Next up was Mapo Tofu, this was different to other mapo tofu’s I have had. The chef used fried tofu because it is difficult to source fresh silken tofu in Mombasa. Different from your everyday mapo tofu, for some reason the sauce reminded me of thai jungle curry. Could not pin down exactly what it was, I’m thinking maybe galangal was added to it.

Last & not least the Singapore chilli crab, this crab was to die for, super fresh & cooked perfectly. The sauce was amazing, after polishing off the crab, cleaned the sauce off the plate into my bowl of rice….. Describing the sauce requires a stretch of the imagination, but it is tomato sauce, soy, chillis, sugar, salt, crab coral(roe) & thickened with egg(s). Everything works together in this sauce, kudos to the great nation of Singapore for gifting this dish to the world. You could not expect anything less from Singapore, my friends from there are amongst the most food crazy people I have met, they eat very well in Singapore.

Canton Malaysia is great, check it out when you are in Mombasa…