How Kee Curry — Restaurant in Penang

[This review is for How Kee Curry which is the shoplot building location - not to be confused with How Kee Seafood village across the road.]

For non-locals, you absolutely have to come here with the mindset of knowing that you will not be getting the best service but you'll definitely be getting some tasty fresh seafood at prices that are absolutely reasonable and inexpensive (depending on what you get).

We came here for the first time after reading some of the reviews and we came prepared with that mindset of expecting no service, so we weren't taken aback by the service and could instead focus on the eating experience. As mentioned in the other reviews, once you arrive you'll need to GO STRAIGHT INTO THEIR KITCHEN TO ORDER your food and pick your seafood options directly from their restaurant refrigerator and order ALL your dishes there, including rice. If there is a queue, just line up and wait your turn. If you have more than one person in your group, they can go find a table while another person orders. Do not expect any ordering to happen at your table. The only thing that we ordered at the table was our drinks.

We ordered: stingray and squid/sotong ordered to be cooked in curry, a plate of lala clams cooked kam heong style, a plate of fried chicken, a plate of kangkung, and a plate of blood cockles/siham.

The curry stingray & sotong arrived with okra/ladies finger added. The curry is not the thick viscous kind but leans more toward the watery, and reminds me more of Muar-styled asam pedas. Pretty good to go with rice, the stingray flesh was smooth and fresh and sotong cooked to perfection - no rubbery sotong here! Kam heong lala clams were also very tasty and each lala we had was meaty and had absorbed all of the sauce. We were happy that we did not find any "dead" lala clams at all that sometimes happens with these seafood dishes. Fried chicken was steaming hot when it came out and I highly recommend eating it immediately while it's hot. Kangkung was normal but we were surprised at how tiny the portions were so it wasn't really worth it. Finally, the awesome blood cockles siham was probably the highlight of our meal... We are huge fans of siham and when we saw that the siham were pretty large when we were ordering in the kitchen we had to get a plate. Siham can be hit or miss sometimes so we didn't get our hopes up but when it arrived and we popped open that first one, man were we impressed! Each and every single one of the cockles was big, fat, juicy, and fresh. We ordered them simple so they were boiled plain and it came out perfect. So good that we actually ordered a second round towards the end of the meal just to enjoy more of it. So if you're a fan of these bivalves, definitely get them!

Would recommend this place if you happen to be in the area. Do not expect any table-side service to begin with and assuming that the day's seafood is fresh, you'll definitely enjoy the meal here. Giving it 4 stars only because I'm not sure why they don't want to improve on their service, which is quite a shame. If I had to rate just the food, it's definitely 5 stars!

Accepts cash & they've got Touch...

We ordered Curry Ikan Pari, fried sotong, lemon steam lala, fried cabbage and omelette egg with prawn and fried chicken. Except for the curry which is slightly above average taste..others are nothing to shout about. To me, the lala was overcooked, fried chicken and sotong are dry,cold and tasteless. Personally I feel that the food is cooked in advance and served from a big pot because all the food is cold when served. The service is fast and needn't wait too long though many people. Price is reasonable. Ordering thru barcode..ensure to order correctly. No amendment after ordering. Overall, a good experience but felt disappointed with the...

very bad experience! i was asking waiter to take my order when i see last ppl ordered walk away. But I was being scolded by waiter to queue before take order. HEY, I'M QUEUING ALRIGHT? SUCH A NO MANNER GUY. You can tell me last guy havent order done yet, but you have no right to scold me, I do nothing wrong okay? And also, dont show your temper to me by closing your fridge loudly to show ur disatisfied to serve your customer. dont think i begging to get food from you, SO i decide to leave this shop immediately. This is my first time step to this shop and also the final. All my friends will not too! I bet not only me get serve by...