YAM 918 restaurant — Restaurant in Taman Desaru Utama

small restaurant serving non pork/lard type seafood. The signature curry fish head is the signature dish here and is good, with spicy curry. proper local prices @ 45RM for a small pot. (well, the pot is huge actually) the jizar dishes are less succesful more target to the local malay crowd, so the cooking is similar to halal restaurant in sg serving chinese style dishes. avoid the garlic sauce, it's too creamy and "jelak" and overwhelms the seafood. Other things i like: the seafood (fish, clam, prawn) are FIXED prices and stated clearly (eg siakap 78rm per fish, prawns 32RM for small, 48rm for big portion). Fish/ clam/prawn are live and swimming in tank so should be fresh. so now i know why some of the reviews are really bad. it's becos the cooking is not the same as a proper chinese restaurant. However, overall i would recommend this resto. The prices are properly aligned with what i'd expect in a small town in Msia, none of the bs "seasonal pricing" in other seafood restaurants. fried rice - so/so, i've tasted worse, but best of all price is 8RM Total dinner bill (for 2 pax) with clay pot prawn (S), white sand clam(S), fried rice (1 plate), liang teh - 82RM. crowd: less tourists, although there was one tourist having a whole fish all by himself. mostly local crowd here (many malay groups too). Ambience: OK, non aircon, but pretty clean. No fishy smell in...

Went in on Saturday around 1900 to have our dinner. Most of the seat were taken. Luckily for us we got a big round table. And later into the night more ppl came in with no table. So I would recommend dropping in early.

Food there is totally worth it. Price and food are great and affordable. curry fish head (not bad) Salt egg sotong ( must try) Lala (okok ) chilli crab (👍 good) Signature Tofu (abit on the salty side but was delicious) And 5 drinks

And outside there is one satay stall which sell giant Satay. I think rm1.80 per PC which I think is super worth it. Must buy but not too much as it is gigantic.

The restaurant provides a lot of fans which is great to cover up for the heaty environment and crowdy place. But the fan is abit too much lol . We seat beside two fan blowing directly at us. Which we kindly ask the staff to help redirect the wind. Totally not an issue for them. Thumb up.

Sorry no photo provided. But still is a must try places.

Must try, and will come back if I visit Desaru again.

Spend a totally of $270 including...

Hidden gem in Desaru. Frequented a lot but locals and staff at the various hotels.

Pricing: Very fair pricing plus they have fixed price for crab and some fish types. Can even pick your own catch. One thing for sure is they are not out here to “chop” tourists :)

Taste: Tried salted egg crab, kam heong chicken, preserved radish steam fish, tofu. Seafood very fresh - the kind where you get the crab meat out of the shell beautifully in shape. All tasted well. But no pork no lard which is quite common in the area.

Service: fast order, the guy who took our order was patient. Told us it is enough already. Place was quite full but we waited maybe for 10-15min only to be served.

Environment: no frill, no Aircon but they have loads of fan. Didn’t feel hot. A lot of family with kids dining there :)

Will return for sure to try other dishes esp the curry fish head if we...