Kampung Buntal seafood, bamboo clams

Kampung Buntal is famous for its seafood restaurants. It is located on the Santubong peninsula, outside Kuching in Sarawak. The same day that we visited, a freak mid-day thunderstorm wreaked havoc in Kampung Buntal, uprooting trees and sending zinc roofing sheets flying hundreds of metres away.

We went to Lim Hock Ann Seafood.

As we had had large crabs and prawns the previous night, this time we had a change.

http://cavingliz-noncave.blogspot.com/2010/11/permai-rainforest-resort-sarawak.html

crayfish

large fish head

this head weighs 4 kg
We chose bamboo clams, crayfish and an oyster pancake, as well as some other dishes.

Bamboo clams are bivalves, similiar to the European razor clam. They have long tubular shells, 3-15 cm long and the animal can stretch itself out of the shell to feed. They are filter feeders, filtering the mud and sand for nutrients. They are found all over Southeast Asia, and I've watched men pulling them out of the mudflats at Tanjong Tuan, near Port Dickson.

In the Kuching area, they live in the mudflats of the Sarawak River, which is supposedly quite clean and free from industry pollutants. In Sarawak the local Malay name is ambal, also known as sea needle and even monyet punya! I read a good description of the dish "Imagine a bowl full of fat, glistening, juicy white worms scattered amongst a heap of rusted razor blades. When steamed the tubular molluscs expand in their bamboo-like shells (hence the name bamboo clam) and burst them, leaving their bloated little bodies arrayed amongst a bed of shell slivers and fragments". People say they have a very delicate flavour, depending on how they are cooked, but I didn't find them especially exciting. Ours were served without the shells.

veggie

oyster pancake

© Liz Price
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