Tony Johor Kaki Travels for Food · Heritage · Culture · History

Adventurous Culinary Traveler's Blog with 67 million+ reads 📧 johorkaki@gmail.com

What Does Wild Sea Tilapia Taste Like? SZ Kitchen @ d’Arena 小珍私房菜 ☏ 80130558


Actually, I am not a big fan of Tilapia. I grew up with it as it was a cheap protein source but it has an off-putting earthy taste. 

Nevertheless, I always liked the soft tender moist texture of Tilapia fish and its underlying sweet taste (provided you can get past the earthy taste). So, I still enjoy it in preparations which masked or neutralised the earthy taste e.g. with lots of garlic, ginger, chili pepper, curry powder, etc. 


Recently, tasted sea / marine Tilapia 罗非鱼 a couple of times at SZ Kitchen d'Arena outlet.

Well, not exactly sea Tilapia nor wild. 

(The fish in the photo has a reddish tint because SZ Kitchen wrapped their lights with red foil 😂 )

According to Johnny owner of SZ Kitchen, these Tilapia were hooked or speared in the open sea waters of Johor Straits. As there is no wild sea Tilapia, these fishes presumably escaped from nearby fish farms

Tilapias are very resilient fish and can adapt to living in brackish or even coastal sea waters. 

Please note that SZ Kitchen's "wild sea" tilapia is available only on opportunity basis. To be sure, please ☏ 80130558 before going.

The 1.5kg Tilapia was steamed, doused with light umami savoury soy sauce, lard and dressed with fried garlic and raw aromatic greens. 

The white flesh was thick, tender firm, moist, naturally sweet, with not the slightest trace of earthiness. It is a delicious fish. 

SZ Kitchen d'Arena outlet is the only place I know in Singapore that serves this sea Tilapia. (Please share if you know of other places 🙏 )

What_Does_Sea_Tilapia_Taste_Like_SZ_Kitchen

SZ Kitchen has three outlets now at Gek Poh, Joo Koon and here at d'Arena. They serve a wide menu of fish dishes with noodle or rice which are popular with workers in the area. It is often full house during lunch.

They regularly offer wild caught fish such as deep sea giant grouper, and even Moray eel, etc on opportunity basis. They have excellent fried chicken wings too.

What_Does_Sea_Tilapia_Taste_Like_SZ_Kitchen

Restaurant name: SZ Kitchen @ D’Arena 小珍私房菜

Address: 511 Upper Jurong Rd, Blk E Level 1, Singapore 638366


Nearest MRT: 10 minutes walk from Joo Koon station

 

Tel: 80130558


Hours: 11 am - 3:30 pm | 4:30am - 9 pm





Join 77K Johor Kaki Followers

Written by Tony Boey on 4 May 2024

4 comments:

  1. When we were kids back in the late 1960s to mid 1970s, sea tilapia were plenty on the West Side of the Causeway Straits of Tebrau, where we used to fish.

    One suspicion on the source origin of these sea tilapia are escapees from the Istana Gardens pool.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tony Johor Kaki4 May 2024 at 11:00

      Wow Thanks. So it has been around for a while

      Delete
  2. Tony Boey Well, the Tebrau Straits starts having these since the 70s at least.

    The story back then was these Tilapias started off as farmed fishes from Singapore that escaped during flooding and gets introduced to the Straits.

    The rest is history.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Many decades ago! I had tilapia in school lunch. Cheap and nutritious, taste OK.

    ReplyDelete

All comments submitted with genuine identities are published