SEA BREEZES NOTWITHSTANDING

IT'S SAD, BUT IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO GET ME EXCITED! Just show me a place where I can take a few friends, has reasonably-priced tasty food with a good choice of dishes, and I'm happy. Of course it musn't charge corkage either - or at least not much.

SO when I was told about the Sea Breeze in Tanjung Bungah, situated next to the Naza Hotel, I thought, "Great!" And along we trot to try it out, cos my bro-in-law and his wife are coming out here this week, and I'm putting together a list of places to take them.

First impression wasn't too brilliant if I'm honest - it's a bit haphazard, there are several names displayed so it's difficult to tell which is which, and the people didn't seem to know what was going on.

That should really have given me an inkling of what was to come, but those minor problems aside, I thought the place had potential. It is almost right by the sea - just a small stretch of beach between that and the waves, which were beating on the shore as it was quite windy that night, living up to its name, and gave it a really fantastic background sound - and the beer was reasonable - RM45+ (I think - can't remember!) for a bucket of 6 bottles of Carlsberg.

The menu seemed quite good too - it's one of those old-fashioned "choo char" places which does seafood and a range of western dishes, and even better, had some ice cream sundaes for dessert, all fairly reasonably-priced. In fact, I was really quite excited that I'd found somewhere I could bring friends and family for a nice pleasant evening out. See, I told you it doesn't take much to get me going!

HOWEVER from there on everything ground to a halt. The Chicken Cordon Bleu (probably frozen ready-made stuff) was a disaster - my husband is not, unlike me, a fussy eater, and whatever you put in front of him he generally polishes off with nary a complaint. However he thought it was disappointing and as even our son said, "If Dad says it's bad, it must be pretty awful!"

My son's steak wasn't that much better either - at RM20+ it isn't expensive, but when it came it was rather a small piece. Everything was coated in a thick bland sauce.

OK so maybe they weren't good at western. Maybe we should just stick to what we should be good at - local dishes. Uhhhh ... the crab "sui luak" (sour hot) that I had ordered was a mild sweet and sour rather than sour hot, and this was the first time I'd ever had crab which had first been deep-fried (personally I think it may have been to mask the fact that it was frozen but then I may be wrong) which dried out the flesh and made it difficult to extract, although this may have been because it had been frozen then defrosted quickly) making it very difficult to eat, so a lot of it was wasted. The fried rice was OK, but the beef and brocolli was disappointing too.

As for the sundae, not great either - the Nutty Professor was just two scoops of cheap ice cream with some chopped nuts sprinkled over.

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, the total bill despite a 10% discount came to RM124 for 3 of us - the wasted crabs cost RM32 (RM16 each). Not worth the money, methinks. However, if you're just after somewhere to sit and have a natter over fairly cheap beer and perhaps some snacks, then it's worth paying a visit.