Last week, a friend asked me out for lunch on Sunday in Cheroh, a village about 12km from Raub... it was for checking out this another new place in town which everyone was talking about recently (even my doctor talked about it!) and so, off we go...
Well, the place is not isolated as in the Happy Valley Resort at Kampung Asap but rather nestled on the slopes of a durian orchard behind the village itself, on the other side of the river. The place is still in full construction everywhere but the guest houses and the restaurant are already open to the public. Looks like Raub is turning fast into an eco-tourism town with so many mini resorts popping up everywhere catering to the local weekend tourists. Fascinating.
As it was midday, it was a bit dusty, extremely hot and humid at the restaurant area. There are water features around the place but somehow the covers are not sufficient to protect the place from the scorching sun. I can imagine the guest houses under the scorching heat...don't think I want to be there just yet. As most of the tables were taken, we somehow managed to wait awhile and got one of the three gazebos that was much better insulated against the heat...by the way, the place is called Laman Persona in malay and "Song Huang Ge" in Mandarin - beats the hell out of me but I think it means something like pine grove or something (where's the pine???).
view of the place...spared everyone from the brown earth on the left and right sides of the resort...
walkway to the restaurant...
The main guest house which is actually the owners' abode. Not for rent.
The gazebos.
A water wheel in the garden. Water is pumped from the river.
Close-up of the gazebo. Everything is rather Chinese-themed.
The real test starts here : Duck in house specialty way. Tastes like regular stewed ginger duck. Didn't pass the service test as servers are rather clumsy and offer weird excuses for shortcomings, eg saying out of ice cubes for serving overly concentrated orange juice and not listening to orders properly. We went back a week later for dinner just to try out the menu again but this time, it was worse - dishes were under seasoned and there were huge green houseflies everywhere attacking you while you try to eat. I supposed they need to look into their waste disposal practices when this happens...
seaweed soup.
braised pork trotters. Need more stewing time.
Deep fried squid coated with salted egg. Nice but too much MSG in the batter (probably explains why)
Kangkung stir fried with belacan (water convovulus stir fried with shrimp paste)
tiny pool with deck near the guest houses
view of the restaurant from the pool
the guest houses
the camp area still under construction
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