I heard of T-Jays from many sources. One was The Star’s Flavours magazine. They’d reviewed T-Jays many years ago. The second source was James who had raved about these pizzas. And it’s a huge compliment because James is British and he’s always asking me, “Why are you Malaysians always going on and on about food?” For him, food is just sustenance. No point going blardy mad over.

On our last trip to Langkawi, we wanted to try out something totally new so we chose T-Jays. Nic’s a big pizza and spaghetti fan so it fit him to a T.

T-Jays’ is opposite the Langkawi Underwater World which up till now, I’ve not been inside at all. Every local person tells me there’s nothing much to see there – it’s just for tourists.

Anyway, we ordered a 12-inch pizza (RM27) and the spaghetti with spiced beef (RM30). I felt the drinks were a tad on the pricey side considering this is Langkawi where beers and what-not were dirt cheap. RM 5 for lime juice? Come on! (And this is not Perdana Quay. This is a cafe by the road in Pantai Cenang. Pantai Cenang is like Chulia Street, Penang.)

“The food better be good.” The same thought ran through our minds when we ordered.

Luckily the food lived up to its “best pizza place in Malaysia” tagline (on its signboard). The pizza was crispy, a bit burnt on the edges and full of great tasting ingredients like pepperoni, olives, tomato and cheese. I believe it was called the Quatro Pizza. Each of us had about 4 huge slices.

The spiced beef spaghetti was pretty damn good too. Imagine spaghetti bolognaise that’s rich in a gooey thick tomato sauce and mixed with cream and kick-ass chili padi. You get a rich tomatoey, creamy spaghetti (that was perfectly al-dente) with lots of mouthsearing chilies. Lots of minced beef. Lots of chili oil and chilies. I could’ve licked the platter clean. It was THAT good!

We were totally satisfied with the portion of spaghetti. It reminded me of the spaghetti I had with CC at Italiannies at The Curve not too long ago. I much prefered T-Jay’s to Italiannies, to be honest.

That's a live frog which I spotted while munching on my pizza

Now if only they lowered their drink prices!

More Langkawi food posts:
1.How to savour Langkawi
2.Going Dutch in Langkawi
3.Nasi campur and other local Langkawi eats
4.Breakfast at Tun Mahathir’s Favourite Cafe
5. Stylish dinners at Pantai Tengah, Langkawi

This time though, we decided to reclaim some semblance of a holiday for ourselves.

It was time for a real break.

This time, we didn’t want to stuff too many clients into our 3-day trip. In fact, we didn’t meet any except Kak Su whom we lunched with at Wan Thai on Sunday, hours before we left Langkawi. (Even meeting Kak Su wasn’t such a planned event. We’d gone for a quick breakfast at her Cafe Molek but her staff, Sal, said she wasn’t around. As we were leaving, we saw Kak Su driving by in her dark blue Volvo.)

Kak Su is more of a friend than a client though we did start off with a business relationship. She is the owner of Villa Molek, a boutique villa resort on Pantai Tengah, Langkawi. It’s tastefully done up, hidden yet accessible. We had great fun designing her website because she had a great ‘product’ and good selling points too. Plus she gave us full control, trusting us to deliver not only a visually pleasing website but one that generates good results too. But that is another blog post for the other blog.

The gorgeous Villa Molek, popular with foreigners who are escaping the long winter months.

So what did we do?

We took our time to savour Langkawi.

The food of this island is exceptional especially if you know where to look.

Our clear favourites are Sun Sutra (for a romantic western-style dinner with excellent wines), Sunday (for Chinese stir-fry dishes in a Thai-influenced ambience) and The Loaf (for a totally awesome breakfast experience by the marina where the yachts berth).

The American Breakfast (foreground) & Tun's Favourite (background)

Some people exclaim that The Loaf is expensive. Well, it is of course but don’t discount the view. The view, the quality ingredients, the slow breakfast, the good cutlery. Don’t these count for something too? Otherwise, a cheap nasi lemak bungkus breakfast at some rundown warung down by Pantai Cenang is available too.

Thai food is always appetising! Here's a clear seafood tomyam & mango kerabu

Remember I mentioned Wan Thai? It’s a halal Thai restaurant in the heart of Kuah town, popular with locals and foreigners. The lady boss (who is Thai by the way) is soft-spoken, gentle, unassuming and ever-smiling. Oh and she is so beautiful with porcelain skin! (How do Thai women get so pretty? They eat so much of chilies yet their skin’s super smooth like taufufah!).

Wan Thai is a MUST visit place, especially before we board the ferry back to Kuala Kedah (we often drive from Penang to Kuala Kedah and board the ferry from there instead of doing the 3-hour Penang-Langkawi ferry ride). I love to order their “hor muk” or seafood otak-otak served in a young coconut. This way, you get the otak-otak AND you get to scrape the young coconut flesh after!

Cafe Molek, a great place for a quiet, exquisite breakfast

Another new place we now visit for breakfast is Kak Su’s Cafe Molek, adjacent to her Villa Molek. It serves good food at reasonable prices plus there’s wifi connection! (Heaven sent for IT people like me and Nic).

French toast and tea at Cafe Molek - delicious!

Considering that there are dirty, slum-like places serving similar continental breakfasts along Pantai Cenang/Pantai Tengah and charging the same prices, Cafe Molek gets my vote any time because it’s cleaner, it has proper tables and chairs, it’s airy and quiet and the food’s good too.

This time, we also dined at a firm favourite of our friend James. James loves Orkid Ria, a seafood restaurant on Pantai Cenang. Orkid Ria is a really happening place for dinner. It is always packed with people. The atmosphere is a bit like a cleaner, modern Chinese kopitiam though noise levels can reach deafening volumes.

Nic holds up a jumbo sized tiger prawn, fresh from the Langkawi sea

The food’s good too especially if you love rice with seafood dishes like deep-fried soft shell crabs, baked lobster, steamed tiger prawns etc. According to Uncle Loh, the seafood that you see displayed each night are freshly caught and delivered just before the restaurant opens for dinner. Prices are reasonable so it’s really not difficult to understand why Uncle Loh (the owner) gets so many customers each night, high season or not!