Hole In The Wall is the only floating restaurant in Langkawi, and it also doubles up as a fish farm.
This rustic looking restaurant and fish farm blends naturally with the environment in Kilim Geopark. It is owned and operated by Rahmad since 2003. The name has been derived from a narrow passage on the Kilim River called "Hole In The Wall".
This floating restaurant is located on the Kilim River. From the Kilim Jetty it is about 7 minutes of boat ride along the river with lovely view of mangrove swamps on both sides. The restaurant is located within the Kilim Geopark nature reserves. Several organized boat tours of the geopark stop at this restaurant for lunch. So the restaurant gets quite busy during the lunch with many tourists who arrive here for lunch as part of the geopark tour package.
So why come to Hole in the Wall floating restaurant?
There are several reasons actually. The first thing that we liked was its wonderful surrounding. Other than wide stretching blue waters of the river, you can see the wetland mangroves along the shoreline close to it, islands at a distance and the majestic limestone cliffs rising from the bottom. It's a spectacular setting. And the whole restaurant actually rests on a series of empty drums and floats on water.
Hole in the Wall restaurant is also a floating fish farm. There is a separate section where many types of fish are kept in water tanks. There are fish shows for the guests. You can see how tamed stingrays are when being fed. You too can feed and stroke them if you like.
Other fishes include Archer fish, electric eels and more. The owner Rahmad allows the guests to catch fish from the tanks and then cook for them. Before starting the restaurant, he used to culture and export fish from his farm. He had purchased woven rumbia (sago palm) mats from Thailand to construct the roof of the farm to keep it cool during the hot summer days.
Later he expanded his operation to let his guests dine and stay here as well. Geopark Boat Tours and other activities are also organized by Hole in the Wall.
Coming to food...
If you are taking a standard lunch as part of the Kilim Geopark Tour package, they serve fried rice, fried chicken, salad and chilled pineapple juice in big glass jars.
If you take Ala Carte, then you actually get to taste the real food here. They specialize in seafood and prepare the dishes in Malay or Thai style. You will get items prepared from freshly caught seafood including prawn, crabs, red snappers, groupers, lobsters, sea bass and even squids. Try the mango salad, it's great.