There are many different native names for each types of Asian anchovies in Malaysia market. Most local consumer don’t know how to differentiate these anchovies, they call it “mata biru”, “mata biru halus” and other local names. Yet only a small part of anchovies are really blue-eyed “matabiru”.
So, will the real mata biru please stand up?
Whitebait (Mata biru) have small blue dots, its really blue and you can’t find it from other anchovies.
Whitebait (bilis mata biru) are all small in size, with very white body compared to other anchovies (ikan bilis). It appeared slightly yellowish in the picture above because it was processed with oven heating, most of the moisture were lost in the process.
Some even smaller size of whitebait(bilis mata biru), you can hardly notice the small blue dots on its head, and it looks white compared to bigger size of whitebait(bilis mata biru).