Ketupat sotong is one of those east coast dishes that most Malaysians from KL or the west have never actually tried. Picture a whole squid body, cleaned and packed tight with raw glutinous rice, then sealed and braised in coconut milk sweetened with gula melaka until the pulut cooks inside the squid and absorbs all that gravy. The result is dense, sticky, sweet, and honestly very good. But at 590 calories for one piece, it earns its place on the higher end of the calorie list. The pulut stuffing alone accounts for about 240 calories, the thick santan gravy adds another 178, and the palm sugar in that same gravy throws in 80 more. The squid itself is only 92 calories. So you are really paying for the rice and the coconut sauce, not the seafood. Fair warning though: these numbers are a genuine ballpark estimate. Hard nutrition data for ketupat sotong is almost nonexistent, and portion sizes vary a lot between home cooking and pasar malam stalls, so treat this as a rough guide rather than a precise count.
What actually moves the maths here is gravy portion and squid size. A large squid stuffed more generously could easily push past 700 calories, while a smaller piece from a pasar ramadan stall might land closer to 450 to 500. If you are eating this at a kenduri or during Raya and someone ladles extra gravy on your plate, that 55g of coconut milk sauce in our estimate can quickly become 90 to 100g, adding another 100 calories right there. There is no real way to make a lighter version at a stall since you eat what you are served. If you are cooking at home, using light coconut milk (santan pekat campur air) instead of full-fat santan can bring the gravy calories down by roughly 40 to 50 calories per serving, and going easier on the gula melaka saves another 20 to 30. The squid is not the problem at all, bro. It is the stuff around it.