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Con’t from part 6…

From Pontian, we moved on to Skudai where we want to sample the all famous Skudai Duck Mee that we have seen on Axian AEC programme. It’s said that the duck are braised in a gravy that have been braising ducks for 37 years now! Imagine that, this semangat people actually kept the gravy going for 37 years already to braise their duck.

With very high expectations, we got to Skudai Duck Mee (and narrowly missing head-on accident as blur blur me going the wrong way :P) and the owner here seems to be very friendly, he even posed for photographs but too bad Sky’s lost his pictures in JB :(. We ordered the duck with a load of others like “kai choy” (leaf mustard), braised pig’s head (chee tau pei), intestines, etc. to go with koay teow.

With the name being Skudai Duck Mee… I would think the noodles and soup here are great… but ermm… its not… the soup are not tasty as I expected… its like those duck noodles instant taste. The braised pig’s head and intestines are ok.

What is good here are the braised “kai choy” which I find to be very nice! The other good one of course its their duck, first impression the duck is a little dry but you have to dip it in the dark thick gravy at the bottom to get the good taste, after all, its 37 years old :).

Skudai Duck Mee
No. 29?Jalan Emas Putih Dua, Taman Sri Skudai, 81300 Johor Bahru, Johor.
Tel: 07-5563170
GPS: N1 32.790 E103 39.393

We didn’t ordered full portions for everyone as most of us are still overwhelmed by stuffing ourselves during breakfast. It cost a total of about RM90.00 for everyone.

When we were at the duck mee place, we spotted this bottle of pineapple preserved, Patrick then explains that these are pineapple enzyme which are basically pineapple, lemon and sugar left to ferment in a bottle. See video below:

We decided to give Patrick’s home in JB a visit and to take a short break there. Its basically shophouses with the family’s hardware business downstairs. Some of us took an afternoon shower there while some of us got into games of chor dai di, entertaining little Wai Wai or just watching TV.

We then head to Stulang Laut to check out Elaine & Patrick’s school which is facing Singapore next to ZON. We went around to locate Restoran Woon Kiang after that which is recommended for their koay teow kia by Elaine’s mum unfortunately, they are only opened for business at 5pm. So to burn sometime, we went to ZON to shop with Sky and Ed contributing further to the Johor economy ;).

Later back at Woon Kiang, we can already see cars pouring in for koay teow kia. We wasted no time and order braised pork, pig’s head, tofu, eggs, etc. with our koay teow kia. The soup is very tasty and the braised meats are a whole lot softer than what we had for lunch. But of course, these are different food but I think everyone really enjoyed our early dinner here. I really like their braised pig’s head here, superly soft and nice to eat, the tongue is not bad too but not many people fancy it as I noticed. It adds up to almost RM90 as well with 11 of us eating. A very good place for koay teow kia, thanks Elaine & Patrick for taking us here!

Restoran Woon Kiang
No. 62, Jalan Stulang Darat, 80300 Johor Bahru, Johor.
Tel: 019-7690005
GPS: N01 28.325 E103 46.634

Con’t in part 8…

Links:

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 1 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 2 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 3 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 4 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 5 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 6 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 7 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 8- Day 3 & 4

Con’t from part 5…

Next morning we decided to have our breakfast on the way to JB in Pontian town as there are not much to eat for breakfast at the resort area. So we hurried to take a morning shower (which some of us skipped because of the low water pressure, I was brushing my teeth halfway and no water!) and pack up to get ready to leave. We took a group photo before leaving… Elaine, where is it?

We headed out with Patrick & Elaine leading the convoy, they have officially been appointed our tour guides from then on. With pressures to performed on both of them… they finally choose to try out Kedai Makan Lam Yong aka 8383.

Lam Yong are basically 2 shops connected together, the famous thing here is their coffee with the brand 8383. The brand 8383 come to place because when they started to sell coffee powder, customer often got it from the wrong shop and had problem remembering Lam Yong. So, since the family car are all registered 8383, people then tend to say look out for car with 8383 parked outside. Hence, the owner have decided to brand it 8383 and its a good strategy as its easy to remember.

There’s a table of kueh in front and the friendly owner told us to take and he will only charge what we consume but this hungry makan gang ate everything we took with Ed finishing the last standing curry puff on our table :).  Sky just love the “loh pak” kueh here which are steamed from radish and flour then fried and served with chili sauce, I think he finished the whole stack of it. The donut is surprising nice too as its made from sweet potato.

The popiah here is a bit different, as I took the first bite, there are peanuts and sugar in them! Maybe this is popiah Johor style? I don’t fancy it that much but Miharu keeps saying its so good. We also got the traditional toast and half boiled eggs. The toast comes with dripping kaya and butter in it, nice! The half boiled eggs are just nice 1/2 cooked!

With everthing being so nice, I almost forgot to sip the coffee I ordered and I think almost the whole table took coffee. As I sipped, *bomb*… I got a blow in my head… you know like the cartoon… explosion in the head, eyes wide open… well, haven’t reach there… hehe… the coffee is magnificant! I turned to Ed and say you must try the coffee, its superbly good, almost one of the best coffee I had the whole trip! Ed didn’t believe me but he gave me a “wow” look with big eyes after trying as well. Curious? It basically taste like irish coffee to me and I really can’t help but imagine there’s liquor in the coffee… haha.. that is just how good the coffee is!

We asked the boss (Mr. Ching Kim Choon) how come their coffee is so good, he explained that they only use good and high quality beans to fry and powder their coffee and they do not mix. So you get a pure coffee which gives you a superior and thick “kau” taste. You can buy the coffee powder at RM15, its double the usual coffee powder at the supermarket but its worth it! KC, hope you enjoy the pack I bought for you, please bring some to office for me in a thermos :P.

Another yummy here are their Singapore style Hokkien Mee… I have seen this before on AFC channel on astro where they went and find S$2.00 prawn fried noodles. So Patrick ordered a few plates for us to try, total is RM14 for 3 plates plus 1 bowl of curry noodles. The noodles are basically fried without dark soya sauce with eggs, taugeh, meat, etc. It is served with sambal chili and squeeze of lime juice. To me its really nice and the chili is a must to take with it.

Overall, I think we are superbly happy with our breakfast at Lam Yong and the prices are fair too. I strongly recommend this place to anyone looking for good breakfast in Pontian and don’t forget to try their coffee! A must stop for coffee lover ;).

Kedai Makan Lam Yong aka 8383
No. 243, 245 Batu 36, Jalan Johor, 82000 Pontian, Johor.
Tel: 07-6875323/012-7708383
GPS: N01 28.849 E103 23.877

Con’t in part 7…

Links:

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 1 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 2 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 3 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 4 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 5 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 6 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 7 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 8- Day 3 & 4

Con’t from part 4…

After a good meal in Kluang… we head out to our stop for the night, Tanjung Piai Resort, it was a long and tiring drive considering we just had lunch, its hot outside and we are on 2 hours of small roads all the way from Kluang to Simpang Renggam to Benut then Pontian before reaching Kukup. On the way to Kukup there are various fruits stalls to pick up local produces like pineapples, dragon fruits, etc. We got some duku langsat at RM2.00 per kilo, they are really big and super sweet!

Kukup was like packed with people and cars, its like a big market and really crowded on the street. We had wanted to stay in Kukup but all the places here are full and some don’t even entertain us saying our group is too small for them *wtf*?

We initially thought the resort is in Kukup but when we are there and a few phone calls and u-turn we ended up in Tanjung Piai which is about 8km away from Kukup. Its really a weird place, first you go passed various small villages before reaching this parking lot to go to the Tanjung Piai national park… then you there are no sign for the resort until you cross a bridge on foot and walk up in to this raised wooden platform above the mangroves.

Tanjung Piai is known as the most southern tip of the Asia Continent (says the welcome sign in the resort with a few missing words), so this is the most south you can go by land for the whole continent. From the resort, you get a magnificent view of the ocean and the sky are just beautiful. You can also see Singapore’s port from here.

We paid RM100 per room for 3 persons after discount, you will be wondering, discount on peak season? Well, once you go into the room, you will know why.. :(. The exterior of the resort is nice, modern looking windows and nice open area with a gazebo to hang out. But when you open the room door… gahhh.. *speechless*… maintenance seems to really be a problem here! I ran out of water while I shower, had to use mineral water to finish off, the wall, besides no taste, its really painted badly, lighting are too dim… the list goes on. There are so much of potential for this resort if they fix up the interior more… renovation is in progress.. I hope they do a good job soon.. otherwise its really wasted.

Since there are nothing much to eat here, we drove out to Kukup… took us about 15 mins and by night time, the crowd have either left or settled down in those villages’ homestay. Blur blur sotong.. we just picked New Kukup Restaurant as Miharu had a vague memory of eating there before. Being on a budget tour, we torn our face and kept asking the price of each dish we order, ahaha… but the young girl taking the order was kind enough to entertain us.

We ordered a rainbow trout steamed with fried “chai poh” (preserved turnips), its a rare style, had it twice at Tang Yuen in SS15 Subang Jaya but hardly find it elsewhere, its really good, fish is fresh and they gave a lot of chai poh to go with it, I like it. The trout goes for RM50 per 600g, our fish is slightly lighter at RM44.00.

We also ordered fried chili mussels RM16, lemon chicken RM18, belacan kangkung RM8, fried water cress RM9, tofu with mixed veggies RM10, oo chen (fried oysters) RM9. In general, dishes here are pretty good, service is ok and the people there are friendly too. We spend about RM130++ here and everyone walked away full.

New Kukup Village Restaurant
No.1, Kukup Laut, 82300 Pontian, Johor
Tel: 07-6960216
GPS: N1 19.525 E103 26.496

The ambiance is good here, we are seated outdoors by the sea overlooking the Kukup villages. So you get a lot of breeze and its a nice place to sit down and chat after dinner. But the shops here closed early, its about 9pm when we left and the shuttle are already down.

We then decided to walk around this seaside village to check out the homestay that we didn’t manage to book. As we are walking on the main street, we found a shop selling jelly made to the shape of ang ku kueh, there are various flavours with fillings inside. It goes for RM6.50 for 12 pcs in the packet. As we paid, Sky rush over to warn us that the shop in front is selling the same thing for RM6.00 only! Haiya… too late… kena conned but nevermind to even out our cost, we bought another packet at RM6.00, so we paid RM6.25 per pack :P. The jelly is nice especially eating it while its chilled!

As we walked into the village, its basically a typical Chinese seaside village, with concrete stilts platform in the middle all the way out connecting village homes. Some are still in its old wooden shape, some are renovated with bricks and stainless steels (I think some of the people here are a lot loaded than we are!) and some have turned their unit into a mini hotel!

As we strolled, we can see visitors staying there singing karaoke, playing mahjong… I think besides this, there is nothing much to do here :). But if you come in a big group I think its quite fun here but a bit noisy, not really to relax I would think.

Later we called it a night and head back to our “resort” in Tanjung Piai, as we does that, Elaine and Patrick, our kind tour guides of JB is heading over to meet us for the night with supper da bao too! After numerous phone calls and assurance (dark kampung roads really not sure where you heading), they too managed to get to meet us, we continue eating (again) with mahjong (supplied by Pat), uno stacko and chor dai di games.

Con’t to part 6…

Links:

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 1 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 2 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 3 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 4 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 5 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 6 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 7 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 8- Day 3 & 4

Con’t from part 3…

We managed to catch up with the Chung family at Ayer Hitam toll where we group up and head to Zenxin Organic Park in Kluang. Its just located just 5-10 minutes from the toll and its a huge place with plenty of parking. The park is opened to visitors and you are able to see for yourself how fruits and vegetables are plants and you can actually rent a bicycle to go around it. I would think its a good educational tour for kids but all of us grown up kids seems to enjoy it too :P.

We got our bicycle, for 2 hours it only cost RM5, you can bring your own bike too but too much hassle I would think… the bikes here are ok, they are all Lerun’s Mendova… a simple rigid frame MTB, good enough for this park ride but somehow, mine the chain keeps coming of 3-4 times. So I had to go back halfway to change to another bike :(.

We hit off the park to the pond side, where there are a lot of vegetables growing… we got into 1 of the pumpkin garden and started taking funny photos with pumpkin growing on top of our head. Then we cycled around the pond and Sor J got conned (actually willingly) into taking a photo with a brinjal and hence, the legend of his blue black b*** emerged :P. Later, we move up hill to the dragon fruits orchard and a hill top observation tower.

After an hour plus, we are really tired, returned our bikes and try out some of the organic dragon fruits beverages at the cafe. The dragon fruits juice is quite tasteless like the dragon fruit, so its the combination of other juices that you mixed that makes the difference. Anyway, food queue is long here and so we head on to Kluang for lunch and most of us is excited about visiting the original Kluang Railway Coffee Station!

ZENXIN ORGANIC PARK
Batu 9, Jalan Batu Pahat ,
86000 Kluang, Johor
Tel: +60 (7) 7595196
GPS: N1 57.755 E103 12.712

We got to Kluang town in a short while and headed to the railway station and guess what… its closed! Arghh… so sad.. all the way from KL and its closed sob… anyhow, so we are hungry in an unfamilar town feeling dissapointed, so Ed, Calvin Chung and myself took out our GPS and hunt for makan place nearby. We ended up at Chop Foo Chow at Jalan Duku… its a dim sum place and I wanted to try foo chow pau.

Chop Foo Chow is a nicely renovated corner shop, interior is nice, besides dim sum, I saw people having steamboat there too. But as usual, we didn’t want to eat too much to save some tummy space to try out the beef noodles at Restoran Sup Lembu Tong Jiat just across the road.

Dim Sum here was ok, the usual but they have some different types with yam, meat floss, etc. The foo chow pau are actually the usual round shape pau with tai pau type of filling inside, comes in big and small size. The big one is RM3.00, small one is RM1.20 each… cost of living in Johor quite high leh…

Chop Foo Chow
No. 2, Jalan Duku, Kluang, Johor
Tel: 07-7712328
GPS: N2 02.215 E103 19.160

On the opposite, we went to Restoran Sup Lembu Tong Jiat for some beef noodles. The beef noodles here comes in size of small RM4.50, medium RM5.50 and big RM6.50. The small one is really smaller than average, so the medium size on is considered as regular. The beef noodles choices here includes the usual mee, meehoon, koay teow or lai fun (used in assam laksa type) and only soup based, no dried version. Calvin and Ed got their noodles first, and they were wondering how come besides chili sauce, there’s a bottle of vinegar on the table, so they happily conned me and Sor J that the vinegar is to dip beef like a sauce. So when I got my noodles, I happily try it and its was sour like crazy, then Sor J suggest that maybe its for you to add the vinegar to the chili sauce and I saw this uncle a few tables away doing just that!

Anyhow, the beef noodles are really good, although costly but you get a lot of beef parts in the bowl and great thing about this noodles are the soup. Unlike the normal beef noodles I had tried, the soup here are light and clear looking. The soup is still very tasty and not oily and its full of herbal and beef flavour but leave a scent of sweetness in your mouth after drinking it. I would rate this beef noodles very good for the soup alone, made my trip to Kluang worth it all!

They also sell beef jerkies and floss here, going from RM12 to RM15 depending on packaging and types. Before leaving, I checked out their namecard, looks like its also known as the Tangkak beef noodles and they have branch in Melaka and KL too :).

Restoran Sup Lembu Tong Jiat
No. 5, Jalan Langsat, 86000 Kluang, Johor
Tel: 019-771983 or 012-7587952

After filling up our stomachs… we then head out to our next destination… Kukup! Con’t in part 5…

Links:

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 1 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 2 - Day 1
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 3 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 4 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 5 - Day 2
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 6 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 7 - Day 3
Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip 2.5 - Part 8- Day 3 & 4

The moment we reach JB, its back to city life, jam and traffic everywhere. We made our way to our little guesthouse at Jalan Datuk Sulaiman opposite Holiday Plaza. After checking in and a quick shower, we head out for dinner, with only the GPS coordinates given by Jack, we trusted the GPS and head there. Well, of course along the way we got a little lost on the GPS but hey, like I told my passengers, not like the others in the convoy will know, hehehe. Anyway, I was under the impression that this place serve all things bittergourd. Since Jack and family was there first and had to leave, I asked them to order for us. So the first is the bittergourd soup with meat balls, which is good but the rest are quite normal chinese rice dishes.

After dinner, we all went to Danga Bay, supposed to be the happening place to go at night in JB now. Its like an esplanade in Penang thingy, very happening, lots of cars and people, big fun fairs and stalls. Quite nicely done but the place is too big. One side are fairs and shops, the other side is the beach with huge gazebo by the sea. Feels more like a 2×2 kind of places with bicycle available for rental and all. Anyhow, most of the people took this as a photo opportunity while me and Edwin challenge ourselves to 2 games of pool

Was supposed to go supper at Tmn Sentosa as advised by my friend who frequents and used to stay in JB. He told me that the koay teow kia, deep fried yu kap (pigeon) and porridge is good there. But we have a quest before that, we need to go to Zon, the duty free complex in town first. Jack’s friend is the owner of breakers there and told us to go for a drink. Joe whom have been there before told me that people just buy duty free liquor and consume it at the food court. So my impression is this pariah place, where you don’t really need to bother about what you wear.

The whole group of us, armed with only shorts, t-shirts and slippers, went there and found out the breakers is a very nice pub connected to saliva the club next to it that have an ice bar. Wow, isn’t that cool but dammit, look at how we dressed. Haha… I think in normal visits, the bouncer won’t let us in, but we got VIP treatment this round. Thank god they put us on an isolated area of the pub which is the balcony, phew. We were offered a tour of the place but dressed the way I am, better not, paiseh!

Anyway, the beer is cheap, they are having a promo, we got 1 tower of beer at RM80 but free another one. So technically, its RM40 each. After 6 towers and rounds of bluff game, its finally closing time at 3am and time for us to head back to rest. Just as we are ready to go, fight scene occurred downstairs and we can see the cops dragging away some of the guys. Well, its not JB if that doesn’t happened right?

Later we may our way to the parking and I made a quick stop at the washroom, as I walk I noticed there is a trail of blood to the washroom, then a pool in the toilet, as I got out to the lift to the carpark, the trail is there too. Thank god we came out slightly later, I wouldn’t want to be there.

Ok, this is about makan trip, not blood and fights, hehe… so its 3am plus, everyone is tipsy or drunk (I have picture proof too, but unfortunately if I publish it here, someone will kill me), so we decided to skip supper and hit the sack . Since we paid RM20 per person for the night stay, I shall not talk about our rooms and beds.

Night morning, I got up early and join a few others out for breakfast. We first went to Jalan Badik where this corner coffee shop serve this mini koay teow. Its basically small pieces of koay teow replacing the usual wantan mee noodles. Quite interesting and the koay teow is soft but the portion is really small and expensive. Cost of living in JB is quite high I reckon. We later had a 2nd round of beef noodles at some shops behind Holiday Plaza, this is so so only, so not worth mentioning :P.

After breakfast its time to check out but how can we come to JB and not try Koay Teow Kia that I have heard so much. So I woke my friend up from his Sunday and ask him to direct me to this place in Taman Molek. This corner coffee shop is located Jalan 2/37 after the wet market (GPS: N1 31.320 E103 47.511). The koay teow kia is basically koay teow serve with soup from teow chew style braised duck, eggs and taufu (lor ark). The serving comes with a plate of mix braised duck, eggs, taufu and a bowl of koay teow. I fancy the mix braised serving more and its really nice.

All filled up to go, we then get out of JB and hit the NSE up to Yong Peng straight. We went for the famous yong peng fish ball, ok ok to me, but I prefer the fok chow fish ball in KL (I think the owner originates from Yong Peng too). Anyhow, the fish ball is taken with noodles, either soup or curry. But after 3 meals in 1 morning, I can only offer myself for a bowl of fishballs without the noodles.

Before leaving Yong Peng, we stopped at Eng Hin, this shop selling fok chow biscuits, this is different from the one I tried in Sitiawan. This one is basically a very soft layer of biscuits covering filling that just taste like mang chang kuih to me. Glutinous-peanut kind of taste, not too sweet and is excellent when eaten hot. I also managed to pack some otak-otak buns back from the bakery nearby, yummy!

From Yong Peng, we start to head back, some went to Malacca for satay celup, some Kajang at Rest. Malaysia for kajang satay, and some people like me fly home to sleep. Dinner? Forget it, I can’t eat anymore.

Overall, I had a good time, I like what I tried in Seremban, as well as Muar and Batu Pahat. JB is too far and takes a lot of time. Next time, I don’t mind doing a south trip again, just exploring more in Muar and BP. <<.>>

Makan first, think later