Date: 13 August 2009
Time: 1245
Place : Johor Bahru
As expected, my friends made my day by inviting me to have lunch at another coffee shop situated along Jalan Tun Razak, Johor Bahru. The location of this shop is not strategically located in terms of ease of access. It is contigent upon your starting point; it only facilitates the entry from the Johor Bahru town. However, when you try to exit, it poses a bit of problem because you have to literally travel around the Cape of Good Hope as the equivalent of Suez Canel does not exist. As the saying goes, when you want to invest in stock market, there are three things to consider. First, the fundamental, second, the fundamental and lastly the fundamental. Like wise, when choosing a property, one has to look at three things too, namely, 1- location, 2- location and 3 - location. It is evident by the fact that these shoplots along this street are mostly vacant and some even being abandoned. At night, it (the buildings) transforms into a different facade where the third kind of human beings can be seen populated along the street, thus attracting different kind of clienteles. Who says Johor Bahru is short of attraction.
This is the entrée for my lunch, known locally as "wantan mee". As you can scrutinize in the picture, it consists of flat noodle accompanied by miserable pieces of roast pork ( char siew ). The condiments are chili, soya sauce, white pepper and maybe few dash of pork lard. Traditionally, the lard should derive directly from the dripping of freshly roasted pork. If you look at the colour of the mee, it should strike you that I have ordered mee without black soya sauce. Black soya sauce is freely added to this kind of mee served in Johor Bahru. Black soya sauce always camouflage the intrinsic flavour of the mee and therefore one can not tell how long the mee has been lying there except by carbon dating, just joking.
This bowl of savoury liquid dish consists of countable floating "wantan" ( minced pork wrapped inside "noodle sheet" { noodle face skin }). Why floating, if not, you count yourself lucky that you have pork sashimi. It is only served seperately if you order "dried" noodle.
A big cup of tea follows the meal, sometimes we mix the tea with barley.
She is the chef de cuisine.
The prices you have to pay.
The chef de cuisine discloses that the noodle shop belongs to a chain operated under "Ho ....". As a matter of fact, there are many outlets scattered in many different parts of Johor Bahru. Apparently, this is one of the many early eateries that makes its present felt in the cyberworld. The branch at Century Garden, Johor Bahru proudly displays the url. Perhaps, you can do a google search for its website.
Finally, how good is the food? As usual, I can not comment. To give you an iota of answer, my friends do patronise this shop on quite a regularly basis. Is it because of the food or the easily available parking lots ? Give me your verdict after you have savoured the food and hopefully you are not on a wild-goose chase in arriving at and leaving this place.
