Coffee Shop That Dares to Dictate Terms on Customers

This is one of the many bustling coffee shops found within the vicinity of Tmn Tebrau Wet Market, Johor Bahru. As it serves fairly good foods, you can't help but to go to this place for your nutritional landfill.

This coffee shop wishes to distinguish itself from the rest of its rank in its choice of clients, shaping itself as a definitely snobbery eatery.

As you can see the message displayed on the pillar, if you are fastidious, always looking for a slight oppertunity to kvetch, temperament is definitely a variable in your final bill. Maybe, you are the one who likes to test the water. Please let me know the outcome.

Dim Sum 點心 - Eatery Outside Johor Bahru City

In Malaysia, the choice of food as breakfast is literally infinite; the final decision hinges on your mood and also the business hour of the restaurant concerned. So you might be hapless if your favourite hang-out decided to close on the day of your visit. This was the exact scenario. The following restaurant was our alternative.

The tannin found in the tea might affect the digestion of food; this piece of privileged information had for unspecified reason escaped from my mind. So, the tea pot landed on my table by mistake.

Big Bau.包

This is the ingredient that I hate the most. Do you have any idea what is it?

The clue can be found in my other post.

Shanghai steamed Buns

上海小籠包

Without any annotation, this item can be mistaken for many other dishes, such as Sichuan' s Sweet and Sour Soup and Bak Ku Teh. In fact, it was a small plate of black vinegar with shredded ginger. It was to be taken with Shanghai Sia Luan Bau. So the picture does not commensurate with actual entity.

Chive dumpling (?)

Again, it is hard to decipher this entity again. It was none other than the fish ball.

This should not pose any problem.

Shrimp Dumpling 蝦餃

Again, another standard item of dim sum.

Siu Mai 燒賣

Traditionally, the siu mai is topped with crab roe but I could not confirm for this item.

Chee Chong Fun ( if you speak Cantonese.)

Wet Serviette.

Peanut - RM2.00 per serving.

The till rang and the coffer increased by RM25.60.

Italian Food - Eatery in Johor Bahru

When my friend mentioned this Italian Restaurant, I suddenly failed to recall its existence. It must be umpteen years ago since I set foot on this place.

The ambiance is rather genial as the place is not overly crowded with tables and chairs. They even have a section for smoking diners - in defiance of the existing rule about smoking in air-conditioned place.

To set the train of eating in motion, we were shown the biggest menu, standing right in front of us.

Out of the four speciality dishes shown, we ordered prawn croquettes with spicy tomato salsa.

To complement our entrées, we ordered this bottle of red wine produced by Paul Jaboulet Aine Winery. This winery is located at Rhone ( Chateauneuf du Pape ), France.

Surprisingly, the astringency of the wine seemed to co-operate well with my taste bud.

My friend ordered "wagyu" beef. ( Note: Don't ask the price.)

As for me, I preferred a lamb shank.

A slight observation here, the two entrées that we ordered were complemented with saute mushroom. Did we indulge ourselves too much with the extra plate of saute mushroom?

Saute mushroom

Breakfast or Lunch - Eatery in Johor Bahru

You are given the following scenarios:-

a. You are not ravenous

b. Friend asks you to join him for lunch when you have just finished your breakfast

c. You kinda lazy to drive to a longer distance from where you are

d. Weather is hot

e. You want to control financial budget

f. Your company may not be intellectually attractive

g. Your company may not be presentable in terms of look - so you do not want to be caught with breaking bread with someone that your friend might laugh at your choice of "partner"

h. You don't have much time to spare

i. You are allergic to certain type of foods or company

j. You want to watch a party of bores, morons and popinjays.

k. You may want to engage in illegal betting.

l. ... fill ... in ... the ... blank

As far I am concerned, the criteria of selection is not that complicated, however, scenario "C" is somewhat I prioritise unless I am chauffeured.

When my friend suggested this coffee shop, I had a sudden brain death as my "gps" brain could not triangulate this location. Well, this place satisfies Scenario "A, B, C and D."

As I just had "roti cana" for my breakfast, I could not eat like a famished hobbits.

Due to the hot weather, a cup of tea concocted with evaporated milk and sugar was ideal.

Toasted bread was ordered to complement the tea.

If you happen to drop by this coffee shop, some of the activities mentioned in my hypothetical scenario may actually being performed by "Oscar Award" persons.

Footnote:

Some readers may wonder why no address is mentioned. The reasons are simple:

1. This is not an advertorial

2. This post is for the personal record and writing pleasure

3. You can take the above picture as a topic for treasure hunt

4. There are thousand and one eateries in Johor Bahru, this place is just like a drop of water in ocean. You can always give it a miss if you selection criteria does not meet those mentioned above.

5. If you still insist, refer to reason "4".

Another Eatery in Johor Bahru that requires no Introduction

My first encounter with this eatery can be traced back to its very first location. It was New Hong Kong Restaurant's neighbour, fronting the seaside.

My favourite dish at that time was the low-cost steak. Occasionally, I would order kueh teow fried with beef, nothing fanciful. In actual fact, I could not afford an expensive meal on my meagre income. As I was considered a small customer to the boss, he had no cognizance of my existence.

I had no idea how long ago and also it was also none of my concern to know the reason why this eatery shifted to a 3-storey building, not very far from its previous location. This second location provided the eatery with ample parking space and there were very few to match its style of cooking, hence the business flourished.

It was not very long ago that the second location had to give way for development , hence, the eatery shifted to its present location.

The operator of this eatery has his own philosophy on how the foods should be ordered. He prioritises his own choices over the customers' desire. So, he has his own set of fatwa which actually irks some uncompromising customers.

The fatwa entails the followings:-

Don't ask the freshness of foods served

Don't go against his recommendations

Don't over order your foods

Don't parley about foods

Don't ask the price

.. Are there any more that the readers care to add?

This eatery is rather lucky in its choice of location in terms of availability of parking space. However, this new location poses some tricky route for first timer, even Johorian finds it difficult to get there. It is something like so near yet so far kind of déjà vu; you see it but you can't reach it.

Hitherto, I have not even mentioned the name of the eatery. But I am very sure that many readers would have known of this hardly undiscovered eatery that I am nagging about.

Now, I am showing you a quick glimpse of the front façade of eatery. How about the next one ?

The following dishes catered for four persons. We had not ordered any of the flag-ship dishes such as deep fried chicken and so on and so forth.

The menu for lunch.

Meehoon soup – slices of fish, lot of ginger, vegetable.

Fish head fried with yam.

Beancurd with prawn.

Gratis.

I do not want to recount the foods served here. Many food lovers can do a better job than me.

This eatery used to be a magnet for many food-lovers, somehow, its past glory seems to have tapered a bit judging from the crowds frequenting this place. Maybe some changes in the operator's disposition might galvanise the business. The boss's self-assurdness can curdle into snobbery which he did not realize.

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

Shopping & Eating Are indeed the Best Medicines Available for Non-Iatrogenic Patients

My helpful honorary friend had been exhorting me about the availability of Acer Netbook. A check with the supplier showed that it was definitely not available anywhere in Johor Bahru. Eventhough PC fair was just around the corner, but my friend seemed to have petered out a bit on patience.

This morning, I checked again with the supplier and the answer remained the same, no stock. However, my supplier did suggest an alternative which was Asus Eeepc.

So my friend's hope did not meet the impasse yet.

On comparison, prima facie, the Asus appeared to be a better buy as it came with 2G of memory despite the webcam was only 0.3M. It may be nice to have 1.3M webcam, but the streamyx service, something that is left much to be desired, may not be able to support the high resolution webcam.

Nevertheless, this crystallized the tipping point for my friend's decision to buy.

" Die Die must buy."

Of course, you could not deny there was some residue of vacillation in arriving at the decision.

They say, being female is about nothing more than dieting and shoe shopping, then being male is also about nothing more than eating and shopping.

So at noon, an elderly Chinese trio left Johor Bahru for Tmn Ungku Tun Aminah to witness the economic transaction which involved the exchange of moolah for computer.

You could see the aura of exhilaration that was emanating from my friend's visage after he became the proud owner of another adult toy.

If you observe the video, it is not easy to open a virgin box, so many hands are required.

Satisfying the desire to buy was only half of the story. The imminent need was to satisfy the gastronomic cache.

Ladies, take notice that the male homo sapiens is not that difficult to please. They could happily settle in this highly elevated temperature eatery. I could not say whether the converse was applicable to woman.

As you can see, this place was rather crowded and the cook was constantly preparing the food.

It took a while for the foods to arrive. Regardless of how, the wait was well rewarded with scrumptious fish ball "kueh teow" soup. We ate every morsel with gust.

A single bowl.

A single bowl - Not significant enough.

For visual effect, three bowls.

The distribution of ingredients was rather even. Every bowl had 4 fish balls, one meat ball, slices of pork and fish cake. What else ?

Despite the high price of chilli, the owner allowed you to help yourself with any amount you like.

The price.

One fish ball = RM0.40

Fish ball kueh teow soup - small - RM4.00

Big RM5.00

As a finale for our lunch, we opted for more food. The dim sum shop highlighted in my another post was not open, so we had to be satisfied with this coffee shop.

A heated bun. The skin was quite crispy. I loved it. The thick slab of butter could be seen quite clearly.

"Chay Kueh Teow". Is it a stodge?

The place where the char kueh teow was prepared. How do you like it ?

The facade of the shop.

The coffee was actually brewed nascently, but I hated to comment again. Next time, to be on the safer side, order tea.

I have a feeling that my friend is still mollycoddling the netbook.

A Simple Nonya Lunch - Eatery in Johor Bahru

This is a very simple restaurant. The only luxury is the air-conditioning. However, people who come to eat here are not that simple, that is what I perceive. The proprietor holds a university degree but not in gourmet foods. Anywhere, you only realise that he has B.A. when you are given the calling card.

OK, the location is given on the name card.

The prices are clearly shown on the white board.

There is a display of food review on the wall.

It is enlarged here, if you want to read.

I think one should try the food oneself and should not be swayed by any review done by self-claimed food aficionado. You must not be in a supine agreement with any reviews. Seriously, is there any academy that teaches food tasting? How do you teach, say, European to eat durian? If Albert Kok happens to read this post, no offence intended.

The rice is well presented. You know you are getting at least one bowl of rice.

Knowingly that table is dirty, the common spoons are placed on tissue paper.

We did not order fish head curry, instead we opted for the meaty section even though we are not pescatarian.

The fish-cake from Muar.

The all time favourite food of Malaysian. In future, do observe that this dish is usually not fully consumed.

Sambal squid.

Chendol for dessert.

On the whole, the dishes are tasty especially when the weather is hot, like today.

Finally, a simple meal does not mean you simply pay any amount of money you like, this meal costs RM82.00 for three persons.