Kuey teow 白 from You Yi Minced Meat Noodle (友谊肉脞面)

Kuey teow with no sambal or vinegar from You Yi. Adequately salted and lardy with heat just from the sliced chilli. Nice. What I didn't expect/understand this time round was, why were there fried wantons instead of the regular ones.

Yong Kee Different Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice (勇記不同味海南雞飯), Hong Lim Food Centre

Trying a chicken rice stall (#02-24 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) I've never noticed previously at Hong Lim Food Centre. They've been around - just that I haven't registered them before.

Got a plate with poached chicken thigh, roast pork and egg.

Pretty decent chicken rice here. Chilli's lime-y, garlicky, a little gingery with a hint of bitterness and some heat. Chicken's tender and rice was adequately flavoured. I think this one was better with chilli than without. Soup has really tender cabbages in it but I'm pretty sure I caught kiam chye flavour. What's not good was the roast pork which had soggy crackling.

虾一跳 (Xia Yi Tiao), Food Republic @ Vivocity

The names for some local eateries have gotten punny over the years. Came across this one at Food Republic (#03-01 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk). Have never seen/heard of this laksa/prawn noodle stall before.

Pricey big prawn laksa. Somewhere along the tunes of $16 if I remember correctly and portion wasn't exactly big.

Pretty good lemak gravy. Needs a dollop of their sambal because that gravy has a lot less dimension and body without. Their thick bee hoon (粗米粉) was also thinner than the regular type.

Chef Lup Roasted (立师父烧腊), Golden Mile Food Centre

I didn't realise when we ate at Chef Lup Roasted at Lau Pa Sat that the brand was started by an ex-Kam’s Roast executive chef who's had considerable experience under his belt. The first shop that was set up is this one at Golden Mile (#B1-56 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road). 

We had plate of triple roasts with eggs this time round. Char siew was as good as I recall with smokey sweet gumminess from the caramelisation and fat with meat. Not forgetting too the nice crisp on the tender siu yoke and their tender roasted duck breast in herbal sauce which were also exceptional. 

I like their 油饭. Great savouriness in the rice which ended up being both good with and without the sweet/limey/garlicky chilli sauce. That's a nice pickled mustard greens soup on the side.

Taste Ipoh, Raffles City

Some food from Taste Ipoh (#B1-81 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road). As the name of the eatery would suggest, they're doing Ipoh styled food and according to them, the menu's a "celebration of Ipoh's culinary heritage".

Tried their crispy poh piah which has dried shrimp (hae bi) flavour in it. We like this rendition better than the one from Auntie Mei's Crispy Popiah even though it didn't have as much crunchy bits. Did have more sweet sauce and was more competently wrapped.

That's something called Fragrant Spicy Dry Curry Chicken (Varuval) Bee Hoon Mee - not bad. Not understanding the 'varuval' part in the name but I'm guessing it's got to do with the chicken. Texture from the noodles were pleasantly firm and we kinda enjoyed the dark gravy flavoured with curry from the "dry curry" chicken.

Pretty good tasting Ipoh white kopi c. Coffee's fairly robust with adequate fragrance.

Go-Ang Pratunam Chicken Rice, Anchorpoint

Go-Ang Pratunam Chicken Rice has been around for some years and have a number of branches around. Having their chicken rice for the first time. Never ate at the original in Bangkok before. This was Anchorpoint (#01‬-07/08 Anchorpoint, 70 Alexandra Road, ‎tel  : +65 6470 8200).

Ice rose milk tea was pretty good - exactly like bandung with Thai tea if anyone's wondering. Roselle was decent, but it's not in the same leagues as the one from Din Tai Fung. 

Both the thigh & breast meat chicken rice were nicely done. They're similar to the local Hainanese rendition minus the drizzle of sesame/chicken oil and light soya sauce. Rice was flavoured enough to eat on its own.

Salty chicken soup and sauces. The dark one reminded me of a less viscous chee cheong fun sauce with chilli.

Not bad tasting bitter gourd with eggs - the only thing I didn't quite like was the excessive oil which were pooling at the bottom of the plate.

Sambal kang kong's competent and nothing out of the ordinary.

We liked their steamed tapioca and coconut cream dessert. Nice sweetness from tapioca and light saltiness from that cream. What we also appreciated was that those tapioca weren't fibrous.

Pine Chicken Rice (松香鸡饭), Taman Melodies, Johor Bahru

Heard good things about Pine Chicken Rice (161 Jalan Beringin, Taman Melodies, 80250 Johor Bahru, tel : +60 13-715 3211).

Lemon tea's pleasantly astringent.

Coffee's pretty decent too. Not as aromatic as I usually prefer but it's pretty robust.

That one sauce that we've never encountered before at chicken rice shops/stalls is the green one.

Got ourselves the lower quarter of their poached chicken which was basically dark meat. Bird's smooth, firm and tender. Nice.

Rice was nicely flavoured from their stock and not excessively greasy. There's adequate savouriness that one could inhale with or without the chilli sauces. Soup's pleasantly herbal.

Speaking of sauces...the red's not like the one back home. It's less punchy, less sweet and didn't seem to be lime-y but still pretty good tasting. The green one's deliciously lime-y. Nice.

Egg.

Otah's pretty good. Heard it's not made in house but that don't make us think lesser of it. Plenty of little chunks of fish in it.

In essence, Pine Chicken Rice was nothing short of competent. Would not mind coming back at all.

Yit Foh Restaurant (益和云吞面), Taman Abad, Johor Bahru

Read about Yit Foh's (153 Jalan Harimau, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru) wanton mee and it seemed that there were polarised opinions on them despite descriptions that sounded pretty good to me. We came for breakfast to find out for ourselves. 😬

The wanton mee comes in 3 sizes. This was the small. Note to self: get the medium next time. One can choose between mee pok...

...and their regular egg noodles. Both are made by Yit Foh and have great texture. Saucing was light and savoury and their chilli packs some heat. Nice. Char siew's....they are what they are. Soak in sauce for better eating.

Wantons were light (as opposed to densely packed) and actually not bad. 

We got a side of chicken chop. Wouldn't say that it's no good but I don't think we liked so much crunch on the batter.

Kopi's decent. Hainanese style, not the most aromatic but pretty thick.

Restoran Sekee (亞華粿條), Jalan Segget, Johor Bahru

We've walked past Restoran Sekee (49C Jalan Segget, Bandar Johor Bahru, 80000 Johor Bahru) a number of times while we were in the vicinity and have been curious but haven't stepped in until now.

Cooking is still being done with charcoal here. 

What they're known for is kuey teow soup. Or kuey teow dry if one prefers so.

The dry option came with some vinegary chilli sauce. That and light soya sauce, some lard and fried shallot oil. Love those smooth slurpy kuey teow. There's a nice rice-y flavor to them.

Pretty darn good with their sliced chilli.

The pork soup that came with the kuey teow has pig liver, sliced pork, minced pork and pig kidneys. We were told that one can swap the latter with oysters which we did. The proprietor mentioned that these oysters were from Muar. They were fat, briny and bursty with no strong or off putting oyster-ly flavour. Nice.

Broth was light with a porcine sweetness.

Crab Bro Noodle House (蟹哥哥), SKS City Mall JBCC, Johor Bahru

We recall seeing Crab Bro Noodle House (L2-01 & L2-01 (AA), Level 2, SKS City Mall JBCC, Jalan Storey, Bukit Senyum, 80300 Johor Bahru) on socials and happened to chance upon them while checking out SKS City Mall. Curiosity got the better of us.

The item that called out to us was their supreme tu huang you rice (至尊禿黄油饭). This was basically a set that came with a serving of crab roe with rice and some kimchi with pickled long beans on the side to help with the richness. For those that love crab roe, I'd reckon this would be a no brainer.

There's a cup of ginger tea to help balance the coolness with the heat.

One just has to fold the crab roe with the rice and eat. Loads of briny umami in this one with a crustacean savoury sweetness. And if that wasn't enough, that shot of that vinegar on the side made it even easier to inhale the bowl. Nice. 👍🏼

Fried rice with more crab roe and crab meat was pretty good eating too but between this and that supreme tu huang you rice, the latter kicked more butt.

Decent lemon tea.