Triple K 牛肉面家, Jalan Tan Hiok Nee, Johor Bahru

Came across Triple K 牛肉面家 (48 Jalan Tan Hiok Nee, Bandar Johor Bahru, 80000 Johor Bahru) in our traipse along the heritage street. It was the mutton noodle soup that got our attention.

Broth was a mix of herbal sweetness and flavour from lamb. Meat was reasonably tender. Teetering on the cusp of being something memorable but not quite transcending into until......

......we discovered what seriously elevated that bowl was a splash of vinegar. Said vinegar helped tone the sweetness down and added an appetizing tanginess. I could come back again for this.

IT Roo Cafe, Jalan Dhoby, Johor Bahru

We've heard about IT Roo Cafe (7 Jalan Dhoby, Bandar Johor Bahru, 80000 Johor Bahru, tel : +60 7-222 7780) and their talked about old school chicken chop with biscuit crumb batter so we decided to get some. This was the one with two eggs and mushroom sauce.

Not bad tasting. The mushroom sauce has some sliced button mushrooms in it but the sauce didn't have any mushroom flavour. Potato wedges on the side were sweet and potato-y.

The pleasant surprise was their bandung fizz. Yes it was indeed a sweet, milky and fizzy rose flavoured beverage. I will come back here for this.

Restoran Hua Mui, Jalan Trus, Johor Bahru

We came to Hua Mui (131 Jalan Trus, Bandar Johor Bahru, 80000 Johor Bahru, tel : +60 7-224 7364) by way of recommendation for a slice of nostalgia. Place reminded me a little of Silom Restaurant in Bangkok. 

Here's their kopi cincau ice - coffee's more bitter, less rounded and less sweet compared to Oriental Kopi. Tasted old school Hainanese. 

Ditto for their butter kopi.

Fried chicken and egg sandwich was...a passable eat. Whole sandwich was dry-ish and the slice of fried chicken in the bread was pretty thin. Presumably, this fried chicken isn't of the same quality as the chicken chop that people say Hua Mui is known for. 

I don't know if anyone has noticed that their fried carrot cake isn't exactly fried carrot cake. They aren't made with radish. I'm pretty sure these are yam cake. Apart from tasting like yam infused with dried shrimp flavour, they're also heavier and denser. Actually tasted pretty good.

Nasi lemak was a little gingery and rice was somewhat lumpy. I'm not a fan. Needed a bit more salt methinks. Otah appears to be fried, not steamed. 

Some more firsts at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐)

Despite having eating at Din Tai Fung for years, we're still seeing ourselves ordering stuff from their menu for the first time. Like their soya bean milk which I'm guessing is pretty new because we haven't noticed it before. Not a bad one and I hope it stays on menu.

Not this...hahaha! We've been having these 素菜蒸饺 almost every time we've been here for a while now.

Did not expect to find sweet and sour pork at Din Tai Fung. Think they're relative new on the menu. The flavour was unexpectedly old school and nicely done with chunks of fat laced fried pork.

First time ordering the egg fried rice without anything else.

First time getting crab meat & pork xiao long bao (蟹粉小笼包). Not bad. The crab flavour in the dumplings made it more interesting than the regular xiao long bao which I've been avoiding.

There's something called mama mochi chocolate xiao long bao on a limited time availability. Xlb that's filled with scalding hot chocolate. What set these apart from other molten chocolate dumplings/cakes were that these tasted like hot chocolate and there's chilled salted cream on the side you could eat them with.

Said salted cream was pretty salty, but paired well with the chocolate xlb. These are freaking good.

Chicken claw noodles from (New) MacPherson Minced Meat Noodles (麦波申肉脞麵)

Another bowl from (New) MacPherson Minced Meat Noodles - this time it's their chicken claw mee pok. Getting a good flavour in those claws from the braising sauce. Each of them also had different levels of tenderness so while they were arguably slurp off the bone tender, that tenderness probably might not be consistent. Also will not be in the same leagues as places like Imperial Treasure. 😂 

The minced pork on the side was an add on if anyone was wondering.

A beyti kebab from Sultan Kebab

I couldn't identify much of what this was from the menu at Sultan Kebab but ordered it anyway because there was a lamb option. I had thought it to be pastry but it turned out to be lamb kofte wrapped in bread with cheese; toasted, sliced and then slathered with yoghurt and tomato sauce. Tasted much like how it looked. Kofte wasn't very fatty so not so much of the lamb flavour coming through. But now I know.