Ke Ren Lai (客人来), Mid Valley Southkey, Johor Bahru

Came across Ke Ren Lai (Lot TM-030, Third Mezzanine Floor, The Mall, Mid Valley Southkey, Persiaran Southkey 1, Southkey, 80150 Johor Bahru). They do Hakka cuisine and for some of the dishes, updated representations of them.

One of those updated representations was their ice thunder tea milk (独创擂茶撞奶). I'm gonna agree with the innovative description in the name. It's milky and sweet with a herbal/liquorice profile.  As a 茶撞奶, I totally get it. And I like it.

There's lei cha fried rice (爆炒擂茶饭). The taste didn't veer much from regular thunder tea rice because the ingredients were mostly the same. What made this was how savoury it was. A little oily perhaps, but still got us spooning mouthful after mouthful.

Their Hakka abacus seeds were not nice. In fairness, the minced meat and tofu bits were deliciously salted and savoury. The yam nuggets were chewy, somewhat akin to mochi and didn't taste particularly yammy. Also more oily than I'm comfortable with. I'm guessing it's the ratio of ingredients that we didn't agree with.

Smoked kampung chicken (炭火烟熏盐焗土鸡). Bird was dry-ish and not tender. Required some jaw work. Was smoky though. That lightly fried tofu and the yuzu goma salad on the side were the highlights and I meant that in a good way.

Enjoyed their dang gui milk with peach gum (当归桃胶蜂蜜奶). 👍🏼

That green stuff was lei cha yoghurt (清轻擂茶酸奶). I thought it was a good balance of those lei cha-ish flavours with the the tanginess from the yoghurt. A third stealing of thunder if you would. 😬 Also nice with those cold frozen berries and candied nuts.

Oriental Kopi, Mid Valley Southkey, Johor Bahru

We ended up at Oriental Kopi at Mid Valley Southkey (No 1, LG-054, The Mall, Mid Valley, Persiaran Southkey 1, Southkey, 80150 Johor Bahru) for lunch.

Got their iced chocolate royal because we remember liking it the last time we had it at Bugis Junction. It's as good.

There's a new taro polo bun on menu. I quote them "...crispy #purple sweet potato crust, velvety smooth #Taiwan Dajia taro paste, and a refreshing layer of #thick-cut cold butter. Hot meets cold, crispy meets creamy, a flavor explosion in every bite!?". Oh hell yeah this was good. I haven't heard of Dajia taro until now. As I'm typing this. Pedigree of the taro aside, the execution of the bun was well thought out.

I've been curious about their mala ban mian for a while now. Tasted like how I imagined it. Not bad but also not special.

Their prawn fried rice was very eggy. Very.

Pretty decent tea. The flavour's reminiscent of Thai tea and they don't try to kill you slowly with sugar here.

Heng Wah Kopitiam (興華老店), Holiday Villa, Johor Bahru

Breakfast at Heng Wah Kopitiam (260 Jalan Dato Sulaiman, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru).

Kopi's not bad. Pretty nice brew even without the gao.

Wanton mee's nice. Love the texture of the egg noodles flavoured with rendered lard (猪油). Unfortunately their fried lard (猪油渣) was stale and lau hong. Pity cuz I liked the rest of this.

There's nasi lemak. Decent rendition with nice toasty peanuts and a slightly watery sambal that appears to have the taste of sardine. Hmmm...

The fried chicken thigh that came with the nasi lemak was chunky, crispy on the skin and was flavoured with turmeric. I thought I detected cumin as well. Meat's moist underneath all that golden brown. Nice!

Steamed bread with some milky dip that had pandan kaya inside. Not bad.

Like Mee Noodle House (贊麵館 豬肉粉), Taman Mount Austin, Johor Bahru

Pretty impressed by what we had at Like Mee Noodle House (6 Jalan Austin Heights 8/2, Taman Mount Austin, 81100 Johor Bahru).

Ice kopi's pretty good. Flavour's robust even with the ice and milk. That monkfruit/luo han guo/罗汉果 tea wasn't as thick as I was imagining though.

Tried their 猪肉粉/pork noodles. This one was the option with mixed pork parts which included sliced pork, liver, some deliciously flavourful pork patties and check out those stuffed intestines! Both meat and offal were well prepared without residual stench. Soup's cloudy and packed with a clean pork flavour, layered gently with lard.

Flavour of said soup was intensified and further aromatised from a generous shot of shao xing wine (绍兴酒).

The other bowl we had was fish paste noodles. Not that fish paste noodles. This bowl was noodles that came with slices of fish paste. Tasted like tender fish cake. The soup was fortified with evaporated milk and more shao xing wine. Reminded me a little of that milky soup bowl from Go Noodle House. Hell yeah this was good! 👍🏼

Tried their fish popcorn. These were kinda like mini fish cakes. Kinda because it wasn't the same but I couldn't put a finger to what made these different.

Would love to come back.

More food from from Meng Meng Roasted Duck (阿明帝皇鸭) at City Square

Stopped by Meng Meng Roasted Duck at City Square for food before heading deeper into JB.

Discovered that their salted vegetable duck soup (咸菜鸭汤) was not bad. Liked it enough that I'll want to get it again the next time.

Tried asking for 半肥瘦 for their char siew. This was it. Tasted kinda like the last times we had them. The meat was more tender than it looked. Not Char Siew Yoong standards obviously.

油饭 doesn't have that much salt so the flavour intensity isn't high. Which makes it great pairing with their lime-y chilli sauce.

Bonjour Ma Cuisine, Craig Road

Bonjour Ma Cuisine is the brunch operation of the one Micheline starred Ma Cuisine (38 Craig Road, tel : +65 9627 1058). The former is available for breakfast and lunch for weekdays only and the latter only has dinner service. At least for now that's how it's working for them.

Iced coffee's okay. 

Chocolat veinnois had a rich milkiness paired with a creamy viscosity and an infusion of cinnamon in the chocolate. Not bad. 

One of their recommended dishes was their Croque Madame Truffe - their refined rendition of the traditional sandwich with truffle. Doesn't look like the standard variety sandwich of its kind. Ham and cheese was inside the disc of crunchy bread with a pretty sunny side up. Not bad tasting. Now that I've tried it, I won't get it again. That's how it was.

We were more impressed by their quenelle de brochet sauce nantua.

Quenelle had a creamy/custardy texture flavoured by presumably the pike that went into it and that crustacean-y sweet, savoury and spicy sauce nantua. 👍🏼

Salade de foies de volaille - warm chicken liver salad with rockets. Nice. Sauce was vinegary and with onions which cut through the richness of those livers.

Their pasta with Parmesan is apparently a thing. Menu calls it linguine but isn't this pappardelle? Anyways, the application of the cheese is balanced by what the restaurant thinks ideal. It didn't taste bad. It just didn't pack the punch from the cheese like I imagined. But otherwise, it's okay.

They have a pretty refined hand chopped tartare de boeuf. Meat's in small chunky cubes which provided a good texture full of bite - if that's your thing that is. It was mine. We enjoyed this.

We were recommended their pain perdu kaya. I was initially wondering where the kaya was. It's the yellow sauce. Bread's nicely brûlée-ed with a light crisp and caramel bitter sweetness. It was also airy on the insides which helped absorb the custard-y sauce. This was nicer than I imagined.