Putien Mama, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Putien has opened their Mama branded eatery at Tiong Bahru Plaza (#02-114 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) in the unit that might have been previously Xing Xing Mala & Chicken Pot. This looked to be a more "express" version compared to their regular restaurant.

They have a litre sized iced lemon tea which looked like a response to the giant lemon tea from Xiang Xiang Hunan Cuisine.

Found their sweet & sour pork to be dangerously addictive.

Putien's signature Heng Hwa bee hoon is available here in single serving portion. Kinda small portion methinks. It looked somewhat pre-made and put together than cooked together if you catch my drift. But it's all good with their lime-y chilli sauce.

Not bad tasting scrambled eggs with prawns. A number of their dishes looked like they came in claypots and we were initially wondering at the huge portions. Today, we found out that the claypots were pretty shallow and those portions weren't as large as we thought them to be.

Next Shikaku, Westgate

So another oyster broth ramen has sprung up (B1-28 Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive Mall, tel : +65 6592 5060). Next Shikaku from Osaka. The place looked a lot like a local bar/karaoke/watering hole than a ramen-ya. They claim that they specialise in using the freshest oysters in their ramen broth and I'm of the opinion that superlativity smells like rats.

They've been hyped as the first experiential oyster ramen store here. What in the world does that even mean? 🤔

This was their koeru bowl. Broth's creamy, smooth and has oyster flavour. Umami is a good word. But if one is looking for oyster-ly, this has nothing on the bowl from the defunct Keisuke Plus. It's actually less oyster-ly than the paitan bowl from Konjiki Hototogisu which I thought was decent until Keisuke Plus opened my eyes. 

With expectations laid from a place that claims to be an oyster broth ramen specialist, this was kinda underwhelming. Not a bad bowl of noodles though. Just wished that there was more than a lonely sad oyster in there.

I liked their asobu tsukemen better. Noodles were wide like pappardelle and had a nice firm bite to them. They were served in chilled water to preserve said texture but it also meant a lot of drips went into the dipping broth. Which was a more intense version of their koeru broth I think. Accented with pink peppercorn for that extra bit of floral note.

Beef sushi's nice. Thin sliced, fatty and flavourful with a small mound of rice.

Restoran Md. Salleh, Taman Pelangi, Johor Bahru

Breakfast at Restoran Md. Salleh (22 Jalan Pingai, Taman Pelangi, 80400 Johor Bahru).

Found their tea a tad too sweet for my liking. The flavour was also reminiscent of roobois tea.

Roti telur goyang - a kosong with a telur goyang with their dal kuah. In English, a plain roti canai with a wobbly half boiled egg and their lentil gravy. Gravy's a little thinner and less punchy than what I was expecting.

I was wondering if their roti sardine was similar to the sardine prata from Prata Saga Sambal Berlada. It wasn't. There's onions in it so it turned out to be more akin to the sardine murtabak. Sardine's finely minced and spread out so while it wasn't bad, Prata Saga Sambal Berlada's sardine prata beats this. I mean like hands down.

Lontong gravy was on the thin side, lacks the richness and viscosity as the ones I normally prefer back home. But I guess that's how they roll here.

Tried a kosong and telur. As roti canai/prata went, they were competent enough. Hard pressed to find something about it that is memorable though.

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.