Fish Head Beehoon Worth The Search

Food Trail
By SAM CHEONG


BEFORE I kick off this week’s find, I would like to apologise for a small error in my story on the Wah Cheong coffee shop in Section 17 Petaling Jaya.

In the story, I mentioned ‘condensed’ milk as a main ingredient in the gravy of the yee thau mai (fish-head beehoon). The correct item for this should be ‘evaporated milk’.


Unique: Fish head noodles with evaporated milk.

Soo Ewe Jin, one of my bosses, pointed this out. “Eh Sam ah! I follow your trail lah and when I read about the yee thau mai, you mentioned condensed milk, my wife and I had a good laugh,” he said.

All right, I hope that clarified things a little bit, and while we are on the subject of yee thau mai, Peter Hoe, my colleague had got back to me on the much talked about makan place in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur.

But before I proceed, I would like to give a shout out to blogger pegasus (http://pegasuskl.wordpress.com) who emailed me about the same makan place.

After checking out this blogger’s awesome site, I would say that the bual bual kosong blog is one of the most interesting food blogs I’ve ever come across.

Okay, back to Peter Hoe - my buddy came up to me and told me that he couldn’t handle the 15 seconds of fame and that he had received plenty of phone calls to get directions to the said place in Taman Desa.

“Aiyah Sam! My phone didn’t stop ringing lah. What have you done?”, he said. Well, Hoe had certainly felt the pressure and invited me to join him for a quick fix at the yee thau mai joint.

“Meet me at the lobby and we go for a fast one!,” he said with a slap on my shoulder. Hoe and I go back a long way since The Star was based at Section 13 in Petaling Jaya.

After hearing his stories on travel and adventure back in the early 90s, I jumped at the chance to grab a fast lunch with this living legend.

Our drive from Menara Star in Section 16 took about 15 minutes. We ended up at one corner in Taman Desa and to me, this is an entirely obscure landscape.


The search ends here: Woo Pin fish head noodles in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur, deserves a repeat visit.

The place in question was Woo Pin fish head noodles. But if you are a first-timer here, you will never find the place because their name was not printed on a signboard.

Instead, the outlet is situated in a steamboat restaurant at a corner lot in the first row of shoplots at Jalan 2 109F. A surefire tell-tale sign here is the crowd. The shop opens from 7.20am to 2.30pm and that’s all they need to bring in the day’s earnings.

Well, believe it or not, we thought we got there early but by noon, the place was already crowded and people just kept coming.

“Ah, here, you can order the clear soup without evaporated milk. I like it even better with some fresh fish slices.

“If you want to get the most out of it, you can add the yee wat (fish paste) and yee peen (fish slice). I like my yee thau mai in its clear broth,” explained Hoe.

Well, for starters, a bowl of fish head beehoon costs RM6.50. I was quick on the draw when a Myanmar worker handed out the bill.

It was an honour for me to eat with sifu Hoe and indeed a pleasure to savour Taman Desa’s most electrifying yee thau mai.

So, how did this place fare? On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate it at 6.5. Pricing wise, this makan place charges slightly higher than most of the stalls I had visited.

On taste, I would say that the gravy (mine came with evaporated milk) was not as creamy as I had anticipated, nevertheless, its smooth flavour made up for the shortcoming.

For ingredients, you can choose to have fresh fish head and slices (order before 11am) or the usual deep fried morsels.

As far as the portion was concerned, Woo Pin is generous enough to pack my bowl of noodles but, too bad the waiter got my order wrong. Well, I guess I’ll have to make a repeat visit to taste other variants of the yee thau mai.

While we were eating, Hoe pointed out that the outlet’s owner, a middle aged Chinese guy, looked rather harassed and was frowning all the time.

Maybe it was the pressure to get orders delivered on time. “Ha, lou sai, hou mah!” (Boss, how are you), Hoe gestured. All I saw, was a frown on the owner’s face. How strange.

His good looks aside, I would say that searching for this yee thau mai place is an adventure by itself. If you have a vehicle-mounted GPS receiver, Woo Pin fish head noodles is located at: Lat 03 05 49, Long 101 41 10.

Before I clock off, I would also like to thank reader Adrian Chong who emailed me and gave me the lowdown on the best yee thau mai in Kuala Lumpur and perhaps in the Klang Valley. Where is this place? Well, tune in to find out in the next: “Samo’s great yee thau mai discovery”.