Favourites from The Star Street Food Guide
JOHOR BARU
BREADS AND CAKES
KEDAI ROTI & KEK HIAP JOO
13, Jalan Tan Hiok Nee, Johor Baru, Open 8am-6pm. Closed on Sundays (Baking starts after 12.30pm)
IF you have only a few hours to spend in J.B., make this one of your stops. For folks caught in the fast lane, this old-world bakery is a window to another way of life.
The over 80-year-old bakery was started by the late patriarch Lim Joo Ban. The bread is still made the same way he did it when he arrived from Hainan Island in 1928, although the business is now run by his children and grandchildren.
A huge woodfire oven dominates the small shop, the walls blackened by years of smoke. Here, tradition is written in stone: the writing in soot is baked into the red brick of the kiln. Regulars know when the breads will be out of the oven and start queueing up 10 minutes before baking is done.
Many have been enjoying the breads and cakes here since they were children.
The bakery is famous for its banana cake. Soft and moist with the intoxicating perfume of bananas, the melt-in-your-mouth cake is one of the best around.
Also available are French loaves and sandwich bread. All breads and cakes are sold directly from their shop.
The products must be consumed within three days of purchase because no preservatives are used.
KANGAR
NASI KARI INDONESIA
EMBASSY COFFEE SHOP
53 Jln Jubli Perak, Kangar. Open 10.30am-2pm. Days off not fixed.
MOST locals are familiar with this stall, and they all have one piece of advice: go early!
There’s always a large crowd, and many come in to tapau.
Most of the home-cooked dishes on offer are spiced up with chillies. Try the pork cooked in a thick curry – it’s quite exceptional.
A must-eat is the salted fish with onions in a tamarind-based gravy – tangy, salty and slightly sour.
The duck – similar to the Nyonya dish, itek sioh – is another good eat. The meat comes off the bone quite easily and there is a nice flavour of coriander in the dish.
A slightly sweet prawn sambal is also good.
SUBANG JAYA
PAN MEE
RESTORAN LIAN HENG
22, Jln SS 19/6, Subang Jaya. Open 7.30am-3pm. Closed on Sundays & public holidays.
THE demand for Madam Lam’s pan mee is so great that she has resorted to issuing queue numbers! Get a number from the metal ring hung at the stall, put in your order and find a seat. Expect to wait at least 20 minutes.
The noodles are made from flour, water and eggs. Instead of passing the fresh dough through a machine, Madam Lam prefers to tear the dough into pieces by hand – handmade pan mee has a better bite than that made by machine.
The pan mee is cooked in a stock made by boiling dried ikan bilis. Vegetables (kau ki choi) and pork slices are added before the cooking is completed. Available dry or in soup, the noodles are topped with pre-cooked minced pork and crispy deep-fried ikan bilis.
