Quietly tucked in a row of shop houses at SS18 is the JM Bariani House that serves traditional Johor nasi briyani. My colleague and I went there on a particularly warm afternoon for lunch as this place is actually air conditioned. It was a wise decision, not only did we not have to sweat in a kopitiam, the food was so good it reminded me of the awesome Indian nasi briyani I had at Myanmar.

illustrated menu and a comfortable interior
JM Bariani House serves all but one item (mee bandung) that isn’t nasi briyani as main dish. There’s lamb, beef, chicken, fried chicken, and even just pure nasi briyani without any meat. They also serve nasi briyani gam ayam (chicken) every Wednesday and nasi briyani gam kambing (lamb) every Saturday.
I ordered a lamb briyani and my colleague had the chicken briyani, we also ordered a tauhu bakar (fried bean curd skin stuffed with mengkuang, cucumber, and sauce) to share.

chicken and lamb briyani, tauhu bakar
The rice used is the finer and smaller grain than usual, very soft and fragrant. The meat was so tender you can cut it with your spoon, they must be cooked for many hours. The taste was just right, not overly spicy, salty, nor sweet, but just a perfect harmony that was very satisfying. My colleague was very satisfied with the chicken briyani as well.
As for the tauhu bakar, I could say that I’ve had better. You would probably want to skip this item when you’re there.

The lamb briyani was RM 10.50 and chicken at RM 9.50. Not exactly economical but wouldn’t break your bank either. Some might justify it with air conditioning provided, but I’d say the awesome nasi briyani more than make up for the slightly higher price.
Address:
21 & 21A Jalan SS18/6,
Subang Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.064812, 101.585866
Tel: 03-5634 4660
I received an invitation to my ex-uni friend Kim Heng’s wedding dinner over MSN and decided to take the opportunity to rekindle with some of the old pals I used to hang out back when we were in our early twenties studying at St. Cloud State. Though some of us still communicates with each other occasionally via the web, it was some 6 years since we last met.

Congradulations
Kim Heng and Chiew Fei were together even before their university days, and only after 11 years did they move the relationship into the next step last Saturday night. Congratulations!

Kim Heng serenading to the wife

Wai Hong and Hui Mei with the bride
It was cool seeing those guys again, memories of yesteryears flooding back. All of a sudden it was like back in the days where we still had to worry assignments and exams, instead of bills and dodging older relatives asking their favorite question that Kim Heng now can answer with pride.

the dinner
After the dinner, some ten of us spent the night in a 3 bedroom hotel suite at JB to catch up some lost time. Hui Mei brought a drinking roulette game thing, and we were just trying to make each other drink the entire night, interrupted only with some toilet breaks.

roulette drinking game

the happy bunch
How time flies. We had bak kut teh at JB the next morning and parted ways after that. We went back to KL, Melaka, Johor, and even a pair to Hong Kong. It was a weekend well spent. None of us would have expected how each other turned out to be when we were still in the same university, judging from the picture below, I’m sure Chek Ning agrees.

chek ning doing her happy laugh
I hope we don’t need to wait another 6 years to meet again.
More pictures at flickr.com/kyspeaks