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It is very common for a dish famous in one area to be offered in another part of the country with slightly altered ingredients. This is usually done due to availability, or sometimes just to better suit the local taste.

For Penang hawker dishes in Klang Valley, curry mee is perhaps the one dish that is affected the most. The ingredients used is sometimes so different from the version up North you wonder why they still share the same name.

Anyway, for the true Penang curry mee lovers, here are four places where Penang curry mee is offered with one crucial ingredient (to me, the most important ingredient) to unite them all – coagulated pork blood.

Penang curry mee at Restaurant Okay, PJ SS2

The father and son stall at Restaurant Okay, SS2 operates from about 7:30am and usually sells out in a little over two hours. There’s prawn, blood, cockles, cuttle fish, and very fragrant sambal paste. There’s always a couple tables filled with Penangites seated right next to the stall on weekday mornings, I join them from time to time.

Address:
Restaurant Okay
2, Jalan SS2/10,
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
(at the other end of the same row of shop houses comprising KAYU)
GPS: 3.115084, 101.616390
Hours: 7:30 am to 9:30 am, off Mondays

Curry mee at Sun Sea kopitiam, OUG

Closer to KL, the version of Penang curry mee at Sun Sea kopitiam in OUG is also legit. It comes with all the essential ingredients with those slightly charred chilli paste. I also love the way they leave the cockles just ever slightly cooked.

Address:
Restaurant Sun Sea
Jalan Hujan Rahmat,
Overseas Union Garden,
58200 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.073945, 101.673234
Hours: daily till around noon+

curry mee from Penang One, Puchong

For those who are willing to pay a bit more for air conditioned dining environment, Penang One offers curry mee all the way from Pulau Tikus Keong’s curry mee stall in Penang. The cuttle fish used here is the darker version closer to one you find in mee goreng mamak, and there’s long bean, mint leaves, and even bunga kantan thrown in. Definitely worth the extra RM 2-3 they charge over kopitiam versions.

Address:
Penang One at Puchong
G2, Jalan Puteri 2/6,
Bandar Puteri,
47100 Puchong, Selangor
GPS: 3.023883, 101.617950
Tel: 03-8052 0181
Hours: 9.30am – 9.30pm daily

Address:
Penang One at Kota Damansara
16-1, Jalan PJU5/7,
Dataran Sunway,
47810 Kota Damansara, PJ
GPS: 3.152335, 101.594404
Tel: 03-6151 1083
Hours: 10.30am – 10.30pm daily

Penang white curry mee at Mayiang Jaya cafe, PJ

The Penang white curry mee stall at Mayiang Jaya Cafe is one of my latest discovery in this category. All the essential ingredients is presence except prawns. Mint leaves and long beans sort of make up for it I guess, I always ask for more pork blood here. It is perhaps the weaker version among the four, but still one that manage to satisfy my cravings.

Address:
Mayiang Jaya cafe
28, Jalan SS26/4,
Taman Mayang Jaya,
Petaling Jaya 47301 Selangor
GPS: 3.116374, 101.604224
Hours: breakfast and lunch

As someone from Penang staying in Klang Valley, we always look out for a good bowl of curry mee. Unlike char kuih teow which is now pretty popular pretty much everywhere, curry mee is a bit of a different case.

See, the problem is, there’s already a version of curry mee (often called curry laksa) in KL that are quite similar yet different from the Penang version in terms of ingredients and sometimes, the soup base itself.

Update 5/5/2015: unfortunately this stall has ceased operation

Mayiang Jaya cafe at Taman Mayang, behind Lincoln College (old Lim KoK Wing)

While both versions usually have santan (coconut milk) as the base of the curry mee soup, the Klang Valley version is usually closer to curry chicken in taste, while the Penang version is more bare, relying only on santan and the usually more superior and fragrant chilly paste. As for ingredients, KL version usually has curry chicken, while the Northern counterpart completes the bowl with seafood.

this bowl of Penang white Curry Mee is legit

So far I’ve only had less than a handful of good Penang curry mee in KL, so I was more than happy to discover a relatively new stall at Mayiang Jaya cafe here at Taman Mayang in PJ claiming to offer Penang “White” curry mee.

The curry mee turned out to be legit. It came with coagulated pork blood (my favorite!), cuttle fish, cockles, long bean, tofupok, mint leaves, bean sprout, and pretty decent fragrant chilli paste as well. You can choose between mee hun, mee, or a mixture of both as your choice of carbo.

yeap, there’s cuttle fish, and even coagulated pork blood

For RM 5.50, this was a pretty decent bowl of Penang curry mee, even though one crucial ingredient, prawns, is lacking. I would not hesitate to have this curry mee again.

Hours are from breakfast to lunch, so this is definitely the place to go if you can’t wake up early enough for the SS2 Restaurant Okay’s version (which is slightly superior). If you’re a fan of Penang curry mee, this version at PJ is definitely worth checking out.

Address:
28, Jalan SS26/4,
Taman Mayang Jaya,
Petaling Jaya 47301 Selangor
GPS: 3.116374, 101.604224
Hours: breakfast and lunch