My day job brings me to Kota Kinabalu quite often these days, which is a bit of a blessing when it comes to work travel as this North Borneo city does offer a full package of beautiful ocean & beaches, the magnificent mount KK, and a host of rather unique hawker dishes not easily found this side of Klang Valley. I’m also particularly blessed to have friends who would bring me to explore these places.
Kedai Kopi Wah Juan, Kota Kinabalu
During my last visit, I had to go offshore for a short stint. For Sabah, that meant using the old Terminal 2 at BKI airport (who has flown Air Asia flight via this side before?). On my return trip, my friend Yann May picked me up and we decided to stopped by this rather busy looking kopitiam located by Tanjung Aru, between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 of the airport.
As it turned out, this was the famous Kedai Kopi Wah Juan that offers mixed pork (or pork offal) noodle which if I remember correctly, is an addiction of a friend who claimed to eat clean otherwise.
our lunch spread for two
We ended up ordering a plate of noodle with roast & bbq pork (as the lady doesn’t eat pork offal, WHYY!?), a bowl of beef ball soup, a plate of noodle with pork offal, and an additional small plate of pork offal.
Well, the result? It was awesome!
Can’t say much about those BBQ & roast pork, but the pork offal was on point, soft, flavorful, and properly braised to perfection. In addition, the home made noodle were superb as well, subtle in taste which compliments the other ingredients, and soaks up those sauce just nice. The beef ball soup too did not disappoint, and would be something I order again.
If I had to nitpick, they could do with slightly better chili paste, that’s about it.
A user commented that ever since I moved to Shah Alam, there’s been an influx of Shah Alam & Klang food entries with very few on PJ/KL, so here’s one that I thought is quite timely – the HK style Yung Kee Beef Noodle at Restoran Kwai Hup, Pudu.
UPDATE 02-07-2018: Yung Kee has moved to its own shop just a stone’s throw away at 21, Jalan Kancil
Yung Kee Beef Noodle at Restoran Kwai Hup
This is certainly not a new establishment, but one of the really popular hawker eateries that I found out only recently via one of my colleagues.
A bit of research revealed that the proprietor spent quite a large chunk of his life in HK and brought the recipe back to Malaysia. The result is a version of beef noodle that is just slightly different from what we are used too. The broth is a little closer to the tangkak version, while the meat and innards are “fall off the bone” soft.
the default mixed beef (牛扎) with soup
Quite a few versions of beef noodle is available here.
Standard “ngau lam” style starts at RM 8 and comes with meat, brisket, and beef balls. Portion of beef is rather generous, and the melt in your mouth texture is really hard to beat. This place is becoming one of my favorites right after the first try, and I’ve returned for a few other visits since.
you can order just tendon, soft and tender tendon
If you’re like me who loves really tender beef tendon, you’re in luck. RM 12 gets you a bowl of beef noodle with nothing but tendon cut in scallop size. Heaven on earth is what this is about, I had this on my first visit and will dream about the beef tendon every now and then.
there’s also “American Fat Beef”, striploin I suppose
If you want to get a bit more fancy, they have a RM 25 portion of “American Fat Beef 美国肥肉”, or striploin for your enjoyment. We tried this last weekend and thought while it was good, the striploin doesn’t separate itself as a much more superior product than their regular beef/innards, which was already very very good.
Additionally, I’ve read that they have Angus beef every now and then (especially on weekends) if you want to indulge yourself further more. Feel free to ask for recommendations.
For me though, I’ll be back for their regular “ngau lam” with extra tendons pretty often from now on, I suspect.
Address: Yung Kee Beef Noodle Restoran Kwai Hup 24, Jalan Kancil, Off Jalan Landak 55100 Pudu, Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.136191, 101.712989 Tel: 012-215 8009 Hours: 8 am to 2-3 pm
When it comes to fish head noodles, I’m often pretty conflicted. I mean, I love my seafood, but at the same time I am not one who likes to mess around with fish bones in a soupy dish. Sometimes it’s just too much trouble.
The perfect solution? Fish head noodle style but with deep fried fish fillet instead. This is one of the options you can get at Restaurant 6868 at Taman Kobena, Cheras.
Restaurant 6868, a very Chinese kinda name
Restaurant 6868 resides in one of the older shop lots at a relatively quiet part of Cheras. The two shop houses have seen better days, but the premise is rather cozy and hygiene standard is decent.
The menu is written on the wall, you can choose from “normal” Chinese Carp fish head noodle, Ma Yau fish head noodle, “4 Kingdom”, yin yeong, fish paste, and more. Prices are from RM 7 to RM 16 each bowl, a small bowl of Chinese Carp fish head noodle cheapest, and big portion of Ma Yau at the other end of price spectrum.
instead of fish head, we chose “ma yau” fish filets, fried suikao too
I had a small bowl of Ma Yau fish fillet noodle (RM 10) without the evaporated milk. It came with 3 chunks of pretty good size fillets. They were deep fried and fragrant, but what made it so much better was the sambal belacan that came with the fish, it was spicy and very addictive! I think I had about 3 extra servings of those belacan.
the sambal was most excellent
The version with evaporated milk were very good too, if you’re the type of prefers it that way. Big portion with Ma Yau fish costs RM 16 but you get 5 pieces of fillet instead of 3. I think we’ve decided that ordering big with less noodle might be the way to go next time. 😀
We also ordered some deep fried suikao (RM 1.80 each) for sharing and they were of good quality and packed with ingredients as well. You can have these with the accompanying chili sauce, but I prefer to down em with even more sambal.
I shall go come back here and perhaps try their fish maw soup next time.
Address: Restaurant 6868 No. 12, 14, Jalan 5/92B, Taman Kobena, 56100 Cheras Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.11670, 101.73008 Tel: 016-215 3667, 03-9281 1889 Hours: Mon-Wed-Fri (8 am to 11 pm), Tue-Thu-Sat (8 am to 6 pm), Sun (7 am to 5 pm)
With the cats waking me up before 7am every morning and the fact that I now ride a bike to work, it opens up a lot of opportunity for me to explore various breakfast outlets in the city. Last week I went to one of the oldest Hakka noodle stalls in town – the “Da Bu Mien” stall at Jalan Sayur, Pudu.
Hakka noodle at Jalan Sayur, brisk business in the morning
Even at the early hours, the 8 decade old stall is already packed with people. Sharing table is a norm, and you can say goodbye to comfortable chairs or air conditioned dining hall. The promise is a bowl of noodle as authentic as it gets, hand made and with ingredients true to the heart of the operator.
The stall has a yellow label that says “Da Bu Mien” (大埔面), which state it’s origin from Dabu county, a district of Meizhou, Guangdong Province of China, a center of Hakka culture.
minced meat, chasiu, and wantan too
A bowl of noodle is RM 4.50 and comes with minced meat, chasiu, vegetable, and a side of wantan soup. The traditionally made noodle (using bamboo) has a good springy texture to it and is closer to wantan noodle instead of the more common flattened style found in other Hakka noodle places.
I find myself enjoying the slightly oiled minced meat quite a bit, in fact, some regulars prefer to have more minced meat instead of chasiu.
Over all, it was a rather good bowl of noodle, and a place I certainly will visit again.
Address: Chun Kee (Da Bu) Hakka Mee 446, Jalan Sayur, Off Jalan Pudu, 55100 Pudu, Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.135208, 101.713051 Hours: breakfast till late lunch
A couple of weeks ago during one of those days where my regular lunch colleagues were nowhere to be found, I decided to do a bit of exploration around Bukit Bintang looking in hope of finding something out of the usual lunch options.
drunken chicken noodle, with fried egg as extra
After seemingly forever, I found myself wondering towards almost the end of Jalan Alor, and this is when I noticed quite a few people seated under colorful beach umbrellas enjoying something that smells pretty good.
And so I walked into Beh Brothers restaurant and stood in front of the one busy hawker stall – Sister Drunken Chicken Noodle.
Upon the operator’s recommendation, I ordered the drunken chicken noodle, with egg as extra.
it’s hot, long wait, and expensive, but I’ll come again, yums!
It took a good 20-25 minutes before my bowl of drunken chicken mee is served, and for a hawker dish at a kopitiam, it was a pretty pricey RM 12 too.
Then I smell it, and took a spoonful of soup into my mouth. It was laden with sweet, sweet taste of Chinese wine, the noodle was soaked with the very same sweetness, and there were intestine, chicken, liver, and plenty of those ginger too. It turned out to be better than expected, it was the best drunken chicken noodle (or soup) that I’ve tasted. By the time I was done the bowl was practically dry of all the rice wine broth.
The fried egg was an interesting addition to the dish but I think something that can be omitted without sacrificing anything.
The stall operates for breakfast and lunch crowd, and they have other options like fish, prawn, pork, and even frog. Looks like I’ll go there again pretty soon.
Address: Beh Brothers restaurant
(right behind PapaRich) Jalan Alor, Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.14528, 101.70829
