The Food Site

I usually do not like noodles, especially the yellow-coloured ones most used by hawkers so whenever we eat out, I don’t order noodles but I have one exception and that is the Indian Mee Goreng (Indian fried noodles). Maybe it’s the spiciness of the dish or the sauce or the extremely satisfying taste of mee goreng, whatever it is, I could never resist a good plate of mee goreng.

I remember I had this mee goreng craving during my pregnancy. I would demand for mee goreng for lunch or dinner every single day for the first three months! I would say it was kind of a good thing because after that, I am cured of this crazy obsession with mee goreng.

I still love mee goreng but not to the point of ‘I must have a plate now’ on a daily basis. Still, I wouldn’t mind trying out really, really good mee goreng and the one I am going to write about is just that.

The mee goreng at a corner coffee shop in Tanjung Bungah

This stall is located at a coffee shop called Chuan Foong at the junction of Jalan Chan Siew Teong and Jalan Batu Ferringhi. You can get the exact location here. I know there’s a huge nasi lemak sign there but I didn’t see any nasi lemak stall there and anyway, it’s not what we are there for! A friend had gushed about this mee goreng hawker stall quite a lot so we decided to give it a try.

Here’s what got my friend so excited about:

Mee goreng

Now, being a mee goreng junkie (well, er, a former junkie at that..I’ve reformed..really..sort of…), I am quite sceptical with any recommendations of mee goreng stalls. I find most quite bland and even the famous Bangkok Lane mee goreng does not suitably impress me. It is still pretty good but not as good as it used to be.

So, let’s get back to this hawker stall in Tanjung Bungah. It is relatively unknown but it sure do has quite a steady stream of customers, mostly those staying nearby. It is open from 2pm until 7pm but on the day we went, it is sold out by 5pm.

Get to the review already..

Okay, okay. My finaly verdict is that I love it! Before I go on, the type of mee goreng I like must be spicy, with just the right amount of sauce and fried to perfection, as in not too ‘wet’ or too dry. Of course, it must be delicious and makes me want to go for seconds.

Well, this stall met my expectations and I almost ordered seconds but I didn’t because I just had lunch at 2pm and a heavy tea break at 3pm is a bit too much. Anyway, the mee goreng style is different from the Bangkok Lane stall’s style. It does not have so much of the red coloured sauce (I don’t know what to call it as we always called it ‘kuah’ only). If you like mee goreng, this is a great stall to try out especially if you are in the area.

Rating: 8/10

Price: $$(RM3.80 per plate)

We seldom go to Tanjung Bungah nowadays but if we do venture there, we’d be searching for some great food there which is very few and far in between. Well, The Food Critic is known to seek out great places to eat so his latest discovery is this coffee shop mostly frequented by students from the nearby TAR college.

Kafe Tanjung Bungah along Jalan Lembah Permai

Now, in this coffee shop, there are quite a few hawker stalls there but my focus is mostly on the chicken rice stall since it’s what we ate there (and it is highly recommended by The Food Critic which is really something). So, let’s take a look at the chicken rice:

The chicken rice stall

They have roast chicken and steamed chicken. Best of all, they also have braised chicken claws – my favourite!

This is a plate of chicken for three people

Here's a closer look at the chicken

We ordered a mix of the steamed chicken and roast chicken and the plate for three has quite a lot of chicken. I am pretty surprised by how good the chicken is. Not that I don’t trust The Food Critic’s recommendations, after all, he is the one responsible for bringing me to a lot of places to try the food and review them for this blog. Back to the chicken, both the roast and the steamed chicken are tender as ever, this is despite the fact that we ordered chicken breast meat. I am so used to eating stringy, tough chicken breast meat at some chicken rice stalls, I was really pleasantly surprised that this stall has the most tender chicken breast meat ever.

Also, the fragrant chicken rice that goes with it is also absolutely amazing. Yes, it is a tad oily but then, so are most chicken rice! The rice and the chicken are the best team up ever.

The braised chicken claws - what Mr Picky would call 'dinosaurs'

I know there are quite a lot of people who are very squemish when it comes to chicken claws and that includes The Food Critic BUT he will gladly order these for me and Mr Picky. I don’t know when or why I started eating these scary looking chicken part but somehow I like it. Mr Picky, being the normal little boy fascinated with dinosaurs, thought these are dinosaur feet so naturally he wants to try when he first saw me eating them. Now, he will demand to eat the ‘dinosaur’ whenever he sees them! Of course, we’d remove the bony toes first before giving it to him to nibble. Now, although the chicken is very good, all I can say about the chicken claws were: it could have been better. It was fried first before being braised so the flavours are a bit bland and the texture, much too soft and overcooked to my liking.

My verdict: If you are looking for tender roast or steamed chicken in that area, then this is the stall for you. It is pretty good and I’d recommend all you chicken rice lovers out there to give it a try someday.

Rating: 8/10

Price: $ (at around RM3 per person)

Here is the map to the coffee shop. Errr…it is not the EXACT location though as I can’t really remember but I know it is along the same row.