PETALING JAYA, March 2 – Recently many of my friends have been raving about this newly opened coffee shop at Petaling Jaya's SS3.
What grabbed my attention was that they served dry curry mee, which is not so common in the Klang Valley as it's more of an Ipoh dish.
I tried a variety of items here and what stood out was the dry curry mee (RM7.50). You can get it from the curry mee stall which also offers curry noodles and Jawa mee.
The same stall owner also brings in chee cheong fun from Ipoh, which is served with a choice of three sauces: mushroom minced meat, sweet and spicy, and curry pork skin.
The other stand-out item is the char siu. It's done a little differently than the usual style as this one has a more pronounced caramelised glaze and melt in the mouth meat underneath it. Either enjoy it on its own or create the ultimate dry curry mee by adding it to the delicious mix, like how I enjoyed mine. I ordered a small portion for RM10 to be eaten with the curry mee.
Apparently from what I read from a friend, the char siu uses the same recipe from Ara Damansara's Tian Tian Lai Roasted Chicken Rice. You will also notice that the char siu is smaller in size as they use a special cut of meat that creates the desired marbled fat and meat texture.
You just need to coordinate the timing for that as the stall selling roast meats starts from 11am onwards. If you wish to contact the owner, their telephone number is +6016-3523579. If they are busy, they may not pick up straight away but they do call back.
As I am not an Ipoh native, I had a friend try out the Ipoh items for me too. She gave her thumbs up for the dry curry mee as it's fragrant and not overly spicy. Just squeeze the calamansi lime all over the curry mee and you get a nice tangy taste that helps undercut the richness. The limes they give are pretty tiny so maybe ask for two to get a more pronounced tangy taste.
If you're a fan of smooth kuey teow from Ipoh, order that type of noodles with the curry as it tastes really great. The stall owner brings that in from Ipoh.
I also tried their curry noodles (RM7.50) which was decent. The spices for the curry broth just didn't pop for me and I felt it was overwhelmed by the santan. If you wish to add chicken, it's an additional RM3 or pork skin for RM1.50,
With regards to the chee cheong fun, they bring the rice rolls in directly from Ipoh. It has that distinct rice aroma too. For some, that smell may not appeal though.
I tried all three sauces and felt that the mushroom minced meat stood out. On its own, the sauce is salty but leave it to soak a little while with the chee cheong fun and it will be better. It's got a nice balance of umaminess from the shiitake mushrooms and meat. The sweet and spicy sauce is also nice with a distinct spiciness for the reddish coloured sauce. While the curry sauce wasn't so fragrant, the abundance of pork skin more than made up for it.
The sweet and spicy sauce chee cheong fun is RM4 while the mushroom minced meat sauce chee cheong fun is RM4.70. The curry pork skin sauce chee cheong fun is RM5.20.
The curry mee and chee cheong fun stalls are open from 7am to 3pm. You can also contact them at +6016-2070885. They are listed on Food Panda at the moment and hope to be listed on Grab soon.
If you prefer, you can also arrange with them to send it via a third party delivery company provided you pay the delivery charges.
And for good measure, I also sampled the duck egg char kway teow (RM8 for a small portion) from another stall. They also offer fried so hun and fried lai fun noodles. If you're a rice monster, they also do fried rice.
Even though it was cold by the time I ate it, the flavours were good and tasty indicating that their seasoning is on point. I reckon this would be better eaten there as you can get the wok hei.
You can contact the stall at +6011-54143149. They also have other stalls at Sunway Restaurant Lai Kong and Restaurant Foh Foh at Subang Jaya SS15.
MJ SS3 Kopitiam, 31, Jalan SS3/37, Taman Universiti, Petaling Jaya. Closed alternate Monday of the month. Facebook: @MJSS3Kopitiam
