Firstly, instead of leaving SG early, for some reason, we ended up leaving SG late about 8pm on a Fri night which meant taking the second link or being stuck in the massive jam at Woodlands. We opted for the second link option which was considerably more expensive, stricter on fuel checks on the SG customs side, far stricter on the car check on the Msia side (8 out of 10 cars were stopped and searched) but considerably less crowded. Because of some errands on the other end of JB, we only reached Yong Peng at 9.45pm.
Secondly, we were both tired, grouchy and hungry but because of the lack of number of hotels that looked habitable, accomodation became an issue that had to be settled before dinner. In the end, after cruising up and down the main street, we decided to have a go at one of the shophouses which had the word "Hotel" and a brightly-lit, non-deserted restaurant on the ground level. While my travel companion went up the long flight of narrow dimly lit stairs to the "lobby" of the hotel, I went ahead to the restaurant's restroom and to order the food. The moment I was out of the restroom, he joined me at the restaurant area with a grim look on his face and shaking his head. No surprise - from the state of the restaurant's restroom, I had guessed the standard of the hotel.
Anyway, food. The menu was in Chinese only which meant that I had a limited idea of the dishes and my travel companion decided most of the dishes except for the one below which I thought was unique and insisted on having because I thought we wouldn't be going all the way up to Muar - Muar Otak on a hotplate. As it turned out, this dish served with egg on a hotplate was pretty good. The Slog Reviews: 8/10 if you are an otah and egg lover. I've never had otah on a hotplate before so this dish was quiet a novelty and everyone knows that otah is best served hot so that the spicy flavor of the dish can be brought out.
My travel companion also ordered sambal kangkong, the restaurant's speciality chicken and a bowl of foochow fish maw soup. While the chicken never turned up (the restaurant claimed that we had cancelled it when in fact we hadn't), and the kangkong was ordinary, the foochow soup (see pic below) proved to be quite a disappointment, esp to my travel companion. The gravy was too thick and sweet and the fish maw pretty tasteless unlike the kind of soup which it is supposed to be (at least to be travel companion who had years of eating such soup). The Slog Reviews: 6.5/10. We both were surprised to learn that this was the second most popular restaurant in Yong Peng according to the locals there. Maybe we hadn't ordered the right dishes but I'm not going back there again without any recommendations at all.
From the pic below, if you know me or have been following this blog, you probably can guess what happened to our planned stay at Yong Peng - we ended up in Muar eventually at midnight! The hotel above the restaurant ("Soon Kee") had suggested another hotel to us which they said was the best hotel in Yong Peng and we got there, all the rooms were full except 1 family room which they quoted us RM80 for. I took a look at the room, the dirty grubby bedding, low ugly beds, lack of an ensuite and said no, very firmly. My travel companion had driven almost 2 hours on the highway to Yong Peng and was tired but even he had to agree that we were better off heading for our usual hotel at Muar - Streetview Hotel. The hotel is just behind/around the corner from Townview Hotel and is considerably cleaner and newer. The cost is also reasonable at RM80 and we figured that we would rather spend Rm80 there than the "best" hotel in Yong Peng. I took over the wheel and drove the one hour to Muar where we managed to get rooms at the hotel fortunately.
The next morning (a Sat), we woke up rather early and by 11am, were seated at my favourite restaurant - Shee Yan Restaurant which I have raved about here and here. The young lady boss wasn't around about 11am but her very friendly mum/mum-in-law was (see pic below) and opened the large fridge for us to choose our dishes.
I took the pic below as it is the first time that I've seen the restaurant this empty! Probably it is the hour (11am) and I was right because by 12 noon, all the tables were filled and the young lady boss was behind the counter on the far right.
Pic of the usual dishes which we had for lunch. The Slog Reviews:10/10. The pic doesn't show ALL the dishes though - we had two packets of the Muar Otah in fact! The old lady boss was also reluctant to sell us two packets when we ordered but we assured her we could finish it.
I think I'm starting to like the fried fish eggs more than the assam fish head - I can't seem to get enough of the fried fish eggs (see close up below) which now rank no.1 with my taste buds. Eating too much is not good for the cholestol levels though but ah, these are sweet & crunchy.
So much for not being able to finish 2 packets of otah! We cleaned every single damn plate. I'm now counting down the days till the next time I patronise this place again - less than 2 weeks! :P
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