Kluang Beef Noodle'Claypot Bovine Offal Soup @ Taman Murni

Beef offal and beef noodles were the staple of the mainland Chinese and they brought that culinary delight to Taiwan. Over in Malaysia, beef noodles are not a big thing here as many Chinese are Taoist, who follow Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. They forbid the eating of beef and thus, beef noodles are particularly difficult to come by, but not impossible.

So here I am, Taman Murni, Kluang where the original Kluang Beef Noodle is now located. The owner use to operate from old Coronation Cinema, where he would have a meat cleaver on hand to dish out bowls upon bowls of beef noodles. I have written about his other outlet in Kluang Mall here, but there are some slight differences on the sort of dishes they offer.

The main thing they have are the big claypot beef offal soup. It's not cheap, at US$10 a pop but well worth the wait.

Is there a difference?

Apparently not but the soup is satisfying. The soup base is the same as the main noodle soup broth and you can't tell the difference but what you get in the claypot is addictive.

Chinese herbs have been used to carefully remove the beefy aftertaste, and in doing so makes the beef offal very enticing.

The chunks of beef is relatively lean, and the the tripe is cooked to perfect. The beef tendons however are a little chewey, it is cooked to the point where it doesn't become glutinous so for those who like the al-dente feel, this would be perfect, me? I prefer it to be more slimey, it's the smooth texture that I miss after having stuffed myself with Beef Offal on the streets of Macau.

Conclusion?

One of a kind, lots to eat, and plenty to share. However if you are a heavy eater, you might have to order two pots instead of one. They have only one size for the claypot, so you can't choose to have more. There isn't much of a variety in the soup. Just tripe, tendons and lean beef cuts.

Beef offal soup has become a sort of comfort food for me, and I am sure if you are not put off by eating offal, you would like it too.


Beef Offal Soup @ Kluang Beef Noodles, Taman Murni, Kluang. Johor. 
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Kway Tiu Kia @ Stall 57 Meng Fang, Cedar Point Food Court

Kway Chap, a Teochew dish made famous by laborers who piled the trade is found mainly in Singapore and if you happen to jump across the causeway to Johor Bahru, it does not exist.

Instead you have a variant of it known popularly as Kway Tiu Kia, a rice noodle dish that is a little divorced from the Singapore version. As a kid, my Grandmother would take me to a lane in Meldrum walk in the 1970s, where a Teochew family would serve it as a breakfast meal in the morning. Those were the good old days and the fresh pork offal and meat would be sliced thinly into a small plate and accompanied with a bowl of Kway Tiu or Hor Fun as the Cantonese like to refer to it.

What made that dish stand out was the taste. It was well balanced and and I will always remember it. The taste between the meat and the spices used to cook the dish would be perfect. Unfortunately, I have been programmed to accept this type of taste whenever I eat anything remotely Kway Chap or Kway Tiu Kia.

For me, the secret to making a great Kway Tiu Kia is the soup base. Here I have seen many failures. The cooked broth is often too strong with spices such as Cinnamon or Star Anise. Sometimes, other herbs are added to virtually kill the taste buds once you taste it, other times it is bearable.

The version found at Johor Bahru's Tasik Utara, though with an attached history of more than 2 decades, is not to my liking for this same reason. Another known locally as "Restoran Hi Wan" also does not do the dish justice as the soup broth is too strong.

The only one that has found favor with me is the one located in Cedar Point, Century Gardens. It opens in the morning right to about 2pm and is closed on Thursdays.

Made by a Cantonese family, they have applied their Cantonese style taste to the cooking and made it their own. They too have been around for the last 2 decades though I did notice that the quality of the broth can sometimes be inconsistent.

The pork broth that is used primarily for this dish comes from cooking the pork offal, such as tongue, skin, intestines, tripe, pork belly, and tofu. The broth is diluted into a soup and served with the Hor Fun or flat rice noodles. This is where the inconsistency lie. Sometimes they add too much boiled water while other times it taste just right.

The use of spices to flavor the offal is crucial. Too much of it and you can't taste the meat. Each part of the offal has its own taste and this is very important to not destroy these flavors. Fortunately, they always get the taste of the meat right while the rice noodle soup is often a hit or miss affair.

A single serving for one person can be as low as US$2, and this goes up depending on variety of pork offal you order. Go a little crazy and you'd be hit with a huge bill of between US$3 to US$5 per person. Now that's a lot of money to pay for pork offal.

Kway Tiu Kia @ Meng Fang

Fried Pork Loin @ Kah Kah Loke Restaurant

Bitter, which sounds like please in German but let me tell you that bitter in Chinese and Indian cuisine is good for you.

This is probably the strongest contrast between western and eastern cooking and how I feel that Asian cuisine will always be more exotic than the vanilla styled, diary and herb style ingredients found in continental and American cooking. 

How else can you explain the fascination with Asian flavors. Fortunately, there are cuisines that are still palatable to Westerners who might cringe at the thought of eating bitter gourd. 

At Restaurant Kah Kah Loke, you can heartily dig into a bowl of bitter gourd soup, infused with porky flavors and less than bitter gourd slices. The Chinese believe that eating bitter gourd is a good way to cool the body and for the Indians, it is a cure for diabetes. You can even get the Kavela pills that are made with bitter gourd to treat diabetes so what's not to like about bitter gourd?

The bitter gourd soup at Kah Kah Loke is the most fascinating piece of bitter cuisine, and you get to choose your ingredients. The waiter at hand will ask you if you'd like to have pig offal, such as liver and bits of intestines or just plain pork. Or for that matter everything of the above. The best part of this experience is the bitter gourd soup is actually palatable to Westerners. The bitter gourd itself has been prepared in such a way that the bitterness has been eliminated. The soup self is plesantly porky, and if you like the taste of pork, this is one soup you will be coming back for more. 

The soup dish is eaten with rice of course, and you can call the highly recommended mabo tofu, which is soft bean curd with mince pork or a side of pig offal stir fried with ginger and soy sauce. I have no idea why Westerners seem to dislike offal. Anthony Bourdain regularly woofs it down an calls it soul food.

Even in the past, none of a slaughtered animal was wasted and people too poor to afford the best cuts of meats from the butcher had to settle for offal. Apparently the sophisticated palate is just not in the West. In Asia, the well heeled young will refuse to indulge in anything except prime cuts. Hopefully these highly tasty discarded meat will end up with pets as it would be a complete waste to throw them away.

As much as I like the soup and sides, the killer dish has to be the fried pork loin. Each tasty morsel is coated and deep fried giving it a crisp outside while being moist and soft on the inside. The pork loin is flavored just right, and should it be fed to westerners, they won't be able to stop eating it. I say enough about this dish except to rate it for what it is worth. You can't go wrong with this dish. 

Restaurant Kah Kah Loke has five outlets, two of which are in Johor. The bitter gourd soup unfortunately is not very consistent from branch to branch. The outlet at Taman Sutera, serves up better bitter gourd soup than the original Johor Jaya branch. 

However, the fried pork loin taste superb at both these places so for that alone, I highly recommend it. 

Hakka Fried Pork Loin @ Kah Kah Loke Restaurant, Taman Sutera