today we're in Johor, Malaysia and we're taking you on a huge food tour of some
local foods, we've got a ton of incredible things to eat today so let's get started
we're in Kluang a small town in Johor this place has some great eateries and
street food we're going to be eating epic bowls of noodles, go behind the
scenes of a traditional bakery and explore the best food Kluang has to offer
get ready for some delicious Malaysian street food, I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena
and we're Chasing a Plate, we hope you're hungry, let's eat
we're in the town of Kluang and we've come to a bit of an institution as
our first stop, the railway station's coffee shop let's go and get some breakfast
our breakfast has arrived and this place is so cool
the coffee shop has got a real old-world feel, right by the train tracks, there's
wooden stools, there's marble top tables it's just a really cool atmosphere and
look what we're eating so we have got these kaya buns so this is a
toasted hamburger bun it looks like and it's been filled with huge pats of
butter and kaya which is coconut jam I've ordered a cham which is a mix of
coffee and tea and then we've got a little nasi lemak bungkus it wouldn't be
breakfast without Malaysia's national dish but let's get into this kaya bun
because it looks epic, look how much kaya is in this thing and all of that butter
which is just melting away, all right let's give it a bite
mmm mmmm whoa the kaya is really sweet, it's quite sticky and creamy there is the perfect
amount of butter in that, it is just oozing out of that bun and its really
nicely toasted, this cham here is going to be really good let's give it a sip
so it's half coffee, half tea and this one has a really strong tea flavor but
it's also got that hint of kopi, time to get into the nasi lemak bungkus so
bungkus means wrap so this little nasi lemak has been wrapped up in this paper
parcel, you've got the coconut rice so that's just white rice cooked in coconut milk
sometimes pandan leaf, we've got this beautiful dollop of sambal or chilli
sauce here I'm gonna scrape that on to the rice and then you've got a
sprinkling of roasted peanuts so I'm gonna get a spoonful which has got the
rice, the sambal and some of those peanuts that looks like the perfect bite
mmmm mmm mmmm mmmmm, the rice has real creamy coconut flavour
and that sambal is killer, it's a little
bit spicy but it's mostly sweet that is so good
Kluang is a great town for food
hunting so we've made our way over to our next stop which is a curry mee
noodles let's go check some out
"ohhhh" "enough" "haha enough, pedas?"
"thank you uncle" so this is the curry mee and the owner of the restaurant has just
helped me out with the perfect portions of sambal and these pickled chilies to
put on top and he also put a big load of the vinegar from those pickled chilies
on there just to give it a tang but look at this dish so it's swimming in a quite
a thick broth let's grab the spoon look at that broth, the color in that let's try and
talk you through everything there is, so I see a , I'd say that's a pork ball, that's a
fish ball, that some BBQ pork or char siu, that looks like a fish cake we've got
some bean curd skin by the looks of it, we've got a tofu puff we've got some
cockles swimming around under there, we've got the noodles whoa big lump of
yellow noodles under there alright I'm getting a big spoonful of this broth to try by
itself first oh wow wow oh so it's a coconut based
broth oh man it's sweet and it's spicy I thought it would be spicier cause it's got a bit of
that chilli oil on top and he added that extra but it's not too spicy at all let's go
for a little bit more broth oh it's so deep in flavor so it's like a curry
flavor so it's a curry mee, so it's a curry spice mix broth my first thing I eat
from this bowl is gonna have to be this curry puff because that's bound to have
lapped up a whole lot of that broth and you can see it has the, the sambal
or the chilli sauce on top there let's put that in in one go
that is a burst of flavor, whoa there's so many noodles I can hardly pick them up and
coated in that broth okay whoa there's no way I'm gonna fit that in
perfectly cooked, a little bit of chew still oh that flavor of that broth in there oh I can
see there's some sprouts in here too so that's another ingredient I didn't even
talk about and they've probably been blanched so they'll be crunchy but a
little bit soft let's go for more noodles let's get a big bite with some
some tofu skin, some beancurd skin and we've got a bit of char siew or
barbecued pork in there
mmmmm oh that once again is just a, it's a boat for the flavor that
broth is packed into it, it burst with flavor, the pork, very delicate a very
very thin piece of pork, just added a little bit of texture and that meaty
flavor this is incredible this bowl, it's spicy from the chilli but not very much
at all, it's tangy from the vinegar he put in, it's got a myriad of textures
from all of these different items in here, it's a little bit sweet it's just
perfection in a bowl this is unreal, unreal bowl of noodles
our food hunt in Kluang continues and next up we have this bowl of beef noodles so
let me talk you through what's in here we've got pieces of braised beef we've
got some the yellow noodles or mee, there's some fried shallots, some crushed garlic
some spring onions in here and then this really watery brown beef broth and up
the front where they're preparing the bowls of noodles
there's this huge stock pot of broth one of the guys stuck a hook into the broth and
pulled out one of the huge chunks of beef which I assume that they chop
up and then pop into the bowls of beef noodles so that beef is just slowly
poaching or braising in that broth let's let's try some of this broth
it looks really just full of flavor you can see the color of it, alright let's go
ohhhh it really just has a strong intense flavor of beef, let's give some of this mee a go
or noodles so they're a yellow wheat noodle and there's a huge bunch of them in
this bowl
mmmm mmmmm they've been blanched
perfectly so they just quickly whip them into the water, give them a swirl give them a
toss and then they're taken straight out so those still have a lot of texture
a lot of bite, now for this beef, you can see here that it's just got a bit of
tendon still stuck to it it's just really beautiful in color let's just give
it a try
mmm mmmm mmmmm it just melts in your mouth, it is so tender you've got that slight crunch
from the tendon, oh that's so good, really simple flavours so you can really taste that
garlic, you can really taste those fried shallots, the noodles are
really bouncy, then that beef, this bowl is all about that beef flavor, so really
simple but really intense depth of flavour
I just can't get enough of this broth I'm just gonna go for another spoonful
oh yeah the fried shallots have really infused that broth so it almost tastes
like french onion soup now we really wanted to try the original beef noodle
soup but you can also add things like stomach, tendon, beef balls and different types
of noodles to your bowl but we just wanted to try this one in its purity, so good
our next stop is a local bakery that specializes in making kuih
kacang masin a savory mung bean biscuit and you can see behind me the
team just going for it, there's a huge production line and the team have
just explained to me what they do to make these biscuits so they use a mixture of
both an oil dough and a water dough which creates this really flaky pastry so
there's a lot of rolling and kneading going on and then what they do is they
flatten it out, then they stuff it full with this mung bean paste and then close it
right up and then that's when it's pressed down into a biscuit shape and
then baked
we've picked up a packet of the ones that we saw getting made so it is in
malay here kuih kacang masin so kuih is a snack or a sweet, kacang is a nut or a
legume with, has a skin, has to have a skin for that word it's quite an odd
word like the translation that one and masin means savoury or direct
translation is to salt or salty but it sort of means savory in this sense but
anyway let's rip into this beautiful little packet if I just pluck off this
end she was just putting a little bit of glue on there and then it should unroll
perfectly oh yes look at those golden little disks so five little disks in
there oh let's grab one of those so they're actually quite weighty little things
quite solid feeling, let's just bite in mmm whoa
quite dry okay hmm it's a really good taste so you can
see those layers in there, the slightly more yellow is the mung bean filling
that they were putting in and so in this case the kacang, I was saying the legume or
the nut with the skin that is the mung bean and then the outer pastry so you
can see the different texture and tone there and they definitely have a
different texture, it is a little bit salty, a little bit sweet but more more
salty than sweet let's grab some more off
mmm it has a real
savory taste, the mung bean is quite squishy actually and then that outer
pastry is quite dry but it's a really well-balanced flavor and I just loved
watching them make it the way they were rolling, slamming them on the desk to
make the perfect shape, putting them on those huge baking trays, putting a glaze
on top before they went in the giant ovens, that is a very good snack it would
go really well with a kopi or a tea or something a hot drink just to go
perfectly with that sort of slightly dry but very tasty biscuit
it is stinking hot here today in Kluang and I reckon one of the best ways to cool off in
Malaysia is to eat an icy cold bowl of cendol so cendol is a really popular
snack or dessert here in Malaysia and it is such a riot of awesome ingredients so
it's got heaps of shaved ice, lots of creamy coconut milk, a dollop of red
beans or kidney beans I think these are and then you've got these cendol noodles
which are green pandan flavored noodles I'm just gonna go for a massive spoon to
cool me down
mmm mmmm mmmmm oh the coconut milk is so creamy and sweet, that ice is so refreshing
and then you've got the earthiness of those beans and those pandan flavoured
cendol noodles just give the dessert a really beautiful tropical
fragrance so if you've never had pandan before it tastes a little bit
like tropical vanilla, it's just a really popular flavoring that's used in a
lot of desserts here in Malaysia let's give this one another go
oh I just want to scoop this all up and eat
it, just pour it into my mouth it is so good
I forgot to talk about a really important ingredient and that's gula
melaka which is coconut palm sugar so you can see how the coconut milk as
I've mixed up the cendol has turned a beautiful shade of brown so that's from
the gula melaka syrup that was drizzled all over the cendol
that was one incredible day of eating so much good food to have here, remember to head down
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for watching, we'll see you next time, jumpa lagi, jumpa lagi!