Lontong just sop it up with that rendang sauce. It's incredible.
This is one hell of a breakfast here in Johor.
The southernmost city in mainland Asia. Welcome to Johor Bahru, or JB as the locals call it.
This city has a vibrant food culture with influences from around the world. Italian, Middle Eastern to
name a few. In this episode, we will take you as we taste seven signature dishes here in JB.
So many layers of flavor in this bowl. With a born and raised native Johorean, our new friend Linda
Good morning. I'm a little bit awake. Hi guys. Good morning. We're usually not morning people
person. We are here at Pondok Santapan, a very local place here in Johor Bahru and set up only
in the morning apparently. We're here with our friends. Ken and a new friend Linda.
Linda is going to be taking us around Johor Bahru. She is a born and raised Johorean
We have nasi ambeng. Look at that. I am so curious about this - I love
spaghetti Bolognese and noodles looks like spaghetti. Look at this
An interesting dish here. This is the nasi ambeng. This actually has Javanese roots so Java Indonesia. Very
interesting. And this actually looks a lot like what we would order at our favorite Indonesian
restaurant in New York City called Indo Java. So we actually have a video on Indonesian food
in New York City. Going to put a card up here for that. Check that out. Looks very similar because
you have the rice and you have fried noodles. You have double carbs here. And looks like there's
also some sambal hijau, the green sambal. Looks like there's toasted coconut - very interesting.
And there's some different vegetables here with the tempeh, there's long beans, there's cabbage
tempeh. And you have looks like there's a big piece of chicken here as well with more tempeh
And they have them over the banana leaf. Looks really interesting. Gonna go here - this is the
dish you gotta eat with the hands. We love eating with our hands with the rice.
Don't know where to start here - I think I'm gonna go in - I'm gonna try some of this chicken first.
It's like it's fried and this brown sauce - not very spicy at all.
Savory. Slight spice to it. But now I'm going to mix it all up. Take some of the fried noodle,
piece of that chicken, sambal hijau, coconut, veggie.
One big bite.
Love the flavor of the sambal hijau, that green sambal and coconut, really nice flavors.
This is one of the specialty dishes here in Malaysia and the state of Johor has their own kind of laksa.
Interesting backstory behind it. Was reading that one of the old sultans had traveled to Italy
and when he came back he actually wanted to have a dish with laksa made with spaghetti noodle. That's why
they use spaghetti noodles in this laksa and it's very interesting there's a lot of minced fish here.
I believe it's sardine. You have the spaghetti then you have this big thick gravy on top so
it's the minced fish. The minced fish also almost looks like Penang asam laksa you know we went
to Penang we had a whole video about it. We'll put a card up here and check that out.
But that's what the kind of minced fish reminded me of at first. But there's also a bunch of different
aromatics in here. So you have herbs, you have the tauge, the bean sprouts, you have cucumber.
And this kind of laksa it's not like the laksa you may think of like the soupy
laksa. There's more of a thick paste, a little bit of a gravy here. Really interested to try this
It's a big bite
Definitely get that spaghetti feel with it It's like almost thinking of it like a Johor version
of Bolognese. Like there's no beef it's the minced fish. I love the minced fish and i love the contrast
the texture too. The soft spaghetti noodle and you have the crunchy cucumber onion very refreshing
then you have that spicy kick in there with the sambal and a little bit of that citrus from the
calamansi on there. I like that the minced fish is not overly fishy either.
It's just really nice flavors and the aromatics I love the most. I think the
herbs really top it off really nicely and they balance everything out together. It's a
really interesting laksa like something you come to Johor you have to try this.
Alright so we're here at Plaza Larkin, this nice food court here and we're trying something that's
specific to JB. Asma rojak recommended by our local friend, Linda. Never heard of Asma rojak
before this. So it looks like a pasembur as far as the sauce this is orange sauce
but it's actually you don't typically pour it on top you're just supposed to dip it. So we
got a mix here of the different fritters like a pasembur. We got fritters, we got sambal
sotong, the squid. We also got some egg, potato all chopped up. And they give it to you with lettuce,
cucumber and there's chopped green chili. Go first with this dough fritter and dip it in the sauce.
Alright it's a perfect thing to soak up that sauce. Let's take a bite
It does taste similar to pasembur. It's a little sweet, thickened with the sweet potato
a little peanut in there. Not really spicy it's definitely more on the sweet side.
Try it by itself first before I even dip it into any sauce.
Squid is really nice when you dip it in the sauce. Because the squid itself is already
spicy with the sambal, then you dip it into the sweet rojak sauce on the side.
You get that sweet spicy combo - it's nice
It makes me feel that I'm eating healthy food, even though there are some fried
food in here. At first do like "how will I like this?" But that's how I ask myself but actually
you have to try it to like it and it's really good. For another JB specialty mee rebus. Tried a few
already, but this one looks really special and it's one of Linda's favorite mee rebus in JB. It's from Mee Rebus Stulang Laut.
We got the special. So this one what makes it special is that you have the
udang, the fried prawns and you have the fried mushroom. And the mee rebus is
interesting because it's kind of a soup and kind of not. It's really more in a gravy and
the gravy's thickened with sweet potato and it's covered in these fritters here
and also has the chopped chilies. Also have the slice of boiled egg. Squeeze some calamansi on top
This one looks delicious. It smells great it smells like a comforting
like stew. I'm just really really curious about it. Let's get
These are nice thick noodles. You can see that it really is covered in this gravy nicely.
Gonna wrap it up like some spaghetti
Really got a nice like sweet savory combo, only slightly sweet though.
But it really just reminds me of like a like a gravy.
Like a mashed potato and gravy kind of gravy, but a little bit more spice to it.
This is very comforting. It's warming me up. It's just like
that's kind of the feel i get from mee rebus. I've tried a few different mee rebus before here we've had
it. Had the one with the tulang like the lamb bones. That one kind of dominates. That's what's
nice about this one, you can really taste the mee rebus, but you also have these nice prawns
in that gravy.
Prawn goes very very well with the mee rebus. I love the way the gravy combines with that prawn. Delicious.
Not like any other noodle dish I've had here in Malaysia at all. Totally different. It's like
mashed potatoes and gravy. Swap out the mashed potatoes, add noodles. Kind of similar taste to me
Good morning. I'm a little bit awake. We are at Medan Selera Taman Cempaka.
This heavy duty very savory and delicious looking breakfast we're about to have is from Kafeteria
Makan Terasa and we're with our friend Linda. Linda has been schooling us, teaching us
what's the difference of the two. Basically this two things, this two delicious food that are
in front of us is the same thing. This one is lontong kuah and this one is lontong kering.
Basically what's in here in lontong kuah is what's here. With just this one is this uplifted or elevated
a little bit because of the kuah. This is this kuah is a gravy looking um soup it's in here.
And I'm so excited. It's breakfast and this is my kind of breakfast. Delicious, savory and very hearty.
So this lontong kuah looks very familiar. It looks a lot like the lontong sayur that we eat a lot in
New York at our favorite Indonesian restaurant, Indo Java. Not really a restaurant, but the Indonesian
grocery store restaurant Indo Java. We mentioned it before. I'm going to mention a lot in this
video because of the Javanese influence here on Johorean food, which is very interesting. Did not
even know that before coming here. You have the big compressed rice cubes, the lontong and you have this
very nice looking gravy, this yellow gravy. It's probably turmeric in here so it looks
like. A lot of vegetables. We have cabbage, carrot. You also have the glass noodle in
here. There's green beans. You have this big boiled egg. That's perfect for breakfast too.
Have the peanut sauce, the sambal and the serunding, the coconut
on top the toasted coconut. It looks incredible. Oh. I'm just going to take a sip of that broth first
Oh very nice santan coconut milk flavor
Not really spicy yet. I'm sure when I mix in the sambal it will.
So I'm gonna do that now. I'm gonna mix in some sambal, serunding get it all in there
There's so many flavors going on in there. Got the coconut milk, the peanut, the sambal,
the coconut in there. 2 types of coconut - milk and the
serunding. Though it's healthy because we're getting vegetables in here too
This nice big chunk of lontong. I just cut off a piece of these huge chunks of lontong.
Just love that texture instead of getting like your individual rice, it's all compressed together.
So it's kind of like in between a rice and like it's not really like a noodle it's like not like
a noodle soup it's something totally unique because those compressed rice cakes rice cubes
Now we have the lontong kering. So it's without the kuah, so it's without the gravy and it's
like a dry version of the lontong, which looks delicious too. Except we have this big
lovely piece of chicken rendang here. It's nice and saucy. Have on the side we have the tempeh,
vegetables, glass noodle. Try a little of that first actually. Adds that light refreshing taste to it
But now I'm going to take the lontong. Get a nice mix with the peanut sauce, sambal, serunding.
but this rendang is calling my name i gotta get in there
That rendang has got so much flavor in it. Got that lemongrass, the lime leaves
and it's just covered in that sauce. I love it. I think I'm going to go in here at some point
I'm going to get the lontong just sop it up with that rendang sauce. It's incredible.
This is one hell of a breakfast here in Johor. Can't stress it enough you have to have this when you come to Johor.
If i pick which is my favorite of the two, I think I like this one better
because it has more flavor than this one. I think it was like so
soupy that takes away yeah and the soup is just it's really really good and it's kind of like
and yeah overpower underwhelms the other flavor that's in there.
And then we're now having one of our favorite eats here in Johor Bahru. This one is
kacang pool from Kacang Pool Haji. We've got two things beef and mutton
or kambing. Oh i'm so excited to have this. Maybe I'll get two of these because it's really that
good they also give it to us with this the thickest loaf of bread you'll ever see in your life.
What you usually do is you take this bread and you dip it and scoop everything in there.
Mmm it is so good
Kacang pool is a JB specialty. It's really interesting. So kacang means bean and pool - the reason why it's
called pool is because it's actually similar to the Middle Eastern dish called foul - foul mudammas
It's actually a dish we ate in New York a lot. Especially we ate it in our Middle Eastern food in
New York City video, put a card up here if you want to check it out. So that's normally just a dish is
made with fava beans and this has the fava beans but this is a Malay twist that has meat in it. So I
got the kambing it's the mutton and look at these the big chunks of fava bean in here it's really
interesting you have cumin seeds. I mixed that egg all in there so you have the bits of the egg yolk,
onion, the chopped green chilies. Man you just smell those spices. Take a nice big spoonful right here.
A really interesting flavor. So it does have that like -
foul is really thick normally. This has a bit of that thickness, but with the meat.
that actually reminds me of like American chili. Like you have the meat and the bean combination,
then you have the egg in there. That beautiful fried egg is made fresh here on the flat top.
You put it on and it really just makes it deluxe when you add that fried egg in there.
Then you get those nice crunchy bits and a little spiciness comes in from the green chilies.
On it's own it's not very spicy, but it's definitely fragrant with the cumin seeds and all the spices.
What you got to do. You got this big slab of toast right here all buttered up, in this case margarine,
yeah or margarined up. Yep take it and you just fold it up take a big dip of that
take a few so you can really coat it up nicely look at that.
It's interesting this dish has a little bit of sweetness naturally to it too but then you
also squeeze that calamansi on top you get that nice citrusy kick in there too so it just adds
another layer of flavor. There's so many layers of flavor in this bowl. It's delicious. See why
it's very popular here. Great a meal that'll be great any time of the day. I'd love this for breakfast,
I love it for lunch, I'd love it for dinner too or late night. Why not? Snack. Whenever
This is definitely - you can see why it's such a popular dish here in JB and I love it too.
Kacang pool here is so good the second round of our kacang pool.
Now I have the mutton and Greg is having the beef.
Local Johorean food through a local, Linda. I bring you here because I want you to
have a variety of foods to see what's available. I'm not sure what kind of food
that you're willing to try, so I'll give you a glimpse so probably later you can search yourself