San Low Seafood restaurant (三樓海鮮園) - Johor's Fried Bee Hoon is everywhere!

• Operating Hours: 4.30 PM to 1 AM
• Address: Jalan Biru off Jalan Merah, Taman Pelangi, 80400, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
• Operating Days: Daily
• Food I had: Fried Bee Hoon, Sambal Kang Kong, Fried Fuyong Egg 

San Low Seafood Restaurant (三樓海鮮園) with over 30 years, first started out in a small hawker stall before relocating to where they are now in Taman Pelangi. It can difficult locating this restaurant as it is sited in a private residential area. San Low Seafood Restaurant is one of most commonly well known Johor’s seafood restaurants.

The signature dish here is their renowned San Lou fried bee hoon (rice vermicelli) 三楼炒米粉. This is not your usual stir or toss fried bee hoon. After the bee hoon is fried the usual way, stirred and tossed and further pressed while they continue frying it with a steel wok. 

The place was non-air-conditioned, which wasn't a big problem given the nice cooling weather and the existence of so many fans on the wall and ceiling.

Their menu lying all around the tables, you have to take them yourselves, nobody is around to help you.

Do take note they have free wifi! For your easier reference as displayed here.

For fried egg, I thought this was good. However, for an authentic fuyong egg, it does not have any wok hei flavor. A disappointment as we were looking forward to it.

Sambal Kang Kong does not have anything special, the portion was small which we finished even before the bee hoon arrived.

When the signature San Low Fried Bee Hoon was served, my first thought was that it looks so ordinary. It was fried with prawns, vegetables, egg, fish cake and chicken meat. The bee hoon was infused in seafood broth and fried. It was only slightly charred on the outside, moist on the inside. But I did not feel anything special with their signature fried bee hoon, any other places will win this dish anytime.

Overall would I return? Maybe as they opened till 1 AM and craved for seafood at that time, else I might go for another restaurant for better Fried Bee Hoon. 

Seng Kee Black Chicken Herbal - Alternative to Johor Fried Bee Hoon

• Operating Hours: 11 AM to 4 AM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 467 Changi Road S(419887)
• How to get there: Kembangan MRT station walk towards Changi Road, walking distance est 5 mins.
• Food I had: Mixed Mee Sua Soup, Fried Bee Hoon, Stir Fried Nai Bai with Garlic.
• Website: https://www.sengkeeherbalsoup.com.sengkeeherbalsoup.com

I was randomly checking out some of the highly raved zi char restaurants in Singapore, and the shop "Seng Kee Black Chicken Herbal" appeared on the search engine. Out of curiosity, we decided to try it today.

Unlike other zi char restaurants, Seng Kee Black Chicken Herbal occupies almost the whole stretch of the walkway. We were told to order our dishes first before the staff assigned a table for us. There are so many choices on the menu, and every single item on the board is big enough for you to see even though you are standing.

We didn't know they allow free parking at the temple when we visit the restaurant! As there were not many parking lots nearby, we really spent quite some time looking for a legit car park lot. If you decide to visit the restaurant next time round, do look out for the car park lots at the temple.

When a table was assigned to us, we were surprised to see many Pokémon related pictures around the shop. It made us wonder if this place was previously a poke stop or a gym.

We waited for about 5 minutes before the first dish was served. It was full of herbal fragrance, though the look of this dish was not really appetizing. The taste of the soup was something to be worth commenting. The flavorful herbal taste of the soup does resemble the herbal bak kut teh, with a slight hinge of pork intestine and pork liver taste without any peppery taste. The soup was not too salty, and personally, I feel that it did make us drink a few more mouthful before we start eating the mee sua.

There are options for you to choose what you want to include in your mee sua: pork liver (猪肝), pork kidney (猪腰), lean pork meat. We decided to go for their mixed mee sua (to include everything inside) since they are famous for this. The portion was just right for one person, and personally, we felt that the pork liver, pork kidney, and mee sua were slightly overcooked. However, the lean pork slice was tender, almost to a point it could melt in your mouth, it does not taste like pork even. We felt that this dish has a mixture of good and bad, it is definitely still worth trying because of the soup based and the tender pork slices.

Cost: $5

The next dish that was served is the Stir Fried Nai Bai with Garlic. Pieces of mushroom were added and very well cooked with big fire as the wok hei taste is there. Great portion for 2-3 pax.

A Generous amount of fried shallots were also added on top of the garlic used to fry this dish. Definitely a plus point for us :)

Cost: $8

We had to wait for another 10 minutes before this signature dish is served. This "Johor San Lou Mee Hoon" look alike was seen almost on every table. We were told by the staff that a small portion ($10) is enough for 2 pax. However, despite the fact that we had the mixed mee sua earlier, we were still able to finish this plate of fried bee hoon. Crispy on the top layer, the mixture of the fried bee hoon with pork lard really blended very well together with the "wok hei" taste. Definitely worth a try!

Just as we thought we were being short changed ($10 of fried bee hoon and egg only?!) we realized the main difference between this dish and the famous Johor San Lou Mee Hoon is the way they put their ingredients. At Seng Kee, a generous amount of shrimps and fish cake were fried and placed in the middle, before the Bee Hoon is used to cover the ingredients. For Johor San Lou Bee Hoon, the ingredients and bee hoon will be fried together.

The taste of this dish at Seng Kee is comparable with Johor San Lou Bee Hoon. It will be better if the portion can be bigger.

Cost: $10 for small/ $15 for big

While I love the traditional, odd and uncommon dishes, It’s worth going to if you’re around the area, but save yourself the time if you are located at another end of Singapore.