OLEG - Cafe with waffle as sandwich

• Operating Days: Daily
• Operating Time: 10 AM to 10 PM
• Address: 3rd Floor, Aeon Bandar Dato Onn, Jalan Dato Onn Utama Kempas, Johor, Malaysia
• Facebook Page

We are back at AEON Bandar Dato' Onn in Johor Bahru, and this time round we have tried OLEG. OLEG is a contemporary casual eatery serving burgers, waffles, small bites, snacks, cold drinks and coffee. They have stalls at City Square, AEON Tebrau City and AEON Dato' Onn.

It is hard to miss this shop with its striking interiors located at level 3. This is mainly the reason why I visit them.

Everything is pretty much self service at OLEG. You order at the counter, pay and wait for your order number to be called. I had a hard time trying to communicate with the counter staff as they don’t really speak English. 

They also serve breakfast for just an hour. The price are so much cheaper than their normal menu. Chicken porridge for 5.90 RM?!

At OLEG, you can customise your burger or waffle by selecting either chicken or beef and then choose one of the following types of sauce to pair with. They have Teriyaki, Wasabi mustard, signature curry, mayonnaise, signature spicy, honey mustard, barbeque, cream of tartar, and cheese.

We ordered a Waffle O' grill set, priced at 17.90RM. The set meal comes with fries and ice lemon tea. Even though there were no crowd, our waiting time was 20 mins after placing our order.  You can’t expect too much from their service. 

The waffle came with cucumber slices, leafy lettuce, juicy tomatoes, and the sauce you chose. Their so-called home-made ice lemon tea tasted artificial to us which we didn’t like it. The fries given were also dry and cold when it was presented to us.

OLEG's waffle has medium thickness, is light and is slightly crisp. It has a slight saltiness in the waffle, unlike what I'm expecting (I was expecting a sweet waffle!). The chicken is tender but has not much taste by itself, it would be better if it is paired with the sauce they have in order to enhance the overall taste of this whole meal.

Overall, OLEG has a comfortable and casual ambience with food selling at reasonable prices. I would probably go back again only to try their signature soft shell crab charcoal burger.

Yi Jia Seafood 億家海鮮 - Restaurant at a quiet corner for good Seafood!

• Operating Days: Daily
• Operating Time: According to their locations
• Address: Multiple Locations
• Facebook Page

In Singapore, there is a zi char stall named Yi Jia Village Seafood Restaurant, and just across the custom in Johor Bahru, they have a similar restaurant called the Yi Jia Seafood restaurant 億家海鮮. Currently, they are 4 restaurants outlets in Johor Bahru. Each of them has their own unique decoration. We went to this new restaurant at Permas Jaya.

The restaurant is just a 20 mins drive from the custom, located in a quiet neighbourhood block. Plenty of parking lots available (which are shared among other restaurants along the stretch) and most importantly, did I forget to mention that parking is free?

The exterior of the restaurant looks new and good. When we were there at dinner time, there was quite a bit of crowd and we were a little worried that we have to wait for some time for our food to be served. We were lucky that the waitress saw us and quickly allocate a table to us in less than a minute. 

People who came after we had to wait for a bit before they were seated.

Their "aquarium" displaying different types of live seafood.

The menu was presented to us almost immediately after we were seated.

This company has won many prestigious awards as indicated on the menu.

The Yi Jia Crispy Chicken 扁扁鸡 seemed to be a famous choice around other tables and so we decided to order a small portion to try it.

A must order dish if you are eating at a seafood is, of course, the crabs! They have 3 types of cooking using crab - Golden Egg Yolk, Honey Sauce or Otak. We went for Golden Egg Yolk as recommended by the waitress.

They have different operating hours at each outlet, be sure to check the timing if you are heading down.

First came was their signature dish, the crisp flattened chicken, 扁扁鸡. It is quite a unique dish as we did not see any similar dishes before in other restaurants.

The taste of the chicken was not bad in our opinion, however, the portion is considered small even for just 2 people. It cost 9 RM for this 8 small pieces of chicken.

Next is pork ribs 排骨王 (15 RM), this is one dish that does not appeal to me as the skin of the pork ribs presented were too soft. The meat was also too hard to my liking. It would be better if the chef can pre-fry the pork ribs to brown at the side, before mixing them together with the usual sweet and sour sauce. The overall taste was normal.

Next was potato leaves with sambal sauce (10 RM). I like how their sambal sauce, not as oily as others with mild sambal taste did not overpower the original taste of the potato leaves, preserving the crunchiness on the stem. One of the recommended dishes here.

Next came was the Fuyong fried egg 芙蓉蛋 (8 RM). Difficult not to love, it is one of the most popular dishes commonly found in a typical Chinese restaurant in both Malaysia and Singapore. The egg here was mixed with ingredients such as char siew, shrimps and plenty of spring onions, and pan-fried to golden brown, on the whole, ending with a crispy side around. Definitely, one of the best dishes to go with rice.

The finale, golden egg yolk crab came after a short wait. Priced at 1kg for 120 RM, the price was reasonable and worth the money. Most importantly, the meat was sweet, tender and very fresh!

Unlike the usual dry salted egg crab dishes, we were quite surprised to see the generous portion of salted egg yolk sauce given! We even scooped the sauce onto our plain rice! We like the sauce so much that we decided to order mantou 馒头 (fried buns) just to soak up all the sauces of the dish and ate it. Really a must order when you are here!

The price isn't the cheapest you could get in JB, but at least it's a decent eating environment with quality food. And they accept credit card payment as well if you have not enough cash on hand.

If you are a lover of seafood, you should try out Yi Jia seafood as the seafood they serve there is of a higher quality as compared to the usual zi char stalls in JB. Though they are not the cheapest you can find, it is still worth visiting if you are around the Permas Jaya area. 

Hai Tian Lao 海天撈自助火锅 - Yes! It's 天, not 底 steamboat buffet restaurant

• Operating Hours: 4.30 PM - 4 AM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 27 Jalan Bestari 1/5, Taman Nusa Bestari, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
• Facebook Page

Singapore have Hai Di Lao 海底捞, and now across the custom in Johor Bahru they have 海天捞. Yes! 海天捞, but is it the same in terms their service, quality and variety of food?

20 minutes drive from custom, about 50 RM per pax, you could choose your choice of soup and free flow of all the food offers, what's different here is they offer barbeque items like Sotong, Lala clam, prawn and even Stingray! They have fried Chicken Wing and Man Tou ready to eat too! Last but not least, they do provide fruits and Ice cream!
You could purchase canned drinks from them but they do have other drinks for you included with the buffet, even real watermelon juice!

So for a start, you get to choose between 6 type of soups - Big Bone, Sichuan Mala, Mushroom, Thai Tom Yum, Taiwanese Mala and Tomato Soup. We chose Tom Yum and Tomato soup.

For those who have visited 海底捞, does this pot looks very similar? The soup is nice by itself, but not as tasteful as Hai Di Lao, but it was comparable with any other steamboat of the same price range, good amount of spices in each soup.

Even before we go and collect the items to cook, the Barbeque item came presented to us, first was the prawns, they were really fresh and easy to peel off the shell, I was expecting just prawns with simple sambal sauce but they used ladies finger and onions with sambal sauce to mix them up. Do not worry about getting your hands dirty, there were basin for you to wash your hands after you deshelled the prawns.

Next was stingray, they used normal chili sauce to cook this, the stingray they gave was really fleshly! It won't lose out to any barbeque shop outside.

Lots of variety of vegetables offered for you, they all were stocked up quite fast when they were empty.

They have beef, pork, chicken and lamb, all not marinated in a chiller. Sadly when we were there at 9PM+ they already out of stock for beef, but I managed to grab hold of a plate of beef!

Other ingredients at another chiller - hotdogs, meatballs, crabstick, luncheon meats and fishcakes.

Overall, I would not compare this to Hai Di Lao as they were of different standard, if compared to any other steamboat buffet restaurant at this price range, they were on a much higher standard in terms of the quality and variety of items. 

Total for the price of $198.85 for 4 pax. It was quite value for money. Do visit them if you are looking for some Steamboat buffet but please do visit them early to avoid disappointment of any out of stock item.

Zhou Xing Xing 周星星經典燒味雲吞麵 - Hong Kong/ Indonesia Fusion Restaurant

• Operating Hours: 10 AM - 10 PM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 3rd Floor, Aeon Bandar Dato Onn, Jalan Dato Onn Utama Kempas, Johor, Malaysia

Recently at Johor Bahru, another new Aeon shopping mall has just started its operation. Situated at Bandar Dato Onn, it is not difficult to find the new mall as it is just a 20 minutes drive from custom.

While we were hunting for a restaurant to rest out feet and to fill up our stomach, we came across a shop named "Zhou Xing Xing 周星星”.

What does the name "Zhou Xing Xing 周星星" remind you of? It reminds me of all the shows Stephen Chow 周星驰 has acted before, but we are not here to feature Stephen Chow today. A bright yellow restaurant Chinese themed Zhou Xing Xing 周星星 is actually a Hong Kong - Indonesian fusion style restaurant  which was definitely not owned by Stephen Chow.The mascot, however, is inspired by his character starred in the movie - 食神. 

We were there at 7PM and we have to wait for a while before we get a seat.

It was a full house though there were plenty of tables available inside. Within 10mins, we were assigned a table.

They have 3 signature combination with Mee Kia (type of noodle used in wanton noodle commonly), Indonesian curry with Crispy egg noodle, and scrambled egg with chicken oil rice.

To order their signature menu, you will have to choose the type of meat to go along with your  noodle/ rice.  The four meat choices are Roasted Duck, Roasted Pork, Char Siew, and Soy Sauce Chicken.

To our disappointment, they have sold out their Roasted Duck and Roasted Pork before dinner hours! So for this time, we only get to order scrambled egg with rice and Indonesia style curry crispy egg noodle with Char Siew and Soy Sauce Chicken.

After they took our order, we waited for about 10 minutes before they our order is served.

First came was the crispy noodle with Indonesia style curry along side with Char Siew and Soy Sauce Chicken.

The noodle was really crispy on the first bite, and I really love how the noodle can be so crispy - similar to eating noodle snack. After about 5 minutes with the noodle drenched in the bowl of curry gravy, the noodle turned slightly softer. If you prefer your noodle to be softer , you may wanf to wait a while before you eat. The Indonesian curry has a slight hint of taste from the vegetable and coconut, which was already great on its own. However, they have placed the chicken and char siew into the bowl of gravy as well, which the taste of the meat was not too impressive due to the overpowering curry taste that covered up the original taste of the meat. I would very much prefer to eat the Char Siew on its own.

We waited for another 5 minutes before they serve our next order - which was the oil rice topped with scrambled egg with Char Siew and Chicken. We got two free wantons (stated in their menu) as well. Though it was given free to us, the quality wasn't compromised as the skin was thin and it was filled with meat.

Time to try their Char Siew in their original state! Their Char Siew was half fatty, and that makes the overall texture really tender! You could even see the strend on the meat clearly. The skin from the Char Siew, with the thin layer of fats were all marinated fully with caramelised barbeque sauce. Every bite of it will make you want to have more. 

Normally, I would order the leaner char siew as I don't really fancy Char Siew with too much fats. However at Zhou Xing Xing, I really love the Char Siew as how it is, and I ate them all without stopping. Their Char Siew is highly recommended for sure.

For their Soy Sauce Chicken, it was tender but they did not remove the bone from the meat. We felt that the chicken did not taste better than the Char Siew. We will give it a miss when we return the next time.

All in all, it was quite affordable to have a decent meal for a meal for two at Zhou Xing Xing 周星星 including a drink. We will definitely be back soon to try out their highly raved Roasted Duck and Roasted Pork!

Claypot Chicken rice at Taman Pelangi Food Centre - Old school charcoal cooked dish

Operating Hours: 5 PM - 10 PM

Operating Days: Daily

Address: 1, Jalan Perang, Taman Pelangi, 80400, Johor Bahru

This is an old-school food centre in Taman Pelangi. There are quite a number of stalls selling different kinds of food here. 

Today, I am going to recommend this claypot stall at the end of this food centre. Claypot chicken rice is the most popular stall in this food centre based on the number of claypot seen from each table.

Everything is done from scratch and cooked with charcoal, the claypot chicken rice here is done in a very old school way. 

When the rice is partially cooked, pieces of fresh chicken, salted fish, and slices of pork sausages are tossed into the claypot before it was served.

The claypot chicken rice consists of tender marinated chicken meat, pork sausages, salted fish, spring onions and rice with dark soy-based gravy. You will need to stir them all yourself first. A tip for you, if you do not like to stir them yourself, you can also ask them to stir for you.

Rice was moist, firm and completed and well coated with dark soy sauce after stirred. It was also not over-cooked. I like to scrape off the rice crust which was stuck on the clay pot walls and stirred thoroughly into the rest of the rice. The rice clinging to the walls of the clay pot were slightly browned, giving it a special crispy texture overall.

Priced at 8 RM, the claypot rice here is enough for 1 to 2 person. It is one of my usual spot I like to visit if I am craving for claypot rice.