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.

Restoran Yong Xin 永新鲍鱼粿条 - Refreshing Abalone Noodle in Skudai

• Operating Hours: 7.30 AM - 10 PM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 143 Jalan Pahlawan 1, Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, 81300, Johor Bahru

Abalone Noodles is one of the unique dishes you can find in Malaysia. If you enjoy light, clear soup with fresh ingredients, Johor Bahru has many shops selling kway teow soup to satisfy you. Yong Xin 永新鲍鱼粿条 is a good option for you when you have that craving for some Kway Tiao with Seafood soup. Located in Skudai area,  They are quite popular amongst the locals for the Abalone Kway Teow Soup 鲍鱼粿条汤 they served.

Other than selling abalone seafood soup, they do sell canned abalone in their shop too!

For those who can't read Chinese, the history was the owner who formerly in the Mechanical industry for years in Singapore, stepped into the food industry in the year 2003. At the beginning, the owner opened his very first eating house serving Malaysian cuisine Bak Kut Teh and Kuey Teow Soup for a year.

The owner at then realised the market opportunity and studied deeply on the demand by locals, decided to stop his Bak Kut Teh career to venture into making abalone noodles, but he was criticised by customers in the beginning. So he spends 12 hours a day to cook and study the recipe, and finally, his abalone Kwey Tiao soup was accepted by the locals in just a few months since he started his business until today. 

This restaurant has attracted many visitors from the other states and even from other countries. Look at the number of celebrities that came to visit them. A very informational menu.

There are different combinations of the ingredients, so you can even choose without any of the pork organs like livers and stomach if you don't like them.

We ordered Yong Xin's signature Large and Medium Abalone Kway Teow each.

So while waiting for the dish to arrive, you can help yourselves to fried pork lard. It was crispy and crunchy.

The set we ordered came with our choice of Kway Tiao (they have noodles or bee hoon as well) and a bowl of soup with standard items - sliced canned abalone, prawn, oysters, sliced and minced pork, pig liver and stomach.

The difference between 12 RM large portion and 10 RM medium portion is that the large portion has additional ingredients plus fish maw and Pacific Clams which is very worth to top up 2RM for them.

Every ingredient was fresh, which I feel, they are the key to the good seafood soup. 

The soup is the main factor for this delicious bowl of Teochew dish. At Yong Xin, the pork bone based soup is light, clear and sweet. Part of the sweetness came from the ingredients in the soup which were all nice textured with natural sweetness.

There were a few of these small fresh oysters in the soup. Though tiny, these oyster are fat and juicy.

Kway Teow Kia, the slimy translucent kway tiao that was tossed with sweet black sauce. It was quite chewy and yet does not stick to your teeth. Though it was not Q enough, it was still very pleasant to eat it together with the soup, indeed a wonderful match!

Do check out this Kway Teow shop if you happened to be in Skudai area. Definitely a shop worth visiting! 

Taika Huat Duck Meat (八哩半大家发鸭肉) - Duck meat under the tree

• Operating Hours: 8.30 AM to 4 PM
• Address: Taman Sutera Utama, 81300, Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
• Operating Days: Daily (Closed on the First day of every lunar month)
• Food I had: Half Duck, Beancurd Skin, Pig Skin, Big Vegetable. 
• Total Cost: 99.65RM

I personally prefer braised duck more than roast duck as the meats are tender and well marinated with all sort of spices and herbs. 

Established in 1973, Taika Huat is famed for their Teochew Styled Braised Duck. This stall from the year 1973 was since located in the narrow lanes behind Sutera Mall, go further down the road after you reached the Lee Pineapple factory.

Patrons near and far are willing to travel miles just to have their braised duck and a plate of pork trotters. This eatery has even been visited and patronized by politicians and foodies alike. What makes it so good besides the generation passed down recipes? The fact that the owner tends to the preparation and the cooking of these dishes by himself.

Business starts at 8.30 AM, and this place will be full of consumers till it's sold out or when it’s 4 PM. Do visit them early to avoid any disappointment.

They have another unique name well recognized by locals as “Duck meat under the tree" which by chance if you arrived early, you may even catch a relaxing lunch under the big tree for a local experience. 

We arrived during lunch hours and there was a long queue to order food and lots of empty table waiting for food to arrive.

The shop front hanged with enlarged prints of newspaper interviews and photographs posed with visiting celebrities and Malaysian politicians.

Do queue up to order and pay up front before going back to your seats.

While waiting, you can read what is the benefits of eating duck meat displayed on their wall.

These are the item we ordered, priced 99.65RM for 4 pax. 

Owner Mr. Qua still uses his family recipes where these recipes were handed down generation after generation.  

The duck is marinated and braised for hours to attain the soft yet tasty meat, retaining the flavor of the duck. 

The duck flavor was hardly perceivable which is good news for people who don't like a too ducky taste. It comes with a splash of braising sauce at the bottom of the plate. The braising sauce which is mildly savory herbal which kept boiling since the day this shop open. You can add more savory herbal flavor to your duck by dipping it in the sauce but I prefer to eat mine clean to enjoy the duck's natural flavors.

The braised pork skin although many women detest it, but this absorbs years of duck gravy and it has all the collagen that you need.

Bean curd skin in herbal kind of broth. Usually served to pacify customers who would need to wait a little bit for the popular food here. A really must order as its really braised till the point it's totally soft and totally absorbed the braised sauce.

Their big veggie well does have a sense of Thai tom yum taste, a good alternative switch between the sweet duck meat and bean curd skin.

This is my favorite and I will recommend you to try this. Mix it with few slices of braised duck meat and you have a bowl of simple and tasty braised duck kway tiao soup.

The kway tiao is in a tasty herbal broth with fried shallots and spring onion. It has a nice balance of subtly salty and sweetness while the Kway tiao still stay their tenderness.

Will I return? Definitely, this, in fact, is one of my favorite duck meat and bean curd skin to go for whenever I have craving for it!