Having walk round JB City Square a few rounds, we finally make up our mind and headed for Taiwanese Cuisine. We were quite please to see the crowd in the restaurant and went right ahead without giving much thought.

Taiwan nostalgia is located at a corner of level 3 somewhere near the escalator towards the link bridge to the Malaysia custom. Wifi is available in the restaurant if you are looking for some cyber connections via your smart phone.We were served with menus as soon as we settled down in the restaurant.Interior was decorated in modern Taiwanese style with soothing background pop music mainly from Taiwanese Singers. One thing I noticed about the ceilings was that there are patches of water stains on the fore-ceiling which make me feel a little bit uncomfortable dining there.Verbana tea comes in a pot, served with wooden tray with 2 porcelin cups. Having this herbal tea not only boost the mood, it also aids digestion. There are many kinds of teas available on the menu with their health benefits summarized.Unlike the hot tea, my cup of lime green tea with plum comes in a sealed disposable cup.I have been missing Taiwanese food lately and upon spotting their braised meat rice, I planned to order it without much thought. I took the set menu to enjoy my meal to the fullest. Set meal is completed with a bowl of rice, soup, vegetable and dessert.Luckily the portion of the rice came in small portion topped with favourful minced meat adorn by a little stalk of coriander leaves and not forgetting the full size braised egg. Meat was tasty and recommendable!Vegetables strikes a good balance for a healthy meal. However the temperature of the food was not really ideal.While the meatballs were served together with the soup and they are bouncy. The meatball was cut into quarters, easier for us to chew on. A glance onto other tables and you can see one of such Taiwanese Omelette was ordered.Interestingly prepared in a roll form which reminds me of our local "popiah". A close look at it and you will see that the roll is actually made up of crispy "roti prata" filled with egg, meat floss and cabbages.Here's the cross section of the roll.Another attractive dish ordered was crispy salted chicken ramen. It was nicely done with portions of ingredients neatly place in the respective sector: Cripsy chicken, beansprouts, vegetables, shredded carrots, braised egg and braised minced meat with ramen all buried under them. We started by mixing everything together and get a "mess" in the bowl. Everything was good except that the noodle was a tad dry, perhaps there was not enough oil given for the noodles.This was the long awaited dish and it came finally after few rounds of chasers. Served in claypot with burning fire, Mapo Tofu was really spicy and oily, living up to the dish's name. Ingredients like minced meat, tofu, chilli and mushrooms were distinctively bubbling under the flame. This dish is not recommended if you cannot take a higher level of spice.Our meal end off with a chilled plate of cut pears, with compliments from the kitchen.Afterall, I find that having Taiwan food in Taiwan Nostalgia was a good experience. Servers were all friendly and polite, quite on the ball type. Food wise, I would say portion and taste is decent to what we are paying for.

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http://www.umakemehungry.com/2018/07/restoran-hua-mui.html

With so many breakfast choices in Johor Bahru, we have given up our Hotel Breakfast and decide to indulge in the local food journey on a Sunday morning. Hua Mui is less than 15 minutes walk from City Square and is pretty accesible. They are established in 1946 serving up stomach comforting food to both locals as well as tourists. Take a look at the amount of people outside the shop, it really stunned me upon reaching. Luckily, the waiting time was short with the high turnover rate for breakfast.

The interior is an old school charm and a reminiscent of how Singapore Coffee Shop used to be. From the gates to the vintage floor tiles, this is a very good experience to some who have not seen it back home.

Restoran Hua Mui consist of 2 levels. Despite the morning crowd, the flight of stairs linking to the upper level was closed with a signage indicating "Atas Tutup" meaning Closed. However such scene did not stop the crowd from coming, instead you can see many of them patiently waiting for their turn.

A look at the cover of menu already tells what one should order. Other than that, I would say like menu is extensive, comprising of both local and western cuisine.

We begin our breakfast in the most Singaporean / Malaysian way with half boiled eggs .

 Condiments were all laid on the table. Besides the usual Yakun half boil eggs I had, these eggs will be my favourite too. The black sauce was different bringing out its sweetness and boiling of eggs were skillfully stopped at the perfect timing to achieve such precise standard.

Sauce is good Even the drinks were served in the old school kind of glasses that we have in our coffeeshops.

Each Margarine Toast was fragrant and given with a pinch of sugar. If need be, tad on it to enhance its taste. The toast was slightly thicker and crispy on the edges, totally my kind of breakfast.

 Butter on the toast had blend in well with the sweetness of Kaya in the toast.

Hua Mui Breakfast set is basically home cook food and making us feel at home. The breakfast consist of fried bun, potatoes wedges, hot dogs, tomato, egg and green peas with light brown gravy.

The plate of noodle tasted familiar and homely till I was prompted if resemble Chilli Crab sauce. Yes, absolutely. The humble and flavourful Mee Mamak resemble a plate of Mee Goreng, however what we were served was delicious making me having more than what I suppose to have although I was supposed to have just only a mouth or two for testing. The style of a wetter version noodles instead of our usual dry mee goreng had gain a few nods from my breakfast buddies. Taste aside, Hua Mui was generous with their ingredients such as eggs and fishcakes.

The Hainanese Chicken Chop that everyone is raving in the social media that this is a must try if you ever go to Restoran Hua Mui. In fact presentation (green peas, tomato, potato wedges) and chicken chop gravy is similar to their Hua Mui Breakfast in the above picture.

Chicken chop batter was perfectly done in crisp and was not oily at all. Verdict: Yes, you should try it out when you are at Hua Mui. Comparing the chicken chop we have in IT Roo Cafe, I will prefer this.

Having lesser of the traditional coffee shop and breakfast we have these days back home, I'm quite keen to such meals whenever I am in overseas. With the long list on the menu, we can never finish trying all their recommended food in a breakfast. Should there be any chance, I will want to be back again.

https://www.umakemehungry.com/2018/03/choco-choco.html

Having been to KSL multiple times, I did not realise Choco Choco exist until my pal told me about it.

 Choco Choco is located in the open space area and it is rather easy to find them. The furnishing is simple with the usual tables and chairs under the shopping mall lighting.

I was kind of excited looking through the beverages menu as that was my first time ever to order beverages with 3D arts or graphics.

For those who are looking for bites, you can try out their All Day Brunch or Sandwiches, Pasta but these orders does not come together with the arts.

We did not specify any special request and the art drawn was all random and the creativity by the staff. Though our orders were served one at a time, I find that its already quite fast in speed.

Look! They have drawn me Crayon Shin Chan on my cup of chocolate.

While my friend got her cup of Hot Mocha with my favourite character, Doraemon on it.

On the other hand, I find that the Iced Cappuccino is more interesting as it consist of 4 different faces from a cat illustrating joy, anger, worry and happiness.

The black forest cake was ordinary and on the plate it was accompanied by the skillfully drawn Sanrio Character, Keropi Frog. Its outline was thinly drawn with chocolate syrup.

 Here's our combination of orders. With so much cute stuff on the table, we could not help ourselves in taking more pictures before we got these artwork eaten up and destroying them.

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Hoe Kee Chicken Rice is one of the popular chicken rice shop in Melaka for Hainanese Chicken Rice Balls. Had passed by Hoe Kee a few times but it was always closed and I had never gotten the chance to enjoy their Chicken Rice even though there are a few players out there like Famosa, Chung Wah etc about 100m apart in Jonker Street. Hoe Kee is easy to locate as it is just located right next to San Shu Gong Shop (if you are looking for Malacca traditional biscuits, candies and stuff you should know where it is).

Even looking at the queues, we did not surrender the idea of having their chicken rice. We joined the queues and not soon after, we got our seats. Service was impeccable and perfect team work was seen in the restaurant.

While in the queue, we were looking into the kitchen observing staff preparing the orders and at the same time deciding what we should order. We noticed that many had ordered their cabbages and Asam Fish Head.

Since it is very crowded, some exceptions were made up front but Hoe Kee, example, taking away service is not available and during busy times, they may not have enough rice ball, thus they will serve loose rice too.

Throughout the session of queuing and dining, this uncle had never stopped concentrating on his continuous chopping of chicken.

Menus were all pasted along the corridor and had gave us a good average calculation of how much we can spend in a meal.

 For chicken rice balls and meat, this menu serves a very good guide base on how many one should order.

And if you have specific chicken portion and parts to order, this menu is quite handy to you.

 Orders were make during our queue and even for big groups, I would say the staff did a very good job by allocating seats well. As soon as we sat in, orders came. Communications are efficiently and fluently pass down to servers and kitchen.

I love its interior as it had portray a very traditional feel like those ancient Chinese shows we watched through the television programs. It looked like a walk back into the olden dynasty but in our modern clothing.

Interior Before the dishes arrived, we took some chilli and black sauce. Chilli was fiery but come with a tad of sweetness within.

Loose rice was fluffy and fragrant, my perfect craving on and empty stomach.

Comparing the Rice Balls to the loose rice, they are stickier and packed with lesser fragrant. According to the chart written by the restaurant, the guide for 1 pax will be 5 rice balls. Each rice ball is small like Ping Pong size.

There are no other vegetables except for the small plate of Beijing Cabbages with carrots. It tastes sweet and ordinary if you want to have some greens. The portion paid is based on the number of pax you ordered.

We ordered half a poached chicken to share among 3. It was drenched and soaked up with fragrant light soy sauce, delectable with crunchy cucumber slices. Chicken was succulent and taste was to die for.

Being in Malacca for a few times, having chicken rice balls is a must have in my meals but beating the crowds, queuing up for the staples food of Malacca can be time consuming too. Unlike Famosa, there is only one Hoe Kee Chicken Rice shop, I guess queues are inevitable. However, I'm glad that we do not have to make advance reservations like those Nyonya Restaurant to enjoy such chicken rice meal.

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We chanced by the corner of the street and notice there is a long queue outside Pin Pin Hiong. We joined the crowd and waited for about 20 minutes before getting a table ourselves. The reason for the queue perhaps is due to the precise cooking method of the chefs who insist to cook order by order, bowl by bowl instead of "mass producing".

Their Menu is rather limited but still attracting a good crowd.

 The interior looks like our (Singapore) Coffeeshops in the 90s with old school kind of ceiling fans and switches. Even their tiles were so old school.

The kitchen is very open and you can see that the one who standing beside the stove is an elderly man who cook in rhythm and his son. They were very focus on the dishes. Besides that, the elderly woman (assuming the wife of the man) is helping on the miscellaneous. Taking orders and serving dishes were done by their 2 maids.

Mee Sua is something that most diners had on their table. Soup was tasty topped with fried lard to perk up its aroma. As most Mee Sua Soup will turn salty due to the nature of the noodles, the combination of ingredients in the bowl and noodles make things sweet. Cooking Mee Sua is quite tricky as timing is quite important. If it gets a little over cook, these Mee Sua will turn soggy.

Ingredients in the bowl of our breakfast includes lean pork meat, liver, prawns, pig's stomach, vegetables and mushrooms.

We ordered their "Wah Tan Ho" aka fried Kway Teow with egg. Gravy was quite ordinary and ingredients used were similar to what we had in the Mee Sua soup.

 The chinese version of oyster egg is fluffy but a tad oily. Taking a closer look into the kitchen, the chef beside this fluffy plate will be the young chap - the boss's son. Oyster Egg is tasty and the use of oysters were generous. To add on, I got to enjoy pieces of them on every bite I had.

I would say their food is Asian's comfort food, heart winning. It reminds us of a childhood taste even though food was simple and homely. It might not be the most delicious in the streets but at least it had given our stomach a good warming up for the morning. I can say its definitely not a tourist as everything there looked humble.