Tony Johor Kaki Travels for Food · Heritage · Culture · History

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CLOSED Sun Swee Game Meat (Wildlife) Restaurant in Kulai, Johor

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Friends often asked me where to find game meat (wildlife) restaurants in Johor. I don’t know any until I stumbled upon Sun Swee restaurant in Kulai.

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Game meat restaurants are becoming scarce extinct in Malaysia, probably because of a gradually shrinking clientele. According to Sun Swee’s towkay (boss), there were two restaurants specialising in game meat in Kulai but the other one had closed down. Sun Swee is the only one still in business. (Update: Sun Swee has closed too.)




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According to the menu posted on the wall, Sun Swee serves porcupine, monitor lizard, mouse deer, wild boar, deer, eel, terrapin, flying fox and squirrel. The towkay said not all are available everyday as all are wild caught, and some are no longer being hunted.

They were prepared a snake when I was there 😱

I asked the towkay to recommend a dish and he suggested young boar stew.

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Stewed wild boar meat RM10
When it arrived, the dish looked pretty ordinary - just like regular pork stewed in gravy made with mainly fermented black bean paste. It even tasted a lot like domesticated pork except that there was little, if any, fat and the fibres felt slightly grainier. The cubes of boar meat were stewed with lots of slices and slivers of ginger. There was also plenty of garlic. It was obvious that a lot of attention was put into getting rid of any gamey taste which is characteristic of game meat.

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I mentioned to the boss that the dish tasted little different from the usual pork meat. The boss explained with some pride that his dishes do not have that gamey taste. He told me that they use only young boar weighing 10-plus kilograms as older boars have a gamey taste.

It seemed to me that the game meat restaurants appealed only to a certain segment of mainly middle aged clientele. To keep their businesses going, the restaurants promote the traditional beliefs about the health benefits of game meat and they also make their dishes taste more like those of ordinary restaurants.

For those with an adventurous palate and who are game to try wildlife, now you know where J


Restaurant name: Sun Swee Restaurant
Address: 21-1, Main Road, Kulai Besar, Kulai, Johor
GPS: 1.651475,103.611245
Hours: Noon to 11:00pm (closed on Thurs)
Non Halal

Date visited: 2 May 2012

12 comments:

  1. This looks delicious, something I would definitely want to check out!

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  2. Johor kaki, I am an avid reader of your blog. Many of the species you mentioned in your posting are getting fewer due to deforestation, man encroaching into their terroritory and over hunting. Putting up such a posting seems to advocate their consumption . While I understand that this is a food blog, surely it should also serve a larger social good.

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  3. Thank you for visiting my blog and especially for your comment. I appreciate and share your view, and I too definitely do not advocate consumption of any endangered species.

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  4. hi do you know the contact number ? I would like to reserve some dishes before going there..
    thank you so much

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  5. Oh I don't. Will get the number, next time I am there.

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  6. will visit this stall one day , thanks sharing Tony

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    Replies
    1. I like the fried squirrels sold here. goes well with ice cool beer.

      used to frequent a shop near pelangi mall which sell snake and dog meat.

      now 野味shop getting lesser.

      dominic

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    2. Yes, I used to frequent the restaurant near pelangi mall too until it closed down. Thanks for sharing about this restaurant in Kulai. Will definitely make a trip there soon!

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  7. since when has porcupine, monitor lizard, mouse deer, wild boar, deer, eel, terrapin, flying fox and squirrel become at risk or endangered?

    In particular eel, and terrapin which are farmed, mostly in indonesia. just because something is a "wild" animal dosent mean its automatically at risk.

    in fact, did you know even though people make noise about the japanese eating whale meat, the whales that they eat are mink whales, which are classified as "near threatened"....which is EXACTLY the same classification that cod fish are in and just one level below "least concern". But you dont see many hippies protesting against eating cod right? Of course humpback whales and certain other whale species are endangered, but those are not the species that are hunted.

    sensational headlines sell news. sadly a lot of media has gone down this route. best not to blindly trust everything they say

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  8. Hi, I visited this place on Friday, 1 Nov 13. I checked with the lady boss and she said they start business at 1300 hrs. The wild boar stew was fabulous! The turtle soup had a kick to it! Thanks for such a wonderful recommendation!

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  9. Place now closed. Anyone know if they have moved elsewhere/?

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