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

Food Explorer Storyteller with 63 million+ reads 📧 johorkaki@gmail.com

CLOSED Choy Kee Yong Tou Foo in Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, Skudai, Johor Bahru

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

CLOSED Teresa is an exchange student from Miami, USA. Teresa and her Malaysian host family have been exploring Johor food with my Johor Kaki food guide. As Teresa will be returning to the USA next month, Teresa and her host family wondered if we could meet up for a meal, which I gladly accepted.

I asked Teresa if she had tried yong tou foo during her stay in Johor so far. Since she hasn't, I decided to show her the famous yong tou foo shop at Taman Ungku Tun Aminah.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

Choy Kee in Taman Ungku Tun Aminah are actually cousins with the famous yong tou foo shop in Ampang near Kuala Lumpur. I am a regular at the yong tou foo shop in Ampang, having lived in KL for a few years and returning regularly to my favourite food places there ever since. Over the years, the two shops have developed their own styles and are today rather different in the food offered and the work processes.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

At Choy Kee, the yong tou foo are all laid out on the counter table and we just pick whatever catches our fancy at RM1.10 per item.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

The lady boss, Mdm Sak, explaining to Teresa and Baptiste (a French exchange student) how the ordering system works at Choy Kee yong tou foo.

These were some of our random picks.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor
Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor
Yong-Tau-Fu-JohorYong-Tau-Foo-JohorYong-Tau-Foo-Johor

The yong tou foo pieces were floating in a savoury soup made with soy beans and stock bones. The soup was delicious, though it tasted a little salty towards the end, when it was cold. It would also have been perfect for me, if the soup had a little anchovy flavour.


All three of us enjoyed the pieces of yong tou foo. I especially like the traditional Hakka filling at Choy Kee which uses fresh minced mackerel fish, pork and salted fish. The fillings have a more substantial feel, softer, sweeter and more savoury than the "fish only" paste fillings found in many other yong tou foo shops nowadays.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

I like to eat my yong tou foo "dry" with yellow noodles. The noodles were tossed in a soy and lard based sauce which I liked very much.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

I like it that everything in Choy Kee is made fresh at the shop. How fresh? The yong tou foo were all made right there as we ate.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

I applaud Choy Kee for keeping to the Hakka traditional by making the filling with fresh mackerel fish, pork and salted fish. More and more shops are just using "fish" paste filling for cost and labour reasons.

Yong-Tau-Foo-Johor

Good sambal is crucial for good yong tou foo and at Choy Kee, the sambal was great. The not overly spicy, savoury sambal is cooked at the shop everyday.

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

Even this thick savoury bean sauce is made at the shop. In the sauce department, Choy Kee pips their cousin in Ampang (near Kuala Lumpur).

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

Choy Kee is located deep at the far end of the row of shophouses in Taman Ungku Tun Aminah. Mdm Sak said the shop lot was initially quite isolated when they first started business here 11 years ago. Fortunately, their customers tracked and followed Choy Kee to this new location. Today, the large shop is busting at the seams with customers, especially on weekends.

The huge mango trees ringing the shop were planted by Mdm Sak 11 years ago.

Mdm Sak kept reminding me to come back for their pork trotter braised in vinegar and ginger, and their Hakka fried pork. I shall definitely come back for these.

->> Freshly made old style Hakka yong tou foo with good meaty stuffing. Lots of choices. The closest you can get in JB to the Ampang YTF experience of KL.

Rating: 2-Star out of 3. (I have discontinued this rating system.)

Yong-Tou-Foo-Johor

Restaurant name: Choy Kee Yong Tou Foo
Address: 1, Jalan Temenggong 9, Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, Skudai, Johor
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/Oxy1o
GPS: 1.510820,103.652969 / 1°30'39.0"N 103°39'10.7"E
Hours: 8:30am to 6:00pm (Closed last Weds and Thurs of the month)

Non Halal

Date visited: 22 Mar 2013

Return to Johor Kaki homepage.


12 comments:

  1. What do you mean by "2-Star"? Is it 2/5?

    ReplyDelete
  2. So many choices! I miss eating yong tau foo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. 3-Star - I will plan a special trip just to eat this
    2-Star - I will make a detour or a short trip to eat this, if I am near by
    1-Star - I will eat this, if I am at the same place
    0-Star - I will look for other food, if I am at the same place.

    Star ratings are applied only to posts from 10 Mar 2013 onwards.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi this is David from KL. Since I came to JB has been follow the blog for quite some time. Going back next week after my project. Thanks for the great blog but there is one suggestionsto make this blog better for the users.

    Time map.. Sometimes if I wanna go out to catch a great meal at 3pm. May be a map that shows which shops are open around that area at that time would help us to create more simple and direct choices.

    Just my simple suggestion that hope you can consider it. Thanks to you my friend I enjoyed my stay in JB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you David for the support and glad that my blog was helpful. Yes! Time map is a very good suggestion which I will find a way to implement. Perhaps i can create time tags for the eateries. Wish you a great trip back to KL.

      Delete
    2. I found another shop selling yong tau foo (Ipoh style) just a few shop lots away from Choy Kee. The yong tau foo, curry Chee Chiong Fun and coffee are good. Worth a second visit.

      dominic

      Delete
  5. Thanks Johor Kaki for the recommendation. My family and I went over a few days ago to patronize Choy Kee. We were awed by the size of the yong tau foo pieces! Have never seen such huge ones before, every bite was full of generous filling. However, we were very disappointed with the dry noodles (quite bad and no flavour) and chilli sambal (oily and doesn't go well with ytf). Fortunately, the flavourful, fragrant soy bean soup stole the limelight.

    "Anonymous" recommended another shop a few shops away. Our curious appetites convinced us to patronize it but unfortunately it was not as good as Choy Kee in terms of the size nor taste. The soup was bland too.

    Verdict: Will revisit Choy Kee only.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for visiting my blog and for your comment :-D

      Delete
  6. the size of each and the amount of filling were huge yet the price was very reasonable. the soup was tasty. i did not try the chilli to avoid any stomach upset as i was travelling. a BIG let down was the noddle in dry version. it was very bland and failed my taste miserably. the filling ( mainly pork and fish) was too finely minced. in the old time, the meat was chopped using hand and one could feel the firmness while eating. they should set their electrical mincer so that the filling is not finely chopped up and end up a paste. anyway, the filling is still much much better than many places in singapore. i might return to try the soup version .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for visiting my blog and for your comment :-D

      Delete
  7. Went to Choy Kee this morning. Ordered the vinegar pig Trotter . It was delicious . As we were about to finished the dish, my son fished out a crockroach from the dish. This is my worst experience eating in Johor. Will never go back!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hello. Just to share, whether is this stall really closed, i let u all decide. When i patronised this coffeeshop to dine at other stalls, i spoke to one of the stallholder. According to her, when the yong tau foo boss decide to close his stall, one of his workers actually requested to takeover the stall. Eventually, one of the workers took over. According to one of my friend who lives nearby, he told me the standard dropped shortly after the takeover. When malaysia ended their lock down, i went in to patronise and taste for myself if the standard really dropped. Apparently it tasted the same before the lock down and my friend tried it too and he agreed with me its back to the same old taste. I will find it very difficult to accept if i can no longer find great tasting yong tau foo (with amazing bean sauce, not every YTF stall serve this) in this area.

    ReplyDelete

All comments submitted with genuine identities are published