Turtle Soup at Labi-Labi Herbal Soup near KSL City Mall in JB

I know some of you will not be happy when I say that I do enjoy turtle soup 😝 It's a taste I acquired in the 1980s from lunching regularly at the turtle soup restaurant at MacPherson Road in Singapore. But, till now I haven't come across a turtle soup specialist in Johor Bahru after blogging JB food for 5 years.



So, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon Labi-Labi Herbal Soup while food spotting around KSL Mall.



This was Uncle Kent's only second day running the hole-in-the-wall shop along Jalan Serigala. Uncle Kent has 30 years' experience running a turtle soup stall in Singapore's Chinatown. He learnt his trade from his sifu 水魚德 (literally Turtle Tuck) of old Bugis Street fame (the real legendary Bugis Street not the sanitised generic shopping street of today).

My dad must have known 水魚德 though I have never heard of him myself. My last lasting image of old Bugis Street when I was a toddler was rowdy drunken bare bodied mat sallehs singing and dancing precariously on flimsy folding table tops slippery wet with spilt beer. It looked dangerously fun and everyone around was happy and alive.

Fast forward to JB 😂



I had a small serving of herbal turtle soup for RM18. A bowl of rice for RM1.



The soup has a light-medium body. The soup was smooth and not greasy. It tastes mildly savoury peppery with a slight sweetness and herbal note. The herbal taste wasn't pronounced. 



There were around 8 small and medium pieces of turtle meat.



My favourite pieces are those with skin, fat and collagen.

The skin is quite thick and is firm chewy to the bite. The skin doesn't have much flavour except for a very subtle green grassy taste.

The RM18 serving doesn't have much collagen.

Uncle Kent uses local wild caught soft shell turtles.



The lean meat is very tender and wet with the peppery herbal soup. The texture is like very tender lean pork and the white meat tastes a little like fish (but definitely not like pork or chicken).



The RM18 serving is really quite small for me. I like this turtle soup enough to order another small serving to fill my stomach 😄



👉 If you crave for turtle soup in JB, Labi-Labi Herbal Soup near KSL Mall is the most accessible place to get your fix. The soup is not too herbal, quite peppery. The turtle meat is nicely done and pricing is reasonable for the exotic meat.



Restaurant name: Labi-Labi Herbal Soup
Address: Jalan Serigala, Taman Century, Johor Bahru
GPS: 1°29'07.8"N 103°45'38.6"E | 1.485486, 103.760733
Tel: 014-374 7862
Hours: 11:00am to 9:00pm (no fixed off day - call Uncle Kent to check hours)

Non Halal

Date visited: 20 May 2017

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