Kway Teow Kia (Kway Chap) @ Meng Fang Cedar Point Food Centre Near Hotel Grand Paragon, Johor Bahru 茗芳粿條仔

✍️ 21 Nov 2023. Meng Fang kway teow kia stall at Cedar Point food centre was one of the first places I blogged about in Johor Kaki blog. That was way back in 2012 when founder Fang was still running the stall.

Fang passed on over a year ago, and now the stall is run by her son Wai and his wife Cheng.

Fortunately for us, Wai is a master of the craft in his own right as he was working at the stall with his mum since he was 12 years old.

Kway teow kia is, of course, a Teochew comfort dish. Meng Fang stall are founded and run by a Cantonese family. Fang learnt the craft from her Teochew neighbours and opened her own stall in a coffee shop along Jalan Serigala (near today's KSL) in 1982.

When the coffee shop closed, Meng Fang moved here and have been in Cedar Point till today. It has a loyal following both locally and from Singapore.

Cedar Point is just off Jalan Tebrau highway, across the road from Pelangi Mall and at the foot of Paragon Hotel. Ten minutes by car from JB CIQ (immigration) building.

Parking is free for diners. Paid parking is for those who leave their cars here the whole day and go to Singapore for work or errands.

I ordered my favourite things and other stuff less easy to find in Singapore - pork snout, ears, fallopian tube, blood, skin, and Wai added pork belly for me. He also threw in a cup of kopi C kosong and then declined payment for everything 😬

He said we have been friends for such a long time, since his mother's time. Cheng remembered my post about her mom-in-law's passing.

Meng Fang's lor or braising stock is seemingly simple yet so finely tuned. It has a simple savoury soy sauce flavour with subtle traces of Chinese spices balanced with the natural porcine sweetness of fresh pork. So simple, seemingly so but not every KTK stall can achieve this.

On top of this, add in flavours and aromas from freshly fried shallot and pork lard. Then, the sweetness of slurpy soft kway teow kia rice noodles.

This pork snout / cheek was melt-in-the-mouth soft-tender with a most subtle soft crunch. It tastes porcine sweet accentuated by the braising stock's gentle savouriness, saltiness. Delicious.

The skin was soft tender, neither limp nor mushy or too stiff.

The fallopian tube was a winner. It has a unique kind of light springy soft crunch when done right like at Meng Fang. No funky smell whatsoever. In fact, nothing has funky smell or taste at Meng Fang, only natural porcine sweetness. 

Wai and Cheng start work at 2am cleaning and braising the innards. It's the result of sheer hard work, not magic or secret tricks.

Ah Wai is a master of Teochew braise. This pork belly has a certain soft-tender springiness that is a joy to chew.

Pork blood forbidden in Singapore.

Besides what I had today, Meng Fang also have the usual suspects of tongue, braised large intestines, small intestines, eggs, tau pok, etc.

To know Johor Bahru cuisine, start with Teochew staples like kway teow kia (and others like kway teow thng, etc). Meng Fang is a good place to start - I started here. Delicious, affordable and makes you curious for more.

Stall name: Meng Fang Kway Teow Kia Kway Chap 茗芳粿條仔

Address: 19, Jalan Musang Bulan, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia (stall inside Cedar Point Food Centre 食得福美食中心)

Hours: 6:30am - 2pm (Thurs off)

Besides Meng Fang Kway Teow Kia, the other popular stall for breakfast at Cedar Point is Ah Song Hakka Noodles 👈 click

✍ 16 Jan 2012. Meng Fang kway teow kia 茗芳粿條仔 (JB's version of kway chap) is one of many hawker stalls in popular Cedar Point hawker centre along Jalan Musang Bulan quietly tucked away at the back of Hotel Grand Paragon in Johor Bahru.

The humble looking stall may not stand out among the other stalls in Cedar Point but it has a regular clientele based on word of mouth.

See where the students from a nearby school are drawn to during recess time? Judging from the cheerful, familial banter between the students and the stall holder, they are obviously very close.

I ordered a mix of pork and innards along with a bowl of kway teow kia. The bill came to a grand RM5 for the whole set (2012 price).

The pork and innards were delicious - relying just on the meat's natural sweetness and flavours with very little saltiness unlike those kway chap stalls that use salt liberally to boost the taste and mask the smell of the innards. The innards at Meng Fang are fresh and very well cleaned.

Meng Fang's pig skin is done just right. Springy yet tender. Not too soft nor too stiff. Sliced expertly with no excess fats clinging onto the skin.

The large and small intestines are sweet, tender and chewy.

Every strip of pork was cut just right. Each piece has three layers - lean meat, fat and skin. Pork tastes best when eaten 3-in-1 together like this.

I am so glad to have the opportunity to experience such a gem of a stall and highly recommend Meng Fang 茗芳粿條仔 to kway teow kia and kway chap fans.

👉 Love coming here for KTK in the morning. Parking is easy, the place is comfortable and the food is delicious :-D

My newer post on Meng Fang 👈 click

Restaurant name: Meng Fang Food Stall 茗芳粿條仔 (Cedar Point Food Centre)

Address: Jalan Musang Bulan 2-16, Taman Century, 80250 Johor Bahru

GPS: 1.481492,103.762167
Hours: Daily 7:00am to 2:00pm (closed on Thursday)

Non Halal

Date visited: 16 Jan 2012, 28 Mar 2014 | Reviewed: 22 Jun 2022

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