Foochow Food at Or Hwu Restaurant 永平五湖 in Yong Peng, Johor, Malaysia

The six of us were on our way to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore by car for our friends' wedding and I was (naturally?) assigned the not easy task of planning the food trail for the trip. I suggested skipping breakfast and getting on the EDL/ North South Highway right after clearing immigration.

 

Our first stop would be Or Hwu restaurant as ours' was a fairly large group with different taste buds. I opted for Or Hwu as it is reputable and it's food is tasty yet mildly flavoured which is characteristic of the Foochow style of cooking. I've tried Or Hwu before and liked it, so this would be a safe bet.

We asked the owner at Or Hwu to recommend the dishes and these were what we had at his suggestion.

 

First, Or Hwu's signature red yeast rice wine chicken 福州红糟鸡, which won the most ooos and aahhhs from my companions. The chunky pieces of chicken were tender and sweet and bathed in the special red rice wine tangy and savoury gravy. How tasty was it? Well, all of us liked it and one of us even declared a couple of times that this red rice wine chicken is even better than her mum's home cooking! Now, that's a very strong endorsement from someone who is very fond of and loyal to her mum's cooking :)

 

Or Hwu's signature Foochow pork balls were next. The pork balls had a good spring and bounce, and were sweet. The minced meat filling was a little too fatty for a cholesterol conscious person like me but the fats were the exact same thing that made these meat ball so deliciously irresistible to others. 

 

 
The Foochow fried noodles looked very similar to Hokkien fried mee (especially the Johor version of it). Or Hwu's Foochow fried noodles was certainly delicious. The gravy was heavy with seafood flavours and the tender slurpy smooth noodles soaked up the gravy well. Actually, I couldn't distinguish this Foochow noodles from good fried Hokkien mee except for the different types of yellow noodles used.

 

Of course, we got to have the Foochow style of fish ball soup. The ikan parang fish ball wrapping the minced pork filling was excellent. The fish ball wrapping was springy and sweet. The minced pork filling was soft and again a little on the fatty side for me.

 

Someone thrilled by the idea of eating "game meat" ordered this "wild boar" meat :) Nicely executed but to me the tender lean meat tasted not much different from usual farm raised pork. An alternative option for those with an adventurous palate.

 

This humble fried sweet potato leaves was done just right. The light sauce brought out the fresh flavours of the vegetable nicely.

Our party enjoyed our brunch at Or Hwu and we next proceeded to Eng Hin bakery to pick up some traditional Foochow pastries like kompia.

We were discussing how Yong Peng is a natural choice for stopover breaks between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur as Yong Peng town is conveniently just 10 minutes from the Yong Peng toll. Yong Peng also known as "Little Foochow" has nice distinctive Foochow food and places where we can pick up simple traditional gifts.

 

We were already planning our next visit and said that we got to try the Foochow mee sua that we missed this round.

Restaurant name: Or Hwu Restaurant 永平五湖
Address: 214, Jalan Besar, Yong Peng, Johor
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/UN4O4
GPS: 2.010932,103.066724
Hours: 12:00noon to 10:00pm
Non Halal

Date visited: 7 May 2012, 6 Oct 2012