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

Adventurous Culinary Traveler's Blog with 65 million+ reads 📧 johorkaki@gmail.com

Muar Chicken Rice Balls

We were on our way to KL for the Malaysia International Tourism Bloggers Conference and Awards or MITBCA. As always, we made it a point to stopover at a Johor town to hunt for food ;-) This time, we stopped at Muar.

I've a map in hand with a list of recommended food shops carefully marked out but somehow I fell back on my inefficient habit, but more fun way of just cruising around searching for food by instinct.

We got down from the car a couple of times to check out potential food finds but didn't stumble upon anything that really caught our fancy for more than an hour.


Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

Then, we stopped at this chicken rice shop that looked like many others we've seen.

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

The lone boiled chicken hanging in the glass case looked ordinary but what caught my eye were the chicken rice balls on the customers' plates and boxes.

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

I've heard about an old and famous chicken rice ball shop in Muar. To be sure, I asked the lady boss a couple of quick questions about the rice balls. The friendly Mdm. Wong said her late father learnt the trade of making Hainanese chicken and the rice balls from a master more than 50 years ago. After teaching her dad, the master sold her dad all the pots, pans and equipment before returning to China. The rest is chicken rice ball history, as they say.

Bingo. So I stumbled upon the pioneer, and what could be the original chicken rice ball shop in Malaysia.

The Wong family now has two shops. This one, Jie Chun is named after their mum. Another shop named Jit Fat run by Mdm. Wong's brother in downtown Muar (opposite the Hindu temple entrance) is named after their dad.

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

At first look, the chicken was not all that different from those at ordinary chicken rice stalls. At first bite, the meat was a little firm and the flavour slight. The difference became apparent when we dabbed the chicken with a bit of the fragrant, savoury, sesame based sauce that was splattered here and there on the plate.

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

With the sauce, the chicken's taste and flavour were much enhanced. (This reminded me of the Malacca chicken rice balls where again the sesame sauce was key.)

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

The rice balls were soft and moist, fragrant and savoury, and not overly oily. Mdm. Wong reminded us to drizzle a dash of their sweet and savoury blended soy sauce.

Braised-Tofu

Mdm. Wong let us to try their braised tofu. It was soft, creamy and savoury. A very good side dish to go with the chicken and rice balls.

 
Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

We popped over to Mdm. Wong's brother's shop (Jit Fat) opposite the Hindu temple, arriving at 2:00pm. But, only a little bit of gizzard, heart, liver and two rice balls were left. A little disappointed, we took whatever was still available anyway.

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

This whole heap with a barley drink was for RM3.


Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

These gizzards were the crunchiest I've ever eaten, really. The liver was creamy, smokey and soft, savoury and slightly bitter. Fantastic, if you are an innards person (like me :P ).

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

The rice balls at Jit Fat were really nice too; fragrant and savoury. Be sure to drizzle in a dash of sweet and savoury blended soy sauce.

I must definitely come back to Jit Fat for their chicken and "glass intestines".

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

Restaurant name: Jie Chun
Address: 250, Jalan Sakeh, Taman Sri Emas, Muar, Johor
Map:
http://goo.gl/maps/zmPKu
GPS: 2.051204,102.583369
Hours: 7:00am to 2:00pm (Closed on Thursday)
Non Halal

Muar-Chicken-Rice-Balls

Restaurant name: Jit Fat
Address: 119-4, Jalan Mariam, Muar, Johor
Map:
http://goo.gl/maps/0TIXS
GPS: 2.044096,102.558338
Hours: 7:00am to 2:00pm
Non Halal

Date visited: 4 Mar 2013


Return to Johor Kaki homepage.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments submitted with genuine identities are published