Happy Garden Bak Kut Teh in Masai, Johor Bahru 快乐园肉骨茶 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

More than 6 years having fun, food spotting around Johor Bahru, how did I miss the excellent bak kut teh at Happy Garden 快乐园肉骨茶 in Masai? 😅 It's not that I have never been to Happy Garden BKT before. We were here over 2 years ago but I forgot what I was thinking... what was I thinking? 😂 Well, I always believe that late is better than never 😄



Happy Garden Bak Kut Teh is located on Jalan Agung which is an inside street off Jalan Masai Lama (the main street of Masai town).



Happy Garden stretches two shop lots, so it is a large bak kut teh shop. It is humbly furnished but lovingly kept - very clean and neat. Founded in 1986, Happy Garden used to be a stall inside a coffee shop on the main road. They moved here after deciding to have their own shop and expand their business.



Mdm 葉 hails from Klang, the capital of bak kut teh in Malaysia.

Mdm 葉 said she remembers me from 2 years ago. 

Me: "Because I took a lot of photos ah?"

Mdm 葉: "Because you have very good manners"

Me: 😊




My usual singleton order at bak kut teh shops - pork tail with rice. I later added a serving of you char kway. Total bill was RM14 which I felt was very reasonable.



Swept that cabbage leaf aside and underneath it, the claypot was choked full of pig tail - my favourite cut for bak kut teh.



First things first, the soup. It has the Klang DNA - it has body, thickened by collagen from boiling pork skin. The broth was savoury herbal sweet but thirty years in JB, it has been tuned to local preference, so it was not as intense as the Klang variety. Ahem.. ahem.. . I actually prefer this milder level of stock flavour as it lets me taste the natural flavour of fresh pork more 😄



The meat was tender (though not soft) but the fat and skin were so soft and smooth. The pork tail, especially the fat had the nice natural porky sweetness which only fresh pork has. When eating bak kut teh, I always look for this natural fresh pork sweetness (which will be missing in frozen pork).



The friendly folks here offered to top up my claypot with soup before I asked. (In Klang, BKT is usually served with ⅓ stock and requests for top ups are not even tolerated, much less entertained 😂 )

I enjoyed it with you char kway 油炸粿 (fried Chinese crullers) which sponged up the savoury herbal sweet broth well. Wetting the YCK didn't take away all the fried cruller's crispness, so it had an interesting wet soft crisp mouth feel.



4 Star (out of 5). About 30 minutes drive from JB CIQ (immigration) but well worth the trip. Full bodied soup with well balanced savoury herbal sweet flavours. The pork was fresh and tasty. Prices were very competitive. Happy Garden 快乐园肉骨茶 is one of my favourite bak kut teh shops now.

What to eat in Masai? Here are some tried and tested suggestions for you 👈 click



Restaurant name: Restoran Happy Garden 快乐园肉骨茶
Address: 10, Jalan Jagung, Taman Masai Utama, Masai, Johor
GPS: 1°29'09.7"N 103°52'57.4"E | 1.486033, 103.882615
Waze: Happy Garden
Tel: 07 255 1841
Hours: 8:30am to 4:30pm (Monday off)

Non Halal




Date visited: 8 Jul 2018


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