There are around 30 Shoon Huat 顺发肉骨茶 bak kut teh branches dotted around Johor Bahru making it the biggest BKT brand in the world. Shoon Huat BKT outlets all use the same blend of mild herbs and spices for their BKT stock, though each branch source for fresh pork separately. This morning, I revisited Restoran Soong Huat in Taman Desa Tebrau near JUSCO Tebrau and IKEA.
(All Shoon Huat Bak Kut Teh outlets use the same Chinese name 顺發肉骨茶, but their English names are all spelt slightly differently - there's Soon Huat, Soong Huat, etc.)
This Soong Huat BKT shop is in a laid back quiet residential part of JB, a stone's throw from JUSCO Tebrau mall and IKEA Tebrau. This row of shops has come alive recently with major expansions of the two giant malls nearby and TOPPEN Shopping Centre opening next year (2019). Update: TOPPEN is already open.
I was last here 6 years ago. Not much, if anything changed, except that Soong Huat has a new signboard but even this has weathered.
It's a simple shop lot restaurant with customers sauntering in on this quiet sunny Saturday morning. Most Shoon Huat outlets are set up with the cooking station in front, with the 顺發肉骨茶 sign above in bold red calligraphy.
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| 2018 prices |
The menu has all the usual range of BKT items like ribs, meat bones, add ons like liver, kidney, tripe, tendon, small intestines, pork belly, dried fish maw, enokitake mushrooms, you char kway, preserved vegetables, leafy greens etc. There's also stewed tau pok, stewed pork leg and sesame oil chicken. The prices are competitive.
The last time I was here in August 2012, I didn't try their bak kut teh but opted for braised pork leg and sesame oil chicken instead. So, this time, I had their bak kut teh. Using Shoon Huat parent shop at Jalan Sutera Satu in Taman Sentosa as the benchmark, the BKT stock at Soong Huat @ Jalan Harmonium is pretty close, if not more or less the same.
Soong Huat's BKT soup looks like over diluted tea.
It's the same Shoon Huat type of light watery body, gentle, well balanced, soothing savoury herbal sweet garlicky broth. For me, it wasn't love at first taste (I used to prefer soup with body and robust taste) but I've come to appreciate Shoon Huat's style of BKT broth very much.
There are at least 3 major variants of bak kut teh. The peppery white Teochew style of Singapore, the herbal dark heavy stock Hokkien style of Klang, and the very mild tasting JB style which Shoon Huat is the best known representative.
I am not a fan of canned button mushrooms (or anything canned in general) but I soon realised that the savouriness of canned button mushrooms blend well into Shoon Huat's BKT broth.
The garlic cloves that give the soup a garlicky aftertaste. I had at least 6 of these today, so I had garlic breath the whole day 👃😄
Pig tails never fail me 😄 Tender meat, soft tender fat, tender chewy skin - a perfect mix of textures in my opinion. Layers of natural sweetness dwell in the juices of the fat and meat, released onto our taste buds when we chewed on it.
When I am tasting food, I try to order and taste one dish at a time. If I didn't enjoy myself with one dish, I still have calorie quota left for another dish, or another eatery 😛 I was pleased with the pig tail here, so I followed up with a pot of pork ribs 😄
The meat on the ribs was slightly more chewy even though they fell off the bone easily. Compared to pig tail, ribs have slightly less natural sweetness and don't have the tenderness of fats.
👉 If you are shopping in JUSCO Tebrau or IKEA and want to get a JB style bak kut teh fix, it is just 2 minutes drive away at Soong Huat at Jalan Harmonium. Soong Huat's BKT is pretty close to the same as at the parent shop in Taman Sentosa which is often full house.
Read my earlier post on Soong Huat about their stewed pork leg and sesame oil chicken 👈 click
Shoon Huat parent shop at Jalan Sutera Satu in Taman Sentosa 👈 click
Restaurant name: Restoran Soong Huat 顺发肉骨茶
Address: 31, Jalan Harmonium 23/14, Taman Desa Tebrau, Johor Bahru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/xjJsq
GPS: 1.554723,103.795432
Hours: 9:00am to 8:00pm (closed on Monday)
Non Halal
Date visited: 24 August 2012, 15 Sep 2018
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