Day Trip to JB

The first time I drove to Johor Bahru was about 5 months ago... Then I had friends in the car who knew exactly where to go, so all I had to do was follow instructions. Last Sunday, we ventured to JB on our own... armed with just a Singapore street directory that had a section on JB, and some excellent directions from Daphne - Thanks Daphne! :)

We left Singapore at around 10am and after getting just very slightly lost, we made it to Jusco Terbrau City Mall at about 11am. It was getting pretty hot outside so we were quite happy to have breakfast/lunch here in cool air-conditioned comfort. Settled on a Cha Chan Teng type cafe called 'Food & Tea Hong Kong'.

I had the Wanton Noodles RM5.90++ (S$2.80). Sorry about the photo, it was a piping hot bowl of noodles and the steam made it all blurry. The soup was kinda bland and the wantons were only so-so... but at that price, it's a bit hard to complain.

What totally made up for it was the toast that we ordered to share. The normal French Toast RM3.60++ (S$1.80) was already pretty sinful with all the butter and syrup...


but that was nothing compared to the Toast with Condensed Milk & Peanut Butter RM2.60++ (S$1.30). It was sweet like you would not believe... and it was as if peanut butter was free - there was at least an inch of peanut butter slathered on top of it. It was so gooey that I could barely talk after taking a bite. Yes, my peanut butter obsession continues...

Terbrau City Mall has most of the same shops as the malls in Singapore so we decided to head to City Square instead. The shops were quite similar to those in Far East Plaza so I had a pretty good time shopping here... With some time to kill before dinner, we then headed to the very dodgy Holiday Plaza. Quite pointless buying any pirated DVDs coz these guys have downloaded more movies and tv shows than we can ever try to smuggle into Singapore :)

Despite the drizzle, we were quite intent on having some hawker food so we headed to Taman Sri Terbau Hawker Centre just 2 mins away from Holiday Plaza. After exploring the hawker centre, we settled on Stall No. 59 where we ordered...


Cereal Prawns for just RM24 (S$10) - impossible to get for that price back in Singapore and the four prawns were just ginormous!

Grilled Sambal Sting Ray for RM16 (S$7). The reason for the smaller picture is because I totally forgot to take a picture until we had started eating... but I just had to have a picture to show how big the sting ray was.


Hot Plate Tofu RM8 (S$3.50) - one of my favourite cze cha dishes of all time...


And we also ordered this vegetable that I've never heard of in my life - Si Jiao Cai (Four Sided Vegetable) RM8 (S$3.50). It was interesting... crunchy, like ladies' finger. Any one know what it's called in English?


Tried the Penang Char Kuay Teow from a stall nearby that was pretty good too. Yes, it was as spicy as it looks...


After stuffing ourselves silly for just about S$6 per person, we decided to head back to Singapore. Would you believe that we made it from the Malaysian side (near the petrol station) to Singapore (after clearing immigration) in just 40 mins? We noticed that the right lane was moving really quickly so I grabbed the chance to get into lane when I saw one and it was so much faster!

Definitely feel more confident about driving in JB now... now thinking of venturing a little further - maybe Malacca soon? :P