Hainanese Lor Mee At Harbin Cafe (Pulau Tikus)

I have past by Harbin Cafe many times but never really been there until recently. What actually caught my attention was the fact that they advertise themselves as having the one of the best Hainanese lor me in town. What's also intriguing is that lor mee is suppose to be a Hokkien dish ergo a Hainanese lor me warranted some investigation on my part.

The typical lor mee consists of a mixture of white rice noodles or beehoon and yellow noodles served with thick starchy gravy made up of corn starch, egg and spices. This is usually complimented by slices of pork and a half boiled egg. In some stalls, they might surprise you with innards like intestines or chicken feet which would put off most Westerners. Lastly, it comes with chili and ginger paste to compliment the thick gravy noodles just like the one shown below.

Hmm. I can't seem to find the slightest difference between this and the Hokkien style. The ingredients are the same except perhaps they added in the pork belly. Not sure.

What a tempting looking pork belly. I could just eat this minus the noodles.

I decided I wasn't in the mood for innards and just had the normal one. I think it cost around RM3-3.5. The lor mee was just average because it tasted like any ordinary lor mee you would get in Penang. Perhaps because of the marketing hype I expected more. Anyway, you are not going to see me doing any back flips or somersaults on this.

Nonetheless, Harbin is still quite a popular cafe since it also sells Malay economy rice and Western food. The Malay food is a crowd puller during the day time where as the Western food seems to do better during the evening. For directions to Harbin Cafe, it is located at the intersection of Jones Road and Burma Road. Alternatively, you can use the SOCSO building at Pulau Tikus as your landmark since it's just directly opposite it.

Hawker Food at Poly Cafe (Pulau Tikus)

Since Monday was a replacement holiday, my wife and I drove to Georgetown for lunch. We decided on Poly Cafe at Pulau Tikus. It wasn't our first choice. We initially intended to have lunch at the New Cafe kopitiam but as usual, it was packed. Since Poly cafe is just a block away, we made our way there. It's situated centrally in the heart of Pulau Tikus, along the row of commercial outlets.

I have been here many times before since the hawker food here is generally good. There are quite a number of variety of stalls to choose from. I particularly like the stall that sells the Indian economy rice. Its called Subra Indian Food. I will need to remind him about the apostrophe s the next time I see him. Although he serves typical India food, it's prepared halal therefore you get a mix bunch of people frequenting his stall. It was rather a harmonious sight to look at.

The mutton kurma here is a must try. He got the combination right as the aroma of the mutton wasn't overpowering and it's cleverly masked by the spices. A lot of people I know dont like mutton because of the smell. However, it's not the case here. There is also an assorted variety of spiced and scented vegetables, different types of curries (fish, chicken and I belive gizzard too) and eggs (salted, fried, boiled) to choose from.

I chose four items which consists of a piece of chicken, fried egg with onions, vegetables and ikan bilis. Do expect a generous helping of the curries. As shown from the snap shot below, Mr.Subra literally flooded my rice. And the monsoon season hasn't even begun!

My wife also ordered the roti babi which was good. The pork stuffing was soft and well minced; and they held tighly together unlike other places we tried. Besides roti babi, the stall owner also came up with other creative stuffings like tuna, cheese, sambal, sardine etc. There is also a write up on this stall from The Star newspaper so that adds some credibility to the food from this stall.

As if the roti babi wasn't enough, my wife ordered a plate of Hainanese chicken rice. Wow. She can really eat. Oink! Oink! Anyway, according to her, the rice itself was blissfully tasty. I don't know what she meant here. I didn't bother trying since the spices from the curries masked my taste buds. I am sure it must have been great since the chicken rice stall was full with activity.

A snap shot of Mr. Seng happily chopping chickens away.

Another stall to patron is the one that proudly displays the one ton mee signage. I think we all know she meant wantan mee. Not bad at all.

There are also other stalls selling curry mee, hokkien mee, Taiwanese food and yong tau foo but it's just not possible to try all of them. I'm sure they are equally good but for now I think I'll stick to my Indian rice. Period.