Muar, a place I called my second house, due to my frequent visits to this food-filled town, which is famous for its street food and other famous gourmet scatter throughout this harbour town. Instead of going to the landmark of Muar, the Glutton Street, let me introduce you one of the famous restaurant in town - Chuan Tin Garden Restaurant.
1). Situated at a corner shop lot at Jalan Khalidi, Chuan Tin occupies a double-storeys building and sit in the heart of the busy Muar town centre.
2). Although it seems like nothing special on the outside, but definitely spectacular on the inside. During wedding or banquet dinner, Chuan Tin is able to hold 50 over tables at the same.
3). One of the most popular Teo Chew dishes is Fried Oyster Omelette (蚝煎). The omelette is best fried until golden crispy colour to enhance its crunchiness and scattered with small-sized oysters, rather than the larger ones. It is best served while still hot and with a dip of own-made chilli sauce!
4). My mama always says that a good restaurant must have an equally good quality of tofu dishes. Therefore, the second dish to come is the Tofu on Sizzling Plate (铁板豆腐). Various ingredients are cooked together, such as own-made Tofu, sliced pork, salted fish, scallion and lastly a raw chicken egg popped onto the hot sizzling iron plate and served onto the table with fuming hot steam, where the aroma of the dish rush to your nose!
5). As for the veggie dish, a family favourite of Stir-fried Eggplant and String Bean with Strimp Paste (马来煎炒茄子四季豆) is ordered. Belacan-dishes always come with plenty of oil, especially during eat-out at restaurant, this dish has no exception as well. The eggplant is cooked with adequate tenderness where it absorbed the flavour of belacan; however the string beans are slightly over-cooked, too bad!
6). Usually we compliment our meal with bowls of white rice, however today we preferred to take on their Mee Sua with Soup (清汤面线). Mee sua is fairly quick-fix dish where it can be cooked under 2 minutes under boiling water, and the cook gives us a generous amount of ingredients such as prawns, pork, fish paste and chinese cabbage.
7). Time for one of the restaurant's famous dishes, which is their Stir-fried Indian Mee (炒印度面). It seems to be a simple dish with fairly little ingredients, only noodles, prawns and beansprouts. However, the noodles' taste is balanced very well, not too oily yet not too dry. How good was it? The dish is finished as soon as it is served on the table.
8). Chuan Tin is famous for their seafood, especially with crabs. This is we ordered two large Crabs cooked with Black Pepper (黑胡椒螃蟹). We could even smell the black pepper scent long before the dish is served on the table. The crabs are cooked evenly with black pepper and cracked open for easy consuming, where we can taste every bit of meat is filled with the right amount of black pepper, not too hot yet not too bland. This dish easily is our dish of the day!
9). Although there are plenty of Chinese restaurants located in Muar town, Chuan Tin is one of the more popular ones, especially during wedding seasons. As you can see, it is a full house on a weekday's lunch, with many luxurious cars parking at the restaurant's compound say its all.
Chuan Tin Garden Restaurant (泉珍酒楼)
Address : 6, Jalan Khalidi, 84000 Muar, Johor.
