HAPPENING HAR MEIN

Ever since JK (he wants to remain anonymous) gave rave reviews about his aunt’s happening har mein (“prawn mee”) located at the hawker centre near Sg Mas, Jalan Ipoh, I have always wanted to go, but the thought of the limited hap hazard parking spaces surrounding the area just put me off.

One weekend, I went for facial at my regular beautician, Destrees Wellness (formerly known as Agjov Beauty) in Plaza Mutiara, Jalan Ipoh. As it was already end of the day, the salon was rather empty as most customers who came for appointments had left, Jovy asked me if I would like to have har mein. I said, it’s okay since I would be going home for dinner. She insisted that I should at least try the har mein at Taman Kok Lian and the other girls kept on gushing over how good it was, I relented.

When they came back with the ta pao, I suddenly recalled JK’s blog and asked Jovy, is this the same har mein that JK had been talking about? (There – the one that many Hong Kong stars came visiting would not miss?) Indeed it was.

As I tucked into the har mein, it was already late. Hence, the har mein was cold. Too bad, they didn’t have microwave in the salon where I could heat it up. It was surprisingly good and do not have the stinky stale prawn smell when the broth is cold. The tip to eat har mein is to eat it while it is hot. (Heck! We Chinese love to eat everything when it is piping hot!) A good har mein shouldn’t emit stinky prawn smell when cold. I guess, this har mein at Sg Mas lived up to the rave reviews effortlessly.

Not satisfied with the cold har mein, which I believe do not do justice if I would say, it is not that superb, (it’s good when it’s cold!) I vowed to go for a hot one, that is, to drive all the way to Sg Mas, park at the hap hazard parking lot in order to savour the original taste of the har mein, while it’s hot.

I asked Chubby and Amy along, as we wanted to exchange pictures of our recent trip to Phnom Penh.


We were glad that the har mein turned out just as good as it looks. To top it, the tong sui ("dessert") that comes with it – I thought it was Leng Chee Kang, but the seller (who is JK’s uncle) called it – Lok Mei (which means, 6 flavors). I like the tong sui very much. One thing I could comment about the har mein is that, it could use a bit more chilli – as I find the sambal belacan is not as fiery as I would like it to be, though I could see Amy spewing hot gases off her nostrils and ears and broke into sweat, when she took a spoonful of the broth. Nevertheless, it was a good bite.

I guess the Kepong har mein has a stiff competitor all along! The only difference about Kepong har mein is that, they have the Yin Yong – mixture of the har mein broth and the lam mein broth; which is superbly delicious. I guess I will blog about it when I could find some kaki makans to go there with me. Any takers?

So JK, the next har mein at your aunt’s will be on you! And, we could have some chicken wings as well. Haha!