Johor 2025 Day 10: Tangkak (东甲)
- Rick
- Jun 5
- 5 min read
Day 9: Batu Pahat to Tangkak (东甲)
Thursday, 5th June 2025
My coffee for the day was the "Keluang Man" canned coffee that I bought at Amora Cafe in Kluang. It was milk coffee and contained mellow Tongkat Ali flavour. Anyway, I eliminated 240ml from the weight that I had to carry. The souvenir can was reduced to a fragile metal that risked being dented in my bag.
I left Tangkak Greenville Homestay at around 9:30am and walked through the quiet neighbourhood to the main street of Tangkak Town. The sun was already up and roasting the land. I did not have to go far for breakfast but still far enough to break out a sweat.
It took me just 10 minutes to arrive at Jia Jia Bak Kuet Teh (家家肉骨茶) from the homestay. The restaurant was not crowded at this time of the day and I got a small table. I had a single-portion bak kut teh, in soup, with a mix of pork ribs and pig offals, a dish of special chicken feet, fried dough and a yam rice. It was a really good breakfast.
After breakfast, I walked back to the main road and followed it to the northeastern side of town, past a cemetery and into the suburban or more residential areas. There was not much to see, except dried, flattened carcasses of a rat, a frog, a chameleon, a monitor lizard and a cat — all murdered by vehicles and left to rot or dried on the busy road. I U-turned after 15 minutes’ walk.
I walked past the junction to Jia Jia Bak Kuet Teh again and came to the junction to Tangkak Kopitiam. I decided to visit the 129 years old Kian Hoon Kiong Temple, which I saw the night before. When walking towards the temple, I noticed that I was walking behind Jia Jia Bak Kuet Teh, separated by an open space that was used as a carpark.
Kian Hoon Kiong Temple (茧云宫) seemed to be celebrating its anniversary and quite a number of its visitors were brought here by tour buses. I joined in to check out the temple — I had found something to see in Tangkak and out of the sun. I spent about 40 minutes to explore the temple.
Since Tangkak Kopitiam was just outside the temple, I went in to get something cold to drink or a cold dessert. At 11:35am, the kopitiam was pretty quiet with just a couple of tables taken. Under the "Bingsu" category, I knew mango, yam, coconut, etc, but was curious about Fa Da Bingsu so I ordered it. It was orange-flavoured. I guessed "Fa Da" meant "发达" or "prosperous", which was usually represented by oranges in Chinese tradition. It was amazing how the ice took more than 30 minutes to melt but I melted in less than 10 minutes.
It was an hour later when I was done with the bingsu and the cafe was starting to get crowded, mostly with people after visiting the temple. The cafe was in a good location.
I continued through town until I came to the town central — I guessed. A huge sign highlighted Tangkak’s few attractions as "Textile Heaven", "Sagil Waterfall", "Mount Ophir" and "Recreational Park". Waterfalls in Malaysia were too small to be of interest to me and Mount Ophir, or Gunung Ledang, was not for faint-hearted hikers. But Tangkak was a gateway for climbers to get to Mount Ophir.
I combed through the streets near Tangkak Bus Terminal, noting the large numbers of textile shops that lined the streets. This was the reason why Tangkak was also known as the "Fabric Town". I was told that there used to be about 30~40 of these shops in the old days but most had since moved to other towns.
1:15pm, I came to Restoran Kuang Fei (东甲牛腩面) that served the famous Tangkak beef noodle — I had visited two of its branches in Kluang and Johor Bahru under the Tangkak Beef brand. Unlike the branches with various options for dishes, the original outlet served only beef brisket noodle. There was a choice of noodle (mee, mee hoon or kway teow) and whether small, large or with add-on ingredients. I went for kway teow with add-ons (RM16) and an iced herbal drink. The beef noodle was delicious as usual.
Few units away from Kuang Fei was Kedai Biskut Chop Hua Bee (和美饼家) which sold local products, including its popular savoury tau sar peah (mung bean biscuit). They sold some chiffon cakes, breads and cookies too but the mung bean biscuits were sold out until the next fresh-baked batch scheduled at 2:45pm. I bought a Japan Chiffon Cake and a short tube of Hokkien heung piah — similar to what I bought at GN Food & Biscuit in Batu Pahat.
I continued around the town but the wider areas were mostly residential houses and local shops. Not wanting to keep going under the hot sun, I decided to retreat back to the homestay.
After a nice cold shower, I seated myself comfortably in the front porch of the bungalow, under a fan, surfed the Internet and enjoyed the Japan Chiffon Cake that I bought from Chop Hua Bee. It was very fluffy, mildly-sweet and with eggy flavour. It was supposed to be refrigerated if not finished within the day but I finished all of it — once it went out of my sight into the refrigerator, it would be forgotten for sure.
I rested until 7pm then went out for dinner. The air was still so warm that I skipped all open-air eateries with cheaper food. Not wanting to go far and work out a sweat again, I went back to Tangkak Kopitiam. Anyway, there was a dish that I wanted to try.
There were people who did not know how to eat rice vermicelli, especially the thin thread-like type. When a soupy rice vermicelli dish was served, they often complained that the amount of rice vermicelli appeared too little without understanding that the portion was actually normal. The amount of rice flour in that visually "small" amount of rice vermicelli was equivalent to one bowl of rice.
At Tangkak Kopitiam (东甲咖啡店), I ordered "Xiang Di" (香底米粉) which was fried vermicelli drenched in soup. When the dish came, my jaw dropped. It was a gigantic dish in a shallow bowl that was about 1 foot in diameter, the amount of rice vermicelli was really a lot. Naturally, I tried not to finish the dish, knowing very well that I could be eating 2 bowls of rice. The reason why I wanted to try Xiang Di was because someone wrote an "silly review" on Google Maps complaining that the rice vermicelli was too little. I was not expecting the dish to be so huge in portion.
Although I did not finish the rice vermicelli, I cleared all the ingredients. Aside from the quantity issue, the dish was nice and not salty. When I was leaving the cafe, an elderly, who saw my shocked expression when the dish arrived, told me that Tangkak Kopitiam served really big dishes. I recalled also that I nearly could not finish the Siham Kuey Teow that I had the previous night.
I headed back to the homestay and took another cold shower. Seriously, when would it rain?
Day 11: Writing...
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