Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: October 2018

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Jotaro's Food Review

Laksa Johor @ Imano's Cafe Johor Bharu

Nong Chik, Johor Bharu, Johor, Malaysia - September 2018
We were on a trip down to attend the Brompton Malaysia Day Cycling Event in Johor Bharu and had drove down a day earlier. It's been a while since I was last at the city, it had changed very much and so I was eager to see the many new suburbs that have cropped up and to try out the new food outlets too! Some of these new outlets are rather creative, such as Imano's Cafe which is located at a new stretch of slightly up-market looking street in the Nongchik affluent neighbourhood.
We were there for a light bite during afternoon tea and the little we ate gave us a hint of how good the rest of their menu should be.

We started of with a simple appetizer, on their menu it's just described as "Beancurd" and that description belies this modest dish. It came looking very dark, swimming in a pool of deep brown sauce, and crowned with an embellishment of bean sprouts, onion rings, and a sprinkling of finely cut spring onion. A sprig of green parsley and a red cut of chilli added some colour. Without this topping, the dish would have looked like the Tau Kuah Rendang from the neighbourhood stall.

The beancurd (tau kuah) by itself was nothing to shout about; it was just soft and plain tasting - unlike the Hakka tau kuah which has an interesting underling musky flavour. It is their kuah (sauce) that makes this dish wonderful. Cooked with an assortment of spices and herbs (don't ask me what) which all lent their hint of distinctiveness of taste and aroma to the overall flavour. Yes, it's the sauce that makes this a killer and I would agree to the five star rating that was indicated in the menu!
At RM6-90 for just one piece of beancurd, the price may look steep but don't forget that the sauce took a fair bit of preparation that makes it all worth it.

From the Asian Delights section we ordered the "Udang Lemak Cili Padi"; this prawn curry had a five-chilli rating which gave a strong indication that it will be very, very, very, very, very chilli hot. But it wasn't so hot, our trained palates could easily accept the hotness.
It was served with a scoop of rice, ulam (Malay fresh salad leaves). There was also a small separate bowl of sambal belacan (as if the dish was not chilli hot enough). Ok, I am just jiving here, the sambal belacan was to go with the ulam and white rice 😋😋.

The prawn curry may look like Malacca's Assam Pedas, but it was definitely much better. It was cooked with santan without being overly creamy or thick. A well-balanced curry that wasn't cooked with too much spices, which would have otherwise masked the prawn flavour.

Now comes the dish that attracted us to this place in the first place - Laksa Johor. Again it's the curry soup that won us over. It had lots of fish bits well cooked into their full-bodied spice full curry. Our only complaint was that it came with too little of the tasty curry, and before we ate half of the noodles the delicious curry had been lapped dry by us. They made up for it by bringing more.... Yipeee! !Yummy!
Another wonderful five-star dish.

Here's Imano's Cafe Food Menu. I am already eyeing some of the other five-star and five-chilli rated dish 😊.

Imano's Cafe Drinks Menu.

IMANO'S CAFE

31 Nongchik Riverside Commercial, Jalan Kolam Ayer 2, Kampung Mohd Amin, 80100 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Tel: +60 19-726 4393

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imanosjb/

Website: https://imanoscafe.business.site/
GPS & Direction Map : 1.46575, 103.73659

(Note: Google map location is wrong, I have given the right coordinates but direction map is to Potpourri Botique Hotel next door)
(Click here for Google Street View)

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