Muar Food Trip 2012 [Day 1]

Harrrrro! Life as a uni student is indeed one of the best time of our life cause we get extra long break especially during the festive holiday. We've talking about this much-awaited-food trip to Muar (and Ipoh as well) since forever, I'm so glad we can finally make it this time. Much thanks to the less tight schedule we are having for this sem compared to the last two years. It's time to make good use of all our break and holiday that we have left before we graduate. Now now, back to our main topic. We only had one mission for this road trip; none other than - 

Well said, period. 

It's a good thing if you have a friend who originates from Muar, so you'll get to have the best food around and also a tour guide to bring you around :D Thank you Jie Yi! In case you don't know or you are bad in Geography, Muar is located in the state of Johor. Yeap, down south. Muar is the second biggest town and district of the state of Johor in southern Malaysia #Muar101fact Another #Muar101fact: Muar is also known by its other name, Bandar Maharani, which means Empress Town. So it's not unusual if you see most of the shops are named after Maharani, even clinic!

See, point proven :D 

We took less than 2 hours from KL to reach Muar by North South Expressway (NSE), took the Tangkak exit and drove past Sg. Mati and Parit Bunga, where you will see a lot of stalls selling duku, langsat and even kupang laut by the roadside. Muar town is approximately 27km from the Tangkak exit.

Taking a left exit to Tangkak tol. 

Once you're on this bridge, say hello to Muar! ヽ( ^ 。^ )丿

This bridge, the first bridge in Muar is called the Sultan Ismail Bridge overlooks the Muar river.

And.... we're HERE! 

One of the obvious thing that I realized while I was in Muar was their long anthenna on most of the houses and buildings to receive Singapore channels *jakun*

#TeamFlipper FTW! (￣v￣)

It was almost 3 something when we decided to have our late lunch so we drove all the way to our first pit stop which is Parit Jawa to hunt for Assam Fish; one of Muar's specialty! 

Dropped by this old bakery shop along their way to buy their sponge cake! :D 

Not only these cakes are good, they are so considered pretty cheap as well.

Most of the restaurants are closed by the time we were there HURHUR so we settled at this one instead. 

The sponge cake we got earlier from the bakery. I don't really fancy sponge cake but this is exceptional! So fluffy that I grabbed a few extras pieces *nom nomm* 

Stir fried prawns, squids, petai with sambal. It's actually my first time seeing this type of dish, where they cooked squids and prawns together. 

Assam Fish! Love the sour and spicy broth that goes well with the rice, appetizing much (Y)

Stir fried potato leaves 

When people talk about Muar, otak-otak would definitely be the first thing you could think of! It's like they belong together. One shall not miss otak otak in Muar; their number one specialty #Muar101fact Thus, we have deep fried otak-otak for lunch as well. 

The total bill for our lunch came up around RM74 including our drinks so it's RM10++ per pax. Next up; Tanjung Emas Park!

The famous 'durian' in Tanjung Emas Park. 

Random shot of the sky and trees. 

Tanjung Emas Park is a recreational park filled with green scenery, nice landscape of rows of huge trees for shades and majestic old colonial buildings and pre-war shophouses. 
It seems like a nice place to have picnic (: 

The main reason we were there is to have our tea break at Medan Selera Tanjung Emas just nearby the park even though we had our lunch not long ago. You have no idea how much we girls can eat RAWR

No ordinary rojak cause it has bean sprouts and kangkun in it! 

ABC special with a cherry scoop of Strawberry ice cream on top. 

Sour plum juice. It's soooooooo refreshing, we ended up ordering a few more cups!

Six Flavours Soup (六味汤), no idea how does it taste like cause I didn't try it :P 

Five Spice Prawn Fritters or also known as Wu Xiang, it comes with fried tofu and fishballs as well; the perfect afternoon snack. Who doesn't love fried stuff? :D 

We ordered our drinks and food from Stall No.3, total damage is only RM3 per person. Cheap to the max, one of the benefits of travelling in large group! :D  

After filling our tummy, guess where we went? Monkey watching @ Tanjung Ketapang, Tanjung Monkey Garden! :DDDDDD Tanjung Ketapang, located next to Tanjung emas, home to macaques or long tailed monkeys attracts many visitors everyday, even the locals visit and enjoy watching these monkeys.

Hello there, lil fella! Y U NO look at me? ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

Welcome to the monkey kingdom! They are all on loose and allowed to move freely. I've never seen so many monkeys, like hundreds of them in my entire life from such a near distance *disbelief* No worries, the monkeys are quite friendly, harmless and tame to visitors who feed them.

The grandpa monkey, I suppose. Sitting all alone #likeaboss. Just look at his expression LOL 

See this little fella enjoying his ice-cream HAHA 

How monkeys get their food up from the tree instead of coming down from the tree #lazyass

Since it's a mangrove area, there's a lot of mudskippers around as well. 

Scenery at Tanjung Ketapang facing The Malacca Straits. 

Did it just stick out its tongue? :P 

Then we went to Tanjung Emas beach, located in front of the Tanjung Emas Golf Club to stroll around and enjoy the evening breeze.

Can you see those rays shining from the sky? 

I saw this red dragonfly from far and took a shot of it (: #random 

Elin and I  ♡

Just so you know, I brought my sunflower plant along on my trip. You must be thinking I'm crazy :P 

After all the sightseeing and stuff, we stopped by at this fruit stall at Jalan Yahya for pear juice :9

My first time knowing the existence of pear juice! It tasted nothing like pear, but it's icy cold, sweet and sour. The ultimate thirst quencher on a extremely hot day in Muar ( ^ ∀ ^ ) Even better than the sour plum juice I had earlier. It was so good that I went back the next night to have another cup of it again. Even as I'm typing now, I'm craving for a cup of it T___T

It looks like plain water but trust me, you'll be refreshed after a sip! What's even better? 50 cent for a cup! 

We then went to Medan Ikan Bakar Sabak Awor for dinner. It's a food court that sells BBQ seafood, located at Sultan Ismail. Opens from 5pm till midnight. It was packed by the time we were there and even when we left. It's definitely one of the favourite spot for dinner among the locals especially the Malays. 

Fresh seafood everywhere! 

We ordered from stall no.9. 

Nasi lemak biasa, the sambal was the bomb! Not too spicy or salty, the coconut rice was fragrant too. 

Deep fried squids, crispy and crunchy in the outside yet chewy in the inside. 

Grilled fish, no idea what fish is this :P  

Grilled stingray with sambal on top. Overall the grilled fish were pretty good and fresh, just that the sambal was a tad too spicy for me. 

My bunch, with their happy tummy after the satisfying meal which costs us only RM42. 

After the dinner, we headed to Muar town to get some liang teh (read: chinese herbal tea) after having so much heaty and fried food the whole day. It's like one of those stall by the roadside at Glutton Street. 

Then, we planned to yumchar (read: hang out) at Little Cafe but sadly it was closed that night so we ended up at this cute cafe called Sweety House Cafe, which is actually the one and only Hello Kitty themed cafe in Malaysia ╮(╯▽╰)╭ You have no idea how ecstatic I was!

Just a little sneak peek of the cafe (: 

So, I'll be saving a post just for this cafe because you should know how much I love Hello Kitty, right? :3 Plus, there's just too much photos of the cafe alone to sharespam *evil grin* 

To be continued..so stay tuned! ( ´ ▽ ` )

xx