Mee Jawa & Curry Puff, Lim Food Stall @ Taman Muda

Penang Mee Jawa gets less attention than their other more popular Penang hawker fare like Penang Hokkien Mee (Prawn Mee) or Char Kway Teow.  It's commonly found sold by Malay restaurants/hawkers but it's not as easy to find mee jawa sold by hawkers in Chinese coffee shops here in KL...and even more difficult to find good ones.  So far, I've only come across a decent one in SS2's Chow Yong Kopitiam.

You could say mee jawa is quite similar to mee rebus or what some would refer to as the Chinese version of mee rebus.  So I was excited when I saw Mee Jawa & Curry Puff, Lim Food Stall @ Taman Muda on the delivery platform.

The Mee Jawa @ RM11.50 arrived looking the part with default yellow mee and its usual ingredients of crispy fritters, hard-boiled egg slices, tofu pieces, potato chunks, bean sprouts (but no cuttlefish), topped with some fried shallots and accompanied by a spicy sambal.  Some versions would also include those Indian fritters (the same ones they use in mamak mee goreng or Indian-style fried mee).

The noodles were drenched in a gravy made with sweet potatoes (and probably potatoes too) to thicken the sauce and some tomato paste to balance out the natural sweetness from the sweet potatoes.  The consistency of the gravy wasn't as thick and although I prefer a thicker sauce, I'm beginning to appreciate this lighter version as it's less cloying to finish.

A kasturi (or calamansi) lime is included too, so do squeeze that in as it's crucial to give a light sourness to brighten the plate as well as your palate.

The spicy sambal provides the added spicy kick needed and I'd recommend that you don't forgo it.  Mixing it into the noodles definitely lifted up the taste of the gravy and the dish overall.  This was a very decent mee jawa.

But, unfortunately, I can't say the same for the Curry Puff @ RM10 a piece.  It was a pretty humongous curry puff! :O  As you can see, it was as big as the palm of my hand.

It was filled with lots of potato chunks, hard-boiled egg and (for that price) I believe there would be chicken chunks too although I didn't taste much of it.  And because of that, I thought the RM10 price tag was too much even for curry puff as giant as that! >_<

Because the curry puff was so big, the pastry had to be quite thick too in order to hold the filling together, so expect the pastry to be slightly doughy (or underdone) in some parts.  If you eat it immediately, the pastry is acceptably crisp and flaky but you won't want to eat it later coz, once cooled (or left for a longer period of time), the pastry can become a little hard especially around the crimped edges.

My Personal Opinion

If I feel like having mee jawa, I now know of a place where I can get a good one near me.  But I'll probably skip the curry puff...not that it's all that bad, just that I can get a better one from a nearby wet market for half the price (not as big but filled with hard-boiled egg too).

They also sell Portuguese Tarts (RM10 for two) but I thought RM5 for one sounds a bit high even for delivery prices.  Anyway, I've not ordered that before so I don't know the size of the tart.  Recently they added wantan noodles (both dry and soup versions) onto their menu as well...and that is pretty much their entire menu. ^_~

Mee Jawa & Curry Puff @ Lim Food Stall

3 DA14 Jalan Tanjung Bunga 10

Taman Muda

56100 Kuala Lumpur