A dedicated shop selling Sabah pork noodles (or sang nyuk mee), Sin Hing Long Sabah Pork Noodles @ Pandan Indah, has opened in my taman since the beginning of the year.
This (I believe) is their third branch with their other branches located in
Taman Connaught, Bandar Sungai Long and
Imbi.
Some people I know told me that they didn't find the food nice, hence it took me a while before I finally ventured in to try. This place specialises in just one dish and it's their
Sabah Pork Noodles @ RM11.90 which was what I started with.
I chose
dry noodles for my first sampling and you have a few options of noodles you can choose from. I had to ask the server since the menu was written mostly in Chinese. The options are
Hakka noodles (as above)
, yee mee, lo shi fun, meehoon, mee and
kway teow.
No complaints on the sauce used to toss the noodles with its fragrant pork lard oil and pork lard crisps (wish there were more).
The bowl is filled with the standard ingredients you'd find in any pork noodles like liver, intestines, meatballs, lean pork slices and
choy sum. It's the slices of
sang nyuk (or lean pork) that sets
sang nyuk mee apart from the rest of the pork noodles. They're easily recognisable by their whitish sheen (from being rubbed with cornflour) and is an absolute delight to eat.
You can see just how paper thin the pork slices are...which is the hallmark of the Sabah-style pork noodles and they were super tender as well.
On another visit, I had the
Sabah Pork Noodles Soup @ RM11.90 instead with my first choice of
cho mai fun (thick meehoon) though their version isn't very thick (some will even mistaken it for thin meehoon). The
soup, with its distinct milky white colour (rather similar to a
tonkotsu ramen broth), is made from hours of boiling pork bones which gives it that signature opaque white, creamy pork bone broth...and this is also what sets Sabah pork noodles apart from other pork noodles.
The soup base I found a little on the salty side (but should be fine for the masses) and what elevated its taste for me was the addition of white pepper...lots of it....which was freely available on every table. But this was no ordinary pepper, it was
Sarawak white pepper with a more fragrant aroma and peppery taste that's unlike the usual white pepper we normally get.
I found that the broth tasted so much better with a few good dashes of this Sarawak white pepper. Later, at the payment counter, I noticed that they sell these
Sarawak white peppercorns at RM32 for a 450g pack.
For dry noodles, I've tried the
Hakka noodles,
yee mee and
lo shi fun...and for the soup version, I've only had it with the
thick meehoon and
kway teow (the former being my favourite).
The coffees here are not bad too...I've tried both the Iced White Coffee and Hot Cham.
The dry noodles are tossed in lard oil and lard crisps but there's very little of it. So, if you want more, order additional
pork lard @ RM1.50.
And for me....it's a must, of course! ;) Now that's more like it...the
chee yau char was fragrant, crispy and very fresh. It certainly made the noodles even more pleasurable to eat. The place also caters to those adhering to a carb-
less diet by just offering a bowl of proteins with either just the lean pork, kidneys, tendon, intestines, liver or meatballs.
Since they sell only one type of noodle here, there are a couple of snacks that you can order as sides to your noodle meal starting with the
Fried Fu Zhuk with Fish Paste @ RM8.90.
Fried to crispy perfection, I liked that the oil (in which it was fried in) tasted fresh and you can see it has quite a bit of fish paste filling unlike many others where you just taste the
fu chuk only.
The
Fried Meat Roll @ RM8.90 served with a Thai-style sweet chilli sauce is something similar to
Penang Lobak except this one is cut up into pieces before being fried.
There were complaints about it not being fried as a whole roll which contributed to its dryness but I thought otherwise as all the sides were extra crispy without losing too much in terms of juiciness.
Another side order was the
Sai Toh Fish Cake @ RM8.90 that tasted ordinary and rather similar to those found in many shops that offer this as a snack...as these are not made inhouse and probably come from a common supplier.
Just so you're informed, we were here for dinner one evening and all the other side orders were sold out except for this, so you know this was probably the least favoured snack...
lol!
My Personal Opinion
This Sabah pork noodles offers a different option to the usual pork noodles...and I've to say I enjoyed it so much that I'm eating it almost on a weekly basis. Of course, the availability of Sarawak white pepper made the soup taste even better, in my opinion.
The unflattering reviews of this shop (by some people I know) actually turned out to be untrue. That's why it's always best to try out for yourself instead of relying on other people's views on it. So, if pork noodles is a favourite of yours, then I would recommend that you give this a try.
Sin Hing Long Sabah Pork Noodles
No 5 Jalan Pandan Indah 4/10
Pandan Indah
55100 Kuala Lumpur
