1000 km in a Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid in Japan

 

I drove 1000km over a few days in Hokkaido in a Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid. This car shares nothing more than the name with the car introduced earlier in 2026 in Malaysia – they’re totally different cars.

I picked up the car from the rental company in Sapporo – it’s a cute car, with some suave lines in spite of its diminutive stature – pert nose, flowing back, a few well-placed body lines, and good consistent finish. I think Toyota goes overboard with the creases and lines on some of its newer cars, as if they were origami pieces, notably the Lexus models.

In pearly white, the car stands tall on big bold wheels to justify the crossover aspiration. It’s better looking than the Malaysian version, which uses a Daihatsu platform.

For the Love of Sang Har Mee

 November 4, 2025 

It’s not easy to make good freshwater prawn noodles or sang har mee, which is why a good find is always much appreciated. Many restaurants and even dai chou (“big fry”) stalls offer it, but those who do it well tend to stand apart and gain a measure of social media fame.

For sang har mee to cross the threshold from mediocre to good to great, requires a combination of just a few things:

1.Freshwater prawns. These must be fresh, for they are the heart and soul of sang har mee. Even if the other ingredients are so-so, fresh and succulent freshwater prawns can distinguish it from the morass of mediocrity. Conversely, if the prawns are not fresh and juicy, even excellent other ingredients cannot rescue it.

2. The Sauce: the thick eggy sauce that’s lathered over sang har mee is the second crucial ingredient. It doesn’t have to be outstanding, but very good sauce is what makes good sang har mee memorable, provided No 1 is a given. Sauce is what gives liveliness and character to sang har mee, it is the difference between fame and embarrassment for the vendor.  It is the rich mouth feel of thick, egg-flecked substance, tinged with alcohol, redolent with ginger, that makes a truly satisfying meal. It is the secret weapon that gives an outstanding noodle dish its superpower.

3. Noodles. Often overlooked, the noodles, doused in sauce, cannot elevate a dish from mediocrity, but it can ruin it by being insufficiently crispy, lacking wok hei, being soggy, and – ugh! – being rancid. Good noodles are inconspicuous, yet they are delightfully crunchy and substantial when soaked in rich sauce, and are the finisher to a good sang har mee.

 With all that out of the way, it was my good fortune to recently discover two new restaurants serving memorably good sang har mee, within walking distance of each other in SS2.  

Oh Yeah, located next to the institutional Poh Kong that’s been dealing in gold baubles to tai tais and tai tai wannabes in SS2 forever, needs little introduction to many people.  There are other Oh Yeahs in Puchong and Cheras as well, no doubt delighting the residents there.

Their killer app is the sang har mee, priced at an eye-opening RM17.80 per dish for a single serving, with an extra RM2 for addition of wine to the sauce.

For this modest amount of money, one is served – and within a very comfortable air-conditioned restaurant, rather than some grubby, noisy coffee shop next to a smelly drain, mind you – a regal looking dish of browned noodles topped by bits of vegetable for that essential fibre in your diet, in a thick, golden sauce flecked with egg and topped with 4 sections of halved prawns.  The very sight is saliva-inducing.

There’s a board at the back of the restaurant with some self-rumination about the sauce, and how one cannot do justice to one’s customers without making the sauce as good as it can be, something noble and expressive like that, intended to make you believe in the honorable intention of the cook.

And yet, I have to say, the first mouthful of the sauce I took grabbed me by the throat. I paused, looked up and said “This is good!” And it was unsolicited too.  Honestly, the combo of thick rich sauce, very good noodles with a dash of wok hei, crispy enough to evoke a sigh of regret for all the lousy soggy noodles I’ve ever eaten, and the prawns, make this a go-to if you’ve just broken up with your lover, and you need some comfort food to remind you that your mother loves you and that life can be good. 

At the price, I can’t argue with the size of the prawns, but I would just pick out that the freshness of the prawns could be better, because you know, really fresh prawns make your insides soften a bit, and your toes curl at the first bite of the succulent white meat.

In the same area, and within walking distance, is the recently opened Taman Putra Fresh Prawn Noodles SS2 branch, the third outlet of this restaurant that I’d never heard of previously, the first two branches being in some remote locale within KL.

The restaurant is more posh, with one of those glossy thick-card menus with professionally finished photos that pop out at you, and very spacious, with two shop lots, comfortable padded seats and staff in uniform. The menu features mainly prawn dishes as the name of the restaurant intimates, prawns cooked in various ways and all looking obscenely delicious, given that the freshwater prawn isn’t a particularly good-looking creature, disproportionate and bristly with inconvenient prongs and appendages.

The most modest portion of sang har mee is “small” for one person at RM28. So, game on.  The dish that arrived was certainly quite big, or presented so, for that “big and rich” emotion so prized by the Chinese when making a first impression. The prawn is bigger than at Oh Yeah, and so it should be, given the price, and the noodles, finer and well-crisped in a hot, hot wok bathed over in a thick yellow golden sauce with big wisps of egg and generous slices of ginger. The aroma of alcohol – rice wine – is evident.

The killer app here? The prawns – as fresh and succulent as you would want, without actually scooping the crustacean yourself from some freshwater stream somewhere in the wild – yes, of course I know these freshwater prawns are bred and not wild-caught, certainly not at this price point. The prawns are superb, outstanding. 

The sauce is very traditional, gingery, thick and rich, the way old school restaurants serve it and the way I remember it, but I think I have to concede that Oh Yeah’s sauce is a tad better, with that bit of elusive mouth feel.  The noodles are thinner than at Oh Yeah, but no less crispy and fragrant for it.

As with all sang har mee, the dish has to be eaten fresh and hot. If you’re messing around with your smartphone camera while the dish grows cold, may as well not eat it as sauces grow thin and unappetizing as the temperature drops, and forget about tapau – better not to eat a good sang har mee than to sully your memory with the cold and soggy mess you’ll get if you tapau the dish – even if the sauce is wrapped separately and heated up later. Just do the right thing – go to the restaurant and eat it when it’s hot and fresh from the kitchen.

There are many sang har mee greats out there and further afield, in whispered names of obscure small towns by even more obscure freshwater rivers, but be thankful there are two excellent choices in SS2. As to which is better, it’s really up to you – who’s to say which woman is the prettier and the more winsome?

Oh Yeah Kopitiam SS2

29, Jalan SS 2/55, SS 2,

47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

+ 016-583 8266

 

Taman Putra Fresh Prawn Noodles

61-6G and 7G, Jalan SS2/75, SS2

47300 Petaling Jaya

+6011-62889657

 

A Taste of Myanmar : Table and Apron Teahouse Upstairs

 

Oct 9 2025

It has been too long since we last ate at Table and Apron, the elegant and popular restaurant on a row of shoplots in Damansara Kim, PJ. I like the food there, the genteel, relaxed atmosphere, and the emphasis on quality and substance over flash and glitz, and the sophistication of well thought-out, well-prepared food presented in an unassuming, unpretentious way.

They had a pop-up “Myanmar Flavours & Stories” in Sept-Oct 2025, on the Teahouse Upstairs, while the regular menu continued to be served downstairs.

Nasi Berlauk Malam, Friday evenings at Aperture Cafe, TTDI

September 20, 2025

Nasi Berlauk Malam, Aperture Cafe, TTDI 

On the upper floor of a shoplot in TTDI, near the big mosque, Aperture passes as another café with an eclectic mix of café food and Thai food – they claim their pad thai is to die for, although I’ve never tried it.

Eating at a Michelin-One-Star restaurant in Chengdu, Sichuan, China

 

The Glam and the Tradition

The glitz and buzz of Chengdu’s upscale Tai Koo Li neighbourhood belies its humble origins. Crowds gather at the street corner opposite the giant curved LED screen waiting for the 3D-efffect pandas to come onstage and tumble off screen. Nearby, the Gucci building glows with enveloping LED walls, and around the corner are the branded European luxury-goods shops.

Hidden in this mecca of bright lights and retail worship, is the historic Daci temple, where the monk Xuanzang – whose epic journey seeking Buddhist scriptures is enshrined in Chinese literature in “Journey to the West”, was ordained. It is a sanctuary of the ‘old’ China, and not the only one.

Small family-run shops along neighbouring East Kangshi street sell everyman meals, from dan-dan noodles to stewed rabbit heads, to simmering pots of wicked-looking ma’la stews.

At the end of this bustling row, in the shadow of glamour and tradition, Ma’s Kitchen is easy to miss, were it not for the queue of people patiently waiting outside, holding numbered tickets.

Khao Man Gai Chicken Rice, Ara Damansara

 Months after Khao Man Gai went viral, thanks to a TikTok video, I had the chance to try this Bangkok Street Chicken Rice in Ara Damansara.  

Cheng Jing Steamfish - update, June 2024

 Almost a year after my original post on ChengJing Steamfish, the menu has been extensively revised. The signature dish, steamed fish, was temporarily taken off the menu, but happily, has since been reinstated. See original post here:

Cheng Jing Steamfish

What’s changed is a more extensive and varied menu with fried dishes, noodles, porridge and chicken.  All dishes are in a single size, for two persons. Having said that, I found the portions to be quite generous, and if you’re ordering several dishes for sharing, a two-person portion can be shared among several people.

Coffee Shop Wars Ara Damasara, PJ: New Beginnings

 

In the Beginning….

In the beginning, before there was Covid19 and the Lockdown, there was Tien Tien Lai, a coffeeshop stalwart of the breezy, Ara Damansara neighbourhood. Tien Tien Lai was a no-frills corner coffee shop in a block of light industry and motor workshops.

Cheng Jing Steamfish

 July 31, 2023

There’s a rather out of the way MBPJ foodcourt in SS3, the type that was once popular in residential areas, with a variety of stalls selling various types of food.  This one, the Medan Selera Wawasan, looks like it’s in a small town, with a separate building for the toilet and common seating on tables in the verandah beside the stalls.  Something vaguely nostalgic about it.

Cheng Jing Steamfish opened in the second quarter of 2023 and occupies one of the stalls, but in the evenings, it has an outsize presence in the number of customers occupying tables in the common dining area. 

Walking the Camino de Santiago

 First published in Options, The Edge, on July 4, 2022 @ https://www.optionstheedge.com/topic/travel/going-distance-walking-camino-de-santiago-spain-and-portugal

The scallop shell, symbolic of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, has a series of converging lines which fuse at the base of the shell. It’s been pointed out that this is representative of the many routes that lead to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostella.

Legend has it that the remains of St James the Greater, Jesus’ disciple, was brought and buried here by his followers after his beheading in Jerusalem.  What was once an unmarked grave has since grown into the great cathedral of today.