I could not get my car washed before Chinese New Year because there were so many people getting theirs cleaned inside out and polished and of course, they were closed throughout the Chinese New Year week. I only managed to get it done the other morning after which I went for a bite at some place convenient.
Of course, this one fits the description like a glove – it is right round the corner but I did walk past sometime ago and I saw that all the stalls there except the kampua mee stall had call it quits. My favourite, the Seremban guy, has moved here but I have yet to go and try to see if what he has now is any good or not.
This time around, I saw that there was a new stall occupying that space where the Seremban guy was but the photos on display did not look very alluring. I wasn’t even sure if it was Chinese or Malay or what as there were nasi lemak, some western dishes and the fried stuff, the usual suspects.
In the end, I went to the other stall open, the one I went to once a long time ago. I was thinking that perhaps, they were new but after asking a few questions, I was able to confirm that they were those same people who were there before.
I decided to try their mee sua, now that I have lost my favourite after the one here called it a day. Coincidentally, it was Day 7 of the Chinese Lunar Year, Ren Ri (人日) – the birthday of all human beings, that day so I guess this was a somewhat appropriate dish to have that morning.
When it was served, I thought it looked all right (RM7.00)…
…but it was not that strong on the fragrances of the traditional Foochow red wine and the ginger, not like the aforementioned that swept me off my feet, but to be fair, it was good enough, about the same as the nicer ones or even nicer than those at a lot of places here…
I have not been here for a while now but I think this one…
…has a slight edge over the one I had except that the egg is poached, not hardboiled.
I must say that I did appreciate the fact that they used the finer mee sua…
…here. True blue mee sua aficionados will tell you that this thinner and smoother section of the noodles is very much nicer but I cannot for the dear life of me tell you if that is the thow (head) or the boi (tail). My missus insists it’s the latter but according to this Sitiawan artisan, “The thicker head and tail sections are used in fried noodles, while the middle or finer parts are used for soup.”
Anyway, while I was sitting there, waiting for my order, an ex-colleague of mine dropped by – this place is their regular watering hole. He asked me if I had ordered something from the new stall but I said I did not as the photos did not look nice. He said that the lady was here a long time ago and what she dishes out are all pretty good. Hmmmmm…it sure looks like I shall have to go back there again one of these days.
GRAND WONDERFUL FOOD COURT (2.309601, 111.845163) is located along Jalan Pipit, off Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, on your right. You can also go in via Jalan Pipit from Jalan Pahlawan – go straight ahead till you get to it on your left.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
I would love poached egg instead of hardboiled egg in my mee sua if I have a choice to choose. I don’t even know there is such thing as head (thow) and tail (boi) in mee sua. I doubt my Foochow Dil knows about it. Usually my DIL supply of mee sua comes from her mother in Sarikei. Everyone in the family gets to eat mee sua during birthdays. Guess I will become a partially Foochow in no time…😂😂
You can ask your DIL – she probably knows…or her mother knows so she will get the best for her everytime.
I just buy the ones at the shops packed in plastic bags (unsealed) or the factory-made ones, I’m not very particular about it – they are not so fine and if not rinsed well, there may be a damp smell.
To buy the very fine ones, I would have to go to the mee sua stalls at the central market…and I have been avoiding that place since the pandemic started, high risk!
Don’t know much about the mee suah. But I agreed that the finer it is, the tastier. I like in my chicken soup. Hehe. My mil helped in steaming the white pomfret on the eve, and she put a lot of Foochow red wine in it!! Phew!! We were drunk!! Haha. Kids didn’t like it much because of the wine taste and the slight bitter and sourish flavour. Lol.
For mee suah, we cooked the chicken soup as it was. Just add the wine in your own bowl. I like a bit of it. Not too much.
My parents were like that when they were around, no red wine in their chicken soup – we had to add ourselves. Sometimes they would take out their bottle of XO brandy for us to add if we wanted it. Nice also.
Your MIL is just like my missus. When I tapao pian sip soup home, she will add so much red wine, so concentrated, cannot taste anything else anymore. Sometimes, we were supposed to share the soup but like that, I would not touch it anymore.
So far, I’ve seen steamed fish with concentrated red wine at A-Plus here. I think I had freshwater prawns like that at Hai Bing a long time ago.
Yes, there is the head and tail part of the mee sua. I prefer the finer mee sua. One of these days, I must cook chicken wine soup to eat with my mee sua. Drooling over the pictures of your mee sua. Pictures can be misleading. Looks like you will have to go back to try the new stalls since your ex-colleague said that dishes are pretty good.
You can leave out the wine, just chicken soup with lots of ginger. Serve mee sua in it, also very nice. My parents when they were around would not have any wine in their chicken soup – when we had mee sua on somebody’s birthday, we could add ourselves, if we liked. I did have a blogpost on cooking the chicken soup, wine-free – see if I can find it.
P.S.: Cannot find it but these posts should be good enough, you just leave out the red wine.
https://suituapui.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/let-me-show-you-the-way/
My missus would pound the ginger but I do not like biting into it when eating the mee sua or drinking the soup.
And there’s this one too:
https://suituapui.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/tell-me-again/
Ha ha… we definitely do not have mee sua on Ren Ri. It’s a tradition to have yeesang on that day.
But these days, you can have yeesang before CNY and even after it!
So it has kinda lost its birthday meaning, every day is birthday now, which is quick correct since we are one day older every day.
I actually had something like your red meesua in a town called Yong Peng in Northern Johore.
The wine was actually quite strong for my taste, was not very used to it.
It was just the chicken and soup, no mee inside. But red like yours.
Do you think they’re the same thing?
Yes, I did see somewhere that everybody has yee sang on Ren Ri, which is not common here even though we do have people having it here these days – monkey see, monkey do. I think it is a Cantonese thing, not Foochow.
What you had in Yong Peng must be the same as Sitiawan’s mee sua – my ex-student teaching in Johore said he had it there (Sitiawan) – like mee sua in unadulterated concentrated red wine, not nice at all, he said.
Nice comfort dish, we use a lot of mee sua (misua, how we call them) as well on our cuisine
Yes, I think I’ve seen that online, maybe in your blog as well.
I love poached egg usually but I think for this type of mee suah it somehow doesn’t seem right.
Yes, it should be hardboiled, served with chicken – I think there is a significance when it comes to birthdays and stuff and somehow, poached eggs do not cut it!
There is another way of serving mee sua, egg drop soup with lots of traditional Foochow red wine and ginger – they serve poached egg with that but generally, we do not have this for birthdays and special occasions – solely for self- enjoyment.