Can you see the cute little bikes!
I have been to Tg Sepat many, many times. I guess if I am not wrong, my old blog was probably one of the very first few to blog about this place.
I haven’t seen Ms Popiah for awhile so I decided to travel down to Sg Pelek to visit her before her coming trip to Shanghai. So, I roped a few friends to join me and drove down to Tg Sepat for food as well.
Of course, being a good old fashioned girl, I always eat at the same places, order the same dishes and recommend the same old things. This time round, I am glad my friends enjoyed it but there were more disappointments for an old timer like me. Perhaps, the place is getting way, way too commercialized for my liking. I could still remember the good old days, about 4 years ago where the place was less packed and I should have kept this place as a hidden gem for my selfish self!
The colorful painted bridge!
Some of the points I could gather from this visit were:-
1. The dry Bak Kut Teh at Ah Fook’s along Jalan Pasar was somewhat a let down. I don’t know but the meat tasted rather bland this time. No more “claypot smell of slightly burnt thick soya sauce”. The wet BKT is not that bad though. It was a slight sweet taste to it which makes it quite unique. The fish paste soup (“yue wat tong”) used to be bigger and they used to be quite generous with the tomatoes and sliced bitter gourd. Not anymore. I miss the days when there was no food review on tv or on blogs (Haha! Sorry, floggers!). Wherever Ah Xian goes, he seems to kill the place for good old customers like me.
2. There used to be an open space next to Moh Sing Coffee shop where they roasted their coffee in old fashion way and while you have your coffee, you are also get a whiff at the aromatic smell from the roasted coffee outside! Sadly, the side of the shop had been renovated and they built a building next to it and made the coffee shop darker and dim. No more open air roasting of coffee beans. The nice elderly gentleman who used to man the shop was nowhere to be seen and a lady in her 40s took over the making coffee job. I miss the elderly gentleman. I hope he’s okay.
3. They painted the small bridge behind the mushroom farm and hung some colorful lights leading to it. I guess it would be a beautiful sight at night. I still prefer the old almost torn down bridge some 4 years ago, which has more rustic feel to it. Now, they even have a small yard leading to the bridge, presumably to serve dinner at night, and attached with disco ball! Perhaps, I should try staying overnight to check out this place for dinner.
4. We were lucky to have found a place at Ocen Restaurant near the Lover’s Bridge at lunch time. The kepah in soup is good! Fishballs still as springy. And the fried meehoon with crabs was fragrant and nice. We didn’t order big, big oysters because the smaller ones taste better. However, they no longer sell the very crispy and fragrant gold fish shaped egg cakes, which my mother loved. She could eat one whole packet by herself! It’s so unfortunate.
5. The longan farm – my mom complained that the longans do not have much flesh and it doesn’t taste good and RM5 per kg is too expensive. I didn’t know. This is the first time I buy longans because Sasha likes to eat them very much. Oh well, I guess no more next time.
6. The worst development of all is probably, Hai Yew Hin which sells paos. They even have a shop opposite the existing shop now, solely act as kitchen (and display) to make paos. They have gone totally commercialized. It was disappointing that they didn’t put more paos in the steamer for customers who would just like to sample some of their presumably nice paos. The assistants even had the cheek to ask us to wait till 6 pm, two hours to try their paos. Imagine, opening a pao shop and don’t have paos to offer! You have to make phone calls to “reserve” the pao. Kam lan pah pai! This is totally unacceptable! I am going to boycott this place! No more Hai Yew Hin for me! And they change their name to Hai Yew Heng.
Homestay activity at Morib Beach
We went to Morib too. Glad that this place still consider quite clean. Many families came here to have a picnic, taking advantage of the clear weather. I think now, they have a homestay program for Morib too. I saw some men using the net to catch some fish in the teh tarik colored sea. The wind was blowing and the sky was filled with colorful kites. It’s a good place to bring family for a pleasant leisurely picnic.
A little girl on daddy’s shoulders
We headed to Putrajaya at around 5 pm and made it just in time for the hot air balloon exhibition in Precinct 2. There were hordes and hordes of people, I am glad we could find a good parking space in front of JPN and walked a little to the lift-off ground. Malaysians need to learn to get a grip of themselves and not to be so jakun to run towards the hot air balloons when it was prohibited to do so. Of course I didn’t join these jakuns and risked myself being run down by the stampede or worse.. kena hembap belon raksasa! I wonder why they dug some ditches around the field. It’s so dangerous as there were so many people walking about the place.
Blue, blue sky!
Thank God for the fairly good weather and blue skies! We managed to snap some good pictures from the exhibition. Despite the deterioration of personal touch in Tg Sepat and being dehydrated, all in all, it was a great trip, with great company.
