Bubur Nasi Istimewa No.1 @ Jalan Sutera, Taman Sentosa, Johor Bahru

We arrived in JB quite late at 9pm or so. Feeling tired, we checked into our hotel and were quite lazy to go out after the whole day journey from KL-Melaka-JB. But I had promised my cousin (who lives in JB) to meet up somewhere in JB city centre for supper. It has been quite some time since we met up... very close cousins even when we were little kids. Dragging our lazy ass out, Gerald and I drove to Taman Sentosa following my Garmin's instruction. Something was not right as my Garmin pointed me the other way... but following my instinct, I drove the other way until I reached the intended destination. There are actually 2 Taman Sentosa in JB so please be careful and go to the one nearest to the city centre.

Jalan Sutera is the main road in Taman Sentosa when you turn in from Tebrau Highway. This area used to be gangster territory, with a lot of vice activities during its prime. My friend once told me that he saw gangsters chasing their targets using parang and steel rods... happened right in front of his eyes while having supper nearby. There were a lot of karaoke, night clubs and disco in the surrounding area too... but now only a handful left.

You would notice a row of roadside stalls as you drive along this stretch. As for landmark, if you see 7-11... you are there! Parking is relatively easy to find... and please proceed to look for a stall with the name "Bubur Nasi Istimewa No.1". Quite a funny name if you ask me. Oh yes, the operators were quite loud too... yelling their stalls' specialties.

The whole place is brightly lid and quite noisy with the patrons chatting the night away...

At the stall, they have already prepared the condiments to be mixed together with your bubur (porridge)... basically it's like Teo Chew porridge where you are given a bowl of porridge and you select the side dishes with stir fried kangkung belacan, cockles (ham), and sambal ikan bilis among others.

The condiments include peanuts, belacan, pickled vegetable and salted egg. You only have to put everything (except the salted egg) into the porridge, stir it and eat it!

Their kangkung belacan was to die for... freshly stir fried with slightly fiery belacan!

The sambal ikan bilis was great too! Sprinkle the lime onto the dish to give extra sourish taste on top of the spicy belacan! Yummy...

Ikan pari bakar - fresh but I think the spicy sauce had overpowered the taste of the fish!

Leo's verdict - this place is normally packed with supper crowd even though they are opened from dinner time onwards. The total bill came at RM22.50... which I considered quite cheap. I think that this was the first time I broke my principle of not having supper :) I've been so tactful for so many years...