But it must be said that there remain certain local delicacies that they can get only if they venture away from Klang Valley.
One of these is mee siput, a snack that is rarely seen beyond the borders of Johor.
The name translates to “snail noodle”, and you can’t blame anyone who thinks it is something a Frenchman would gorge on. But mee siput contains no escargot. It got its name from its shape, which is spirally like the shell of a snail.
It is sometimes called mee siput Muar because it’s considered a trademark of Johor’s royal town.
Mee siput is often served with a dash of sambal and is suitable to be eaten at any time of the day.
With so many shops claiming their mee siput to be the best, you may be left wondering whom to buy it from.
Worry not and just drive out to Tangkak, which is close to Muar and where a little home business has been churning out mee siput of good quality for more than a decade.
Founded in 2012 by Shahir Meskon, Mee Siput Kak Chik is said to serve some of the best mee siput available on the market.
Shahir was in the military for 22 years before ending his service honourably. “After that, I helped to make and maintain equipment for a relative who made and sold mee siput,” he said.
When health issues forced the relative to retire, Shahir decided to have a go at making the mee siput himself and set up Mee Siput Kak Chik.
On a recent trip to Johor, an FMT Lifestyle team had the opportunity to visit Shahir’s factory-cum-residence to see how the classic Johorean delicacy is made.
“Back when we started,” Shahir said, “we could make 10 to 20kg of mee siput per day. Now, we can do up to 50kg on average.”
Mee siput is made using a combination of water, flour and salt and a touch of sodium. It does remind one of murukku, the Indian snack.
Mee siput begins its life in a machine that mixes up to 15kg of raw ingredients and churns the combination into a hard dough.
“We keep our ingredients simple,” said Shahir. “You certainly don’t want to be left with a chemical taste in your mouth.”
After sufficient churning, clumps of the dough are extracted from the mixing bowl and flattened into slabs.
These slabs are sliced into strands that are then boiled for up to six minutes, during which they appear quite similar to rice noodles.
Afterwards, they are placed in moulds and left out to dry in the sun. On a typical day, 1,500 pieces of mee siput will receive this treatment.
“We leave the mee siput to dry for up to two days,” Shahir said. “If we don’t, they may turn mouldy, and no one wants that.
“If it rains, it’s going to take twice as long.”
After the drying, trays of mee siput are wheeled on trolleys into the production area where they are baked in Shahir’s oven, which he built with his own hands. It’s not an electric industrial oven, but it does the job nonetheless, with simple gas heaters placed in front of large fans.
The doors are sealed to ensure the baking is quick and efficient.
Once the mee siput is perfectly golden, batches of it go into a packaging machine and are readied for shipment to the market.
For all the effort he puts in, Shahir sells his mee siput at reasonably low prices. A piece costs RM1.50 and 400g of the snack is sold for RM6.
The mee siput is also sold alongside containers of sambal tumis cooked by Shahir’s wife, Azizah Ahmad.
“If you don’t open the packaging, the mee siput can last up to six months,” said Shahir, adding that it would last longest in a cool, dry place.
Despite being a small kampung business, Mee Siput Kak Chik has garnered substantial attention, with international tourists sometimes dropping by.
“Singaporeans come here a lot,” said Shahir. “And we have also had tourists who came all the way from Germany and Australia.”
As for future plans, Shahir just said: “A bigger factory would be nice, or somewhere to put a bigger oven.”
Mee Siput Kak Chik
Jalan Kampung Baru
Kampung Sungai Ekor
84700 Gerisek
Johor
Business hours:
9am-6.30pm
8.30am-7pm on Saturdays
Contact: 019-627 6570
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