Pan Mee @ JoJo's Little Kitchen, Subang Jaya

The hunt for good and cheap food is a never ending quest for us Malaysians and sometimes our hunt can proof to be a daunting process due to the numerous restaurants we have. We Malaysians are definitely spoiled for choices when it comes to food. Luckily you have us to inform you on what's good and what's toxic sludge . Today's blog entry is thanks to our first follower of our blog! Thanks Joyce for your support and contribution for this week's entry. If you also like to have your favorite restaurant or food featured on our blog, drop us a line at foodhuntz[at]gmx[dot]com. Now, onwards with the review!

We were introduced to another player in the Pan Mee business and who would have thought that it is also located in Subang Jaya. No, I am not referring to Face to Face but to JoJo's Little Kitchen (lets call them JoJo's for short) located a few shops down from Face to Face. Now, since their main noodle dish is Pan Mee, I will be comparing JoJo's with Super Kitchen in terms of environment, service, food and price.

Like Super Kitchen, JoJo's Little Kitchen has 6 branches in the Klang Valley located in:

1. Kuchai Lama (HQ)
2. Serdang
3. Puchong Jaya
4. Subang Jaya
5. Cheras Mahkota
6. Uptown (Damansara Utama)

They have recently just opened their Uptown outlet on 15th August 2010. I have only visited their Subang Jaya branch so this review will be base on my experience from this particular branch.

As you can see below, the layout is similar to Super Kitchen and the tables are arranged into 3 rows which allow their waiters / waitresses to maneuver without disturbing their customers. Their premise is divided into non-smoking section and smoking section with a glass divider and the smoking section is located nearest to the building's main entrance. Don't worry too much about the heat as JoJo's is air conditioned just right so that its cooling and not freezing. Unfortunately, the smoking section is not air conditioned so you'll have to bear with the heat on a hot day.

Each table has their own box of tissue, eating utensils and a container of their chili mix for convenience and the premise is pretty clean. Don't worry, the tables are big enough to have enough arm room when you eat. Lighting plays an important role in mood and ambiance but you need not worry about poor lighting in JoJo's as the place is well lit which puts people in a good mood when eating. The only "bad" points I noticed is that it can get pretty crowded during lunch time on weekdays and parking can be an issue as Subang Jaya is a busy commercial area but these factors are out of JoJo's control.

So we can safely conclude that JoJo's is a well planned establishment with the customer's comfort in mind.

Service was also pretty prompt despite the many hungry customers who came in for their lunch and my order came within a reasonable time frame so I have no complaints about their service. When compared with Super Kitchen, I don't see JoJo's loosing out in terms of service.

During my visits to JoJo's, I had the opportunity to try their Lat Jiu Pan Mee / Chili Pan Mee (辣椒板面) and their Fish Head Pan Mee (鱼头板面) so lets get into the meat of the review! First, lets see how JoJo's Lat Jiu Pan Mee fare against Super Kitchen's.

As you can see, JoJo's Lat Jiu Pan Mee basically consist of the same ingredients as Super Kitchen's but served slightly differently. The potato leaves are added into the noodles together with the handmade noodles, minced meat, fried anchovies (a.k.a. fried ikan bilis), poached egg and fried shallots which gives an interesting texture to the overall dish. The other differences I noticed is that they do not add any spring onions and the chili has been added into the noodles together with a secret ingredient.What's the secret ingredient you ask? You see the greenish brown paste in between the red chili and minced meat?

Yep, you got it! That's the secret ingredient. It's actually just blended green chili with belacan but when mixed together with the other ingredients, it gives JoJo's Lat Jiu Pan Mee a unique taste of it's own.

Enough talking and lets get to the eating and tasting. So break that poach egg and start mixing!

As you can see, the noodles didn't have the bold fiery red color. Why? That because the red lump in my bowl which I thought was chili turns out to be an UFO (Unidentifiable Food Object)!

The manager told me that it's actually one of the ingredients use to make their chili which wasn't mixed very well. It looks like a piece of dried up onion skin or prawn shell so, ok-lah...I'll let the matter slide. Anyways, we can add as much chili as we want from either one of their chili containers to suite our taste.

You can choose to add either the red chili mix, green chili mix, sambal or all three. I chose to add the red and green mix to my bowl and was not disappointed with the results. The moment you put your pan mee into your mouth, you can taste the slight savoriness of the belacan and "eggy" taste of the poached egg which harmonized with the spicy and sourish taste of the green chili mix. The red chili mix further enhanced the flavor as it gave the Pan Mee an umami taste as the red chili mix is made with Chinese dried shrimps while the fried shallots and potato leaves gave the noodle dish a very mild sweet taste. Unfortunately, I could not remember the taste of mince meat and anchovies very well as the taste from other ingredients might have overpowered the taste.

The other dish I tried was their Fish Head Pan Mee which was served with a special blend of chili sos. The soup of this dish is made with milk boiled together with fried fish head, tomatoes and pickled vegetables. This combination of ingredients suppose gives the soup a unique milky and savory taste.

However, I am afraid that JoJo's Fish Head Pan Mee was very disappointing as there was no poetry in this dish. What do I mean? The moment I had a taste of this dish, I could only taste the saltiness of the soup. Actually, the soup was so salty that the noodles became salty! I think I'll have receding hair line issues after eating this noodles. So needless to say, I don't recommend this dish unless you like salty dishes and have lots of hair on your head to spare.

They also have a variety of drinks and desserts in their menu if you need a temporary reprieve from the spiciness of their chili mix. I tried their sugar cane with water chestnuts and chrysanthemum with honey dew drink.

These drinks have a unique texture to them as they have thin slices of water chestnut and honeydew in them.

They even have Tau Fu Fa in the menu but I would not recommend this dessert to people with high blood sugar levels as it is drench in tons Gula Melaka and the Tau Fu has a weak taste of soy beans.

Now, I'm sure most of you are waiting to know the answer of this question. How much does it cost to eat at JoJo's? Unfortunately, I must say that their prices are a little on the expensive side as it cost RM 5.80 for a bowl of Lat Jiu Pan Mee and RM 8.50 for a bowl of Fish Head Pan Mee. Generally their items are about RM 0.30 to RM 0.80 more expensive compared to Super Kitchen.

All in all, JoJo's Little Kitchen is still a good place to have your bowl of Pan Mee if you don't mind their slightly more expensive prices and saltier cooking. JoJo's have more variety of Pan Mee dishes and sweet treats as well in their menu. You can find JoJo's at these locations should you decide to try them:

Kuchai Lama (HQ)

Address:	No. 30, Jalan Kuchai Maju 9, Off Jalan Kuchai Lama, 58200 Kuala Lumpur
Tel:	03-79871090

Serdang

Address:	1-1, Jalan SP2/7 Taman Serdang Perdana, 43300 Seri Kembangan
Tel:	03-89431090

Puchong Jaya

Address:	51, Jalan Kenari 21, Bandar Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong
Tel:	017-5100332

Subang Jaya

Address:	30, Jalan SS15/4D, Subang Jaya, 47500 Selangor
Tel:	03-56211732

Cheras Mahkota

Address:	No. 2A-G, Jalan Temenggung 17/9, Section 9 Bandar Mahkota Cheras, 43200 Kajang
Tel:	012-2970091

Damansara Jaya

Address:	No. 92G, Jalan SS 21/62, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya
Tel:	03-77311515