Located in one corner of Kluang town centre, below a residential flat off Jalan Haji Manan, is Jin Tarorice (瑾记蚝干芋头饭) among a row of shops. The little restaurant, run by a young couple, serves varieties of pork soup with its signature dried oyster taro rice.
Jin Tarorice has 6 types of pork soup: original (pak choy), bitter gourd, pepper, seaweed, tom yum seafood and herbal. The soups can be paired with taro rice, minced-meat noodle or mee sua (will be added into the soup). Other dishes, such as ginger and wine egg mee sua (姜酒蛋面线), are available too.
The pepper pork soup (胡椒猪杂汤) has very fresh ingredients, like balls of minced meat, lean meat, pig stomach, intestine and vegetable — and added with an egg — in clear soup used to cook the porky ingredients. The soup has a mellow peppery taste and not too spicy. It has quite a large amount of meat and offals and tastes very good.
The herbal pork soup (药膳猪杂汤) has similar porky ingredients and tofu skins in a dark herbal broth. The light-tasting broth is non-bitter and without an overpowering herbal presence.
The dried oyster taro rice (蚝干芋头饭) has nicely cooked rice with taro and flavoured by the aroma of dried oysters and topped with fragrant fried shallots. The dried oysters are chopped into small pieces to reduce its strong natural scent. The taro rice is smooth, flavourful and not too savoury nor oily. It is really good to pair with the pork soups.
An alternative to taro rice is the minced-meat noodle (肉碎面). It uses thick yellow noodle tossed in dark sauce and topped with minced pork and fried shallots. It has a mellow sweet-savoury flavour, non-oily, and great to pair with any of the pork soups too.
Three small side dishes are available to accompany any meals. They are crispy chips (香脆木薯片), cold tofu (凉拌豆腐) and braised yuba (焖腐竹). The braised yuba, or tofu skins, are sweetened rather than savoury but not too sweet either. The cold tofu is topped with braised minced meat and some chilli padi for spicy kicks.
While there are no rules on how to mix-and-match the side dishes with the pork soups, I will suggest matching cold tofu with taro rice, since there are minced meat on both the tofu and noodle. And go for braised yuba when ordering pork soups in clear broth — both tom yum seafood and herbal soups already have yuba.
Address:
L G, 04, Jalan Haji Manan, Kampung Masjid Lama, 86000 Kluang, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
9:30am to 3pm; 5:30pm to 9:30pm | Closed on Wednesday
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