Chun Kee Special Hand Pull Smooth Pan Mee (Mee Hoon Kueh) @ Restoran He Pin, Petaling Jaya

silky smooth pulled dough

I do love my holidays - it's blissful to know I have time to go search for food any where I fancy instead of being restricted to where my workplace is located. While it's not a full holiday (I seem to end up tying too many loose ends almost every day) and I had to wake up at 6am on Monday morning, I'm still loving it.


numb the tongue with this, roll it, great balls of dough, pinch pinch

I admit I ain't much of a morning person as I usually wake up too late to even have the notion of breakfast, as it's already lunch by the time the tummy starts to rumble. Kinda good in a way, since this means two meals a day but I'm sure it's very unhealthy since health journals often spout wisdom such as a hearty breakfast is important to start a day. Once I'm forced to pry open my eyes in the wee hours of the morning, I tend to make do and decided to give this place I've read in Cumi dan Ciki's blog before.

each piece is quite equal in size

While I've eaten around this area before (I visited it for prawn mee), I never knew it had a famous pan mee place until the food lovin' monkeys blogged about it. Located in a converted single storey bungalow right next to the foodcourt, the local council seems to have spring cleaned the whole place as it looked nice and tidy. Seems this stall only moved to the premises about a year back, as they used to be somewhere else in Petaling Jaya.

Per the lady owner, who is helped by a trio of grinning Indonesia ladies her stall makes special hand pull smooth pan mee, which is usually better known to the Hokkiens as mee hoon kueh. In the old style version, dough is mixed from flour and water. Usually the dough is pinched and pulled to form rough pieces and cooked in boiling water. At this stall, they take up an unusual method of making their mee hoon kueh - the dough is pinched, rolled into small balls in their palms and subsequently dropped into a bowl of water. As and when an order is placed, they pull these small balls of dough to form thin pieces that is cooked in boiling hot water. The result of this extra bit of soaking produces a silky smooth texture with very little bite or even elasticity. As the pieces of dough is formed from even sized dough, they are all equal sizes making it easy to eat. I reckon the ones prepared during rush hour like lunch may have more bite to them, since the turnover will be high and the dough wouldn't have been soaking so long in the water.

Each bowl is topped with minced meat, sliced Chinese mushrooms, deep fried ikan bilis or anchovies, sweet potato leaves and deep fried shallots. Eat it with the kick ass sambal on the side that will burn your tongue (and tummy). Generally for me, I prefer my mee hoon kueh with a little bit of bite, this version wasn't up to the mark compared to the Taman Berkeley version but nevertheless it's still pretty good since it's silky smooth. Price for a small bowl is RM4.

Chun Kee Special Hand Pull Smooth Pan Mee
Restoran He Pin
Off Jalan Penchala
Petaling Jaya Old Town

Tel: 016-968 1696

(Non Halal. Closed on Sundays. Open from 8am to 2pm. To get here, from the Federal Highway, turn into Jalan 222 towards the Indian school. Go straight and take a three o clock turn at first roundabout. Drive straight on Jalan Penchala until the end of the road. The foodcourt and bungalow will be on your left hand side. More pictures are found in the Flickr set.)

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here is entirely based on my personal tastebuds and may vary for others. This review is time sensitive; changes may occur to the place later on that can affect this opinion. The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from this place for writing the review.

Tagged with: Malaysian Food + Mee Hoon Kueh