Happy Land Café serving old school desserts and hasn't changed much since 1976 has a special place among Kulai people.
Address: 1-38 Jalan Pinang, Taman Kota Kulai, Kulai
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/pNvVO
GPS: 1.668227,103.578801
Hours: 11:00am to 4:30pm
No pork, no lard, no Halal cert
Happy Land is a familial, happy place. The place is filled with three generation families - grandparents, parents and the kids all enjoying food together. Happy Land is a come-as-you-are place. People just come without make up and in comfortable frumpy everyday clothes and flip flops, no need for dressing up.
Happy Land is the kind of place where people will bump into neighbours, relatives, old school mates and colleagues. We bumped into our friends from JB, Euginn and Rachel :D
As the place was jammed packed, we waited about 20 minutes for a table. But everybody was patient and good natured. People here are very considerate, they leave their tables for other customers, once they finished their meal. Table sharing is the norm.
As we were not hungry, we just ordered a sampling of desserts to taste - we will surely be back for more :D
The old style ice kacang 红豆冰. The finely shaved ice mound was topped with a generous lump of soft boiled red beans that looked like a head of curly permed red hair on a lady's head. We dug in fast because it looked so enticing and also because the red beans looked like it was going to topple over and tumble down anytime.
There was also a large scoop of creamy boiled sweet corn.
Below that mound of shaved ice bathed with coconut sugar were attap seeds, grass jelly (cincau) and pandan "worms".
This mango ice 芒果冰 was heaped with generous amounts of cubed fresh mango and a big slice of canned peach. Sweet, sour and icy, this mango ice is popular especially with ladies.
Happy Land's rojak is as good as any that I have tasted so far. The thick tacky savoury sauce is loaded with prawn paste, crushed peanuts and a little dab of chili. Made with the usual suspects of crispy you char kway, turnips, pineapple and cucumbers - all of which are fresh as crowd turnover at Happy Land is like a passing tornado.
On the walkway just outside Happy Land are two food stalls, one selling fried chicken and nasi lemak, and the other selling fried kway teow. Both were doing a brisk business.
Seeing many people having a plate of this fried chicken on their tables, Euginn got one plate for us to share. The chicken breast was surprisingly tender and juicy. The crispy batter also has a nice savoury flavour.
This is one fried chicken and nasi lemak stall that I would like to come back to, to write a full post about.
If you are at Johor Premium Outlets and want to explore the nearby Kulai for food, do stop by Happy Land. As for me, I expect myself to be here quite often in the future.
Date visited: 27 Oct 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment