Sometime in January, I was at the Metropole Food Court at Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah (aka Northam Road) and ordered a bowl of Bak Kut Teh and specifically said that I wanted spare ribs and not the spine and lots of "Yu Char Kueh". Imagine my sheer disappointment when it was finally delivered after a long wait with no "Yu Char Kueh" and totally no spare ribs ! To add insult to injury, it cost a bomb at RM 35.00. What a rip off and in no uncertain terms, I told the delivery person that her boss is really a dishonest hawker !
Fast forward a couple of weeks later, I was back in Kota Baru to supervise the parallel run by my client. After being sick of eating at Pizza Hut, A & W and the lone Chinese restaurant at Jalan Padang Garong, I decided to look for Kota Baru's China Town.
Taking a left at the Traffic Light and turning into Jalan Kebun Sultan, I walked across the road and saw a solitary Indian Restaurant and thought to myself... Perhaps I can get to eat Mamak Indian Mee after all. A short distance later, I saw shop selling Bak Kut Teh but did not stop as it did not look to clean. Then, I saw a couple of coffee shops selling a respectable variety of Chinese hawker food and then I saw "Feilo Heng Bak Kut Teh" :)
But wait a minute, isn't this Kota Baru, the capital of Islamic Kelantan ? According to Fei Loh Heng (in picture) , he has been openly selling "Bak Kut Teh" for the last 28 years at the Coffee shop fronting Jalan Kebu Sultan with no harassment from the municipal authorities. He claimed that in neighbouring Terengganu, such shops would need to have a plastic sheeting to hide them.
