Pan Mee at PJ Old Town – Springy!

Outside Yan Woh Medical Hall, 80, Jalan Othman, 46000, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia (Opposite Public Bank)

Lady Fartsalot has been bugging me to take her to this pan mee stall for months.

I haven’t been too eager to go because I am not very interested in pan mee in general, and the traffic and parking at PJ Old Town can get quite stressful.

But she is persistent and we finally went.

It was an outdoor stall set up right outside a Chinese medical hall (which happened to be closed) with tables and chairs placed wherever possible, including on the five-foot way next to the medical hall’s entrance. Wonder what the arrangement is on days when the medical hall is open?

Run-down stalls like this occasionally serve epic food. This wasn't the case here, however.

The wait for our food was surprisingly long considering we were pretty much the only customers there.

We ordered a bowl of dry noodles each and when they arrived, I could immediately smell the sesame oil – an ingredient not present in typical pan mee. This dish stands apart from regular pan mee in several other ways:

• The ‘dry’ noodles weren’t very dry because it had quite a lot of sweetish dark gravy.
• On top of the usual minced pork and ikan bilis, it also had thick, juicy slices of shiitake.
• Most interesting of all, the noodles were – as the headline says – quite springy as opposed to the doughy texture of most pan mee I’ve had.

The mushrooms – thickly sliced, plump and juicy – are definitely the highlight of this dish for me.

Overall it’s not too bad – while it’s not exactly epic, it is at least slightly above average. What it has going for it is that it offers flavours and ingredients that aren’t typically found in pan mee.

Worth a try if you happen to be in the area. I wouldn’t make a special trip for it, though.

Bite-sized review

Interesting pan mee in PJ Old Town with springy noodles, sesame oil, thick slices of shiitake and lots of sweetish dark gravy that makes the ‘dry’ noodles not so dry. Worth a try if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.

Stats

Price: RM14 for two bowls of noodles and two drinks.

Hours: Sorry, not too sure about their opening hours.