In Seremban – Restoran Yi Poh 姨婆老鼠粉

When I was given the task to look for food in Seremban, Hakka Noodles and Beef Noodles were the foods that I had in mind. I had them the last time when I was in Seremban and I wasn’t too keen of having them this round. No idea why though. Maybe the thought of hot weather coupled with the ‘refreshing’ smell of the market puts me off momentarily.

I did more research and surprisingly, there’s a coffeeshop called Restoran Yi Poh. And it’s in Seremban! For the uninitiated, ‘Yi Poh’ in Cantonese dialect is associated to a place called Ipoh in Perak. But, to find such name in a different territory was a little mind-boggling. Nevertheless, we did soldier on and tried their coveted noodles. After all, many websites I found recommended this place apart from the ones at Pasar Besar Seremban.

The coffeeshop is divided into two sections; air-conditioning room or under the ceiling fans. Obviously, we chose the former since the weather was unforgiving hot on that particular day. We arrived at the scene about close to 1PM and it was literally packed with customers. The young, the old, parents with childrens, singles and couples were either waiting patiently for their food to arrive or happily stuffing with food in front of them.

Ordering was simple. The waiter will arrive at your table with menu booklet. All you need to do is to pick what type of noodles you like and the size of it. Drinks, on the other hand, are handled by another waiter. They were short on staff on that day and hence, we had to wait for a while to get the waiter to take our orders.

Although there are other types of noodles like Hakka Noodles, they are said to be famous for their lou shu fan (老鼠粉). There are only two different size; small or big. We opted for the small one since we were still quite full from our late breakfast. It took quite a while for the noodles to arrive. I couldn’t blame them as there was only one kitchen and they had to cater two shoplots full of customers.

The noodles appeared different from what I had in mind. Despite being called lou shu fan, they looked and tasted like lai fun (濑粉) – a type of noodles which is commonly used in Assam Laksa dish – they were long and semi-transparent type. The portion was decent for a small bowl and it came with good amount of dark soy sauce, minced meat and sliced BBQ meat (char siew) as toppings.

Give the noodles a good toss with the toppings and sauce and you’ll get a bowl of goodness with dark sauce enveloped each strand of noodles evenly and minced meat scattered all over the bowl. The noodles were cooked nicely with springy texture to it. The presence of the minced meat certainly helped a lot as they were slight salty-ish and flavourful. The sliced BBQ pork (char siew) was forgettable – I would gladly replace ‘em with more minced meat instead.

Apart from noodles, we did order something else; pork balls and fried wantons. For RM0.55 per ball, the pork balls were bigger than average and they were meaty and bouncy texture. The soup that came along with the balls was just ordinary.

We liked the fried wantons as they were really addictive. Although the filling was tad little, they were crunchy and they weren’t oily at all. A bowl of 5 pieces will set you back RM2.

I couldn’t really remember the exact price for the bowl of noodles but I reckon it costs somewhere around RM3.70 for a small bowl and RM4.30 for a large bowl. I could be wrong though but they are still cheaper compared to KL standard. So, do try them out if you are in Seremban.

Extra note : While you are at it, and after you are done, walk over to the opposite shoplot as they sell one of the best siew paus in Seremban. The name of shop is Kedai Siew Pau Asia (Siew Pow Master).

Address :
26GR, Jalan Seng Meng Lee,
Off Jalan Temiang,
70200 Seremban,
Negeri Sembilan.

GPS Coordinates : N2 44.044 E101 56.421

Contact No. : +6016 612 2711

Business Hour : 730AM – 600PM