For the longest time, Yong Peng has been the de-facto choice as the lunch stop en-route from KL to Singapore. The taste has become too familiar and a change is desperately needed. I looked up Google maps to see which towns are just off the highway. Tangkak turned out to be a good candidate.
Tangkak is about 2 hours from KL, slightly nearer than Yong Peng. We usually arrive at Yong Peng around 130-2pm, which is kind of late for lunch, so Tangkak works well for those times when we depart from KL slightly late. Today, we departed KL around 1030am, made a quick stop at Seremban to pick up some Siew Pau and arrived at the planned Tangkak eatery around 1230pm. As with Yong Peng, Tangkak town is only a few km off the North-South Highway.
I took up the suggestion from TripAdvisor – Shan Ghai Tang (上海滩). The other supposedly famous eatery in Tangkak is braised beef noodles (牛腩面). It turned out to be an excellent choice. Every dish was better than dishes from Rong Cheng in Yong Peng, and it was also reasonably priced. 3 dishes, rice and 2 drinks cost RM47.90. They seem to like to use caramelized sugar a lot (seemingly present in every dish), but otherwise, it was all very tasty. The restaurant felt quite cozy too, again more so than Rong Cheng. It was more airy and brighter, with nice air-conditioning.
I happened to discover that there is a popular (among the locals there) Bak Kut Teh place at the corner of that same row of shophouses. If you’re in the mood for BKT, it might just make your day. Anyway, Shan Ghai Tang is very easy to find. It is just off the main road in Tangkak, well marked in Google Maps (just search for 上海滩 Tangkak).
I will probably explore Pagoh or Bukit Gambir the next time. So fun.