North-South highway lunch stop – Panchor

Today i found my new favourite lunch stop along the North-South highway – Hin Thoy restaurant at Panchor. It is easily accessible from the North-South highway – merely 8 minutes from the Pagoh toll exit.

Panchor is a quiet village by the Muar river, and i love the sense of serenity here. This was much more pleasant than the other nearby towns, Yong Peng and Tangkak, and even Pagoh.

The food was meticulously prepared by the restaurant owner himself, which is better than having a “generic” chef cooking your food at one of those 酒楼 or large Chinese restaurants.

The signature dish – fried salted river pranws. The prawns were large and had very nice texture. Fried to perfection and extremely fresh and tasty. They don’t come cheap (RM36 for 6) but they were worth every cent.

Kung-po sea asparagus (RM 12). I’ve probably not had sea asparagus before and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The Kung-po style which was full of Wok Hei was just perfect. I’m definitely going to order a bigger portion next time.

Another signature dish – Fuzhou style noodles (RM 8). Nice and creamy, and cheap. Practically all the local patrons ordered this.

Vegetables (RM 9). Nice complement to the other dishes.

Coming from KL, it takes about 2 hours to get to Panchor, which makes it a viable choice for lunch stop. I will definitely visit this place again.

Love the “stuck in history” feeling here. I wish places such as these will be retained indefinitely.

Update 31 May 2017

Attempted another visit but they were closed for some renovation (fresh coat of paint), so i drove on further to Gerisik, a nearby upstream town. Not much food option here, but this town was even more charming than Panchor in my opinion. All the shops were painted in a uniform light yellow colour. If you’re into nostalgia, then you should definitely come here.