Entree Kibbles: The Toast (土司坊) @ Mount Austin in Johor Bahru [Malaysia]

Friday, July 29, 2022

The Toast (土司坊) @ Mount Austin in Johor Bahru [Malaysia]

I was in Johor Bahru (JB) again last week but it was an entirely new area that I had yet to explore; Mount Austin, which had grown to be a well known food district in the state capital.

There's something strange that I realized in my recent visit; there's a high chance I would go with traditional local breakfast whenever I pop by Malaysia for a day trip! And a place like "The Toast (土司坊)" would definitely appeal to me!

With five branches within Johor Bahru, I guess further expansion would be expected. Even before eating what they had, I must say the interior design would have won over those from my parents' generation and older; they would remember the abacus, the bread man on bicycle etc.

Spanning two shop spaces, business was booming and we were glad to secure the last available table! I was surprised as I purposely visited on a Monday and 10.00 am shouldn't be considered as peak breakfast period.

Our order for two persons.

Kopi - it's necessary to kick start the day with a cup of local Malaysia / Singapore coffee! This was pretty good as it wasn't too sweet, although a bit milky.

Butter Kaya Toast - 15 types of toast to choose from, with four that were recommended; butter kaya, tuna mayo, cheese ham, cheesy sausage. Being a hardcore traditionalist when it comes to toast, butter kaya shall be the choice for the day.

Kaya definitely didn't ooze out the way it did on the menu but we all know pictures are purely for illustration purpose. To be fair, it was still a sizeable chunk of butter in the middle. The bread was lightly toasted and its soft fluffiness was evidenced when my teeth used minimal effort to break through. Only issue was that there were just too much butter and at some point; I appeared to be just eating butter.

French Toast Peanut Butter - this shall be voted the ugliest French toast ever! However, we must always remember the old adage; looks can be deceiving.

Well, it was oily, bread was mushy, you get a bit of crisp edges from the eggs surrounding the toast which was better than nothing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it better than the toast as the overall poackage, with the crunchy peanut butter inside, was more satisfying, albeit on the sinful side.

Sambal Seafood Fried Noodle - given the name, I assumed it would be strands of noodle with a red tinge and peppered with cuts of chilli padi and / or chilli flakes. At one glance, I thought it was the wet style hokkien mee!

Turned out this was the best dish at The Toast that morning and it reminded me of a dish I had in Singapore before. Punggol mee goreng even though this was saucier and had a rich tomato-based flavor blessed with a spicy kick (I can't control the peals of sweat rolling down my head) that was incredibly appetizing!