Not every place we feature needs to have been around for generations. Sometimes, a young restaurant deserves a Humble Mention for keeping an old dish on the table.
Restaurant San Lou (三楼猪杂汤) is less than a year old, but its speciality is an increasingly uncommon Teochew favourite – pig offal soup, 猪杂汤.
Not to be confused with the well-known seafood restaurant in Taman Pelangi, San Lou traces its roots to Batu Pahat, where the family previously operated a zhu char restaurant from a three-storey shophouse – hence the name San Lou, or “three floors.”
An Old Dish in Changing Times
In Johor Bahru, pork offal is more commonly encountered in kway chap. 猪杂汤 seems to have quietly lost some of its charm over the years. Younger diners have grown up with an ever-expanding choice of cuisines, restaurants and hipster cafés, while eating offal itself has gradually fallen out of fashion.
Perhaps that is precisely why we find San Lou interesting.
Offal is also unforgiving. Freshness matters, cleaning takes patience, and every organ requires different preparation and cooking times. Done badly, one funky mouthful can convince someone never to touch it again.
San Lou offers a slightly gentler version of the traditional soup. Our medium-sized bowl arrived generously loaded with pork slices, minced pork, intestine, stomach, liver, fish slices, meatballs and tofu, finished with crispy pork lard.
The pork broth was rich and deeply savoury, while pickled sour plum and mustard greens brought enough acidity to keep everything tasting clean and inviting. Most importantly, there was no unpleasant funk from the offal.
The stomach and intestine had a satisfying springy bite while remaining tender rather than rubbery. The thinly sliced liver was our only slight miss, arriving a tad overcooked.
Pair the soup with dry noodles tossed in dark soy sauce, taro rice, crispy pork lard rice or plain steamed rice. Portions come in small, medium and large, with extra ingredients available for those who believe there is no such thing as too much intestine.
And for the offal-fearing member of the family, San Lou also serves several fish soups and side dishes.
San Lou may be new, but the dish it serves certainly isn’t. As tastes change and old favourites slowly disappear from everyday menus, sometimes preservation simply means keeping the pot simmering for another generation.