Johor Bahru Eat: Pacific Kopi (民洋茶室) Kopitiam

12 December 2025

Pacific Kopi (民洋茶室) has a 2-storey restaurant along Jalan Dhoby, next to Tan Hiok Nee Heritage Walk, an area populated by restaurants and cafes in pre-war shophouses. This is Pacific Kopi’s second outlet with the first located in Taman Sutera Utama in Skudai. Two newer outlets are opened in R&F Mall and AEON Kulai Jaya subsequently. As a kopitiam, the restaurant serves traditional coffee, toasts, traditional pastries and a long list of Nanyang delights.

One of the signature dishes of Pacific Kopi is their fried rice cakes, which are available as “original” or “3-in-1” — Pacific Kopi is registered in the Malaysia Book of Records for having sold the most number of rice cakes in a year. Pacific Kopi’s main dishes include nasi lemak, biryani rice, curry laksa and various styles of noodle / rice dishes, traditional toasts, etc. When spoilt for choice, flip to the “Top 10” sections and pick from the list.

Top: The Pacific 3-in-1 Fried Rice Cake (民洋招牌三合一炸年糕), 4 pieces cut into halves, has rice cakes sandwiched between thick slices of sweet potato and yam. The nicely-fried, non-oily snack is crispy and the homemade rice cake is not over-fried till too soft and not too sweet. There is also a variant using purple sweet potato in place of yam. They are really must tries.

Bottom-left: There are 3 flavours of egg tarts: Original (原味蛋挞), Matcha Green Tea (抹茶蛋挞) and Thai Milk Tea (泰奶蛋挞). The egg tarts, in ultra-thin layered pastry crusts, are not very big and their creamy custards have nice flavours with low sweetness. The pastry crust seems soft to the touch yet crispy. Nice!

Bottom-right: Pacific Kopi has Banana Cake (手工香蕉糕) too. The handmade cake is soft and moist with a nice banana aroma and mild-sweet. It is available in two sizes: half loaf (10 pcs) or whole loaf (20 pcs). Buying a whole loaf to take home is more worth it.

A traditional breakfast set with hot hor ga sai (kopi-O with chocolate powder), two soft-boiled eggs, butter-kaya toasts and fried rice cakes is my way to try as many of Pacific Kopi’s dishes as possible without overeating. The soft-boiled eggs are perfectly done till the state where there are no raw albumen and their well-grilled toasts has nice buttery taste with sweet kaya.

The Pacific Mushroom Chicken Mala Pan Mee (民洋冬菇肉碎麻辣干捞版面) is a tasty dish. The homemade pan mee is added with minced chicken and mushroom sauce, poached egg, fried anchovies, kailan, fishballs and mala sauce. The mala sauce is aromatic, not very spicy and greatly enhanced the flavours of the noodle dish. The poached egg smoothens the whole dish and gel the ingredients to the pan mee. This is delicious!

The Signature Pacific Char Lou Shu Fen (民洋招牌香炒老鼠粉), or fried mouse vermicelli, is wok-fried in similar style to the Char Kuey Tiaw dish but has slight difference in tastes and textures. Adding some lime juice further enhances the flavours of the savoury dish.

Pacific Kopi’s Chwee Kueh (水粿) is another nice and tasty dish to try. The white chwee kueh has nice texture, not watery, and accompanied by specially-concocted sweet and savoury garnish — not using preserved radish. Chilli can be added separately.

The Salted Egg Chicken Chop (咸蛋鸡扒) has fried chicken served with cherry tomatoes, salad and french fries. It is accompanied by a small bowl of mild-spicy dipping sauce made using salted egg, curry leaves, etc. This is also a great dish to go for.

At R&F Mall, the Char Kuey Tiaw (炒粿条) is wok-fried with 2 big prawns, chicken meat, slices of fishcake, egg, beansprouts, spring onion and served with cucumber, lettuce and a lime for flavour. It has a nice wok aroma, non-oily and a tasty dish. Adding-on an onsen (poached) egg adds sweet egg flavour to the noodle and further smoothen it.