Johor Bahru Eat: Sang Heng Noodles (甡兴潮州面薄) Teochew Fishball Noodles @ Permas Jaya

14 October 2025

Restoran Sang Heng Noodles (甡兴潮州面薄) has been serving its Teochew fishball noodle and braised specialty dishes since 1960. From a rickshaw-assisted cart in the early days, Sang Heng’s old-school fishball noodle was passed down through 3 generations and remained a signature dish of the current restaurant. Used to be located in Tan Hiok Nee Heritage Walk (陈旭年文化街) since 1973, the restaurant moved to a bigger shop in Permas Jaya, Masai, in August 2023 — thankfully, it is not too far away.

Sang Heng’s signature fishball noodle dish is highly customisable. Diners can choose the desired type of noodle, dish size, dry or soup and adjust the sauce (for dry) to go with their fishball noodles. Any of the main ingredients can also be added-on. A list of Teochew braised varieties (潮州卤料) are available as side-dishes, such as braised egg, beancurd, braised duck, braised pork belly, etc. Handmade fishballs can be added as fishball soup (鱼圆汤), that comes in either 5 / 10 pieces per bowl, or fried (per piece).

The recommended style of the fishball noodle dish is with their handmade mee pok (dry-style). This is the traditional style that has been served by Sang Heng since 1960. So, it is a must to try.

The dry-tossed mee pok is topped with handmade fishballs, slices of fishcake, minced pork, shrimps, bean sprouts, crispy pork lard and garnished with chopped spring onions. A flavourful broth, used to cook the ingredients, is served in a separate bowl. The mee pok that Sang Heng used is unlike other mee pok that I have eaten before — it is much flatter, springier and easier to bite. This fishball mee pok is delicious.

Other than mee pok, mee kia (细面), or thin noodle, is another great option for dry-tossed noodle. It is similarly springy with a slight difference in texture and tossed in a light sauce.

The soup version of the Teochew noodle dish is served with the desired noodle type in similar tasty broth with the same set of ingredients. Kway teow is best for soup version but other types of noodle can be used too. Kway teow soup has always been my favourite.

Be it dry or soup version, Sang Heng’s Teochew fishball noodles never cease to impress me. Sang Heng’s braised delights are great side dishes to accompany any fishball noodle.

Top-Left: One of the recommended braised varieties for add-on is the Braised Duck (鸭肉) in dark sauce. The well-braised duck meat is tender, savoury and yet not salty. Apart from duck meat, there are duck neck, drumstick and wings as side dishes as well.

Top-Right: The Braised Drumstick (鸭腿) is deboned with the meat cut and easy to eat without using hands. The meat has a firmer texture than the braised breast meat.

Bottom-Left: The nicely-fried and savoury Yam Spring Roll (芋头春卷) is a non-meat option and must-try too!

Bottom-Right: The Pork Spring Roll (肉春卷) added with optional dark sauce gives the fried spring roll a savoury braised flavour. Notably, the spring roll has firmer meat texture unlike 5-spice spring roll (五香春卷) — similar to Tenom-style Hakka chun gen (丹南客家春卷) but not using egg crepe as wrapper.