Ong Shun — Restaurant in Johor

Being a lone ranger traveller 90% of the time, it's hard to be able to sample all the dishes available at restaurants such as Ong Shun, which offers a wide range and variety of dishes. Therefore, my 4* rating is personal to the 3 items I had, and my experience at Ong Shun on a Friday night.

Hoping to avoid the Friday night dinner crowd, I arrived at Ong Shun after 8pm hoping for some nice seafood. Luckily, diners that occupied a small table were just leaving, but instead of being welcomed and seated nicely, the service staff gave me the table begrudgingly. It was another 10mins later that someone finally heeded my third call to clear and clean the table. 😒

The restaurant was busy. It was another 5mins before another service staff heeded my call for the menu. The menu was just thrown in front of me and I was immediately asked what I wanted when I haven't even had the chance to consult the menu... 🥴 I could have walked off there and then, but I didn't have Plan B in place, and there seemed to be no other restaurants within close vicinity that I could alternatively go.

Even though I was conspicuously seated near the service counter, it was another 10mins before the service staff took notice of me, and took my order.

20mins later, the Shark's Fins Soup came. (Yeah, bad of me! 😂 I haven't savoured Shark's Fins Soup for ages.) The gooey delicacy was piping-hot and tasted delicious 😋... However, the experience was marred because of the disposable plastic spoon given, and the lack of black vinegar. Nope, the restaurant had surprisingly run out of black vinegar when I asked for some. (Or, the service staff was just too lazy to go get me some from the kitchen when I asked.)

Next came the presentably green and tasty stir-fried Baby Kailan. 👍

It was another 20mins before the Steamed Sea Bass (Teo Chew Style) came. The restaurant ran out of Grouper, which was what I craved for. Regrettably, although the broth tasted good, the overall dish didn't look appetising, and the Sea Bass was way overcooked. 🥴 There was no passion nor pride permeating from the dish.

Perhaps it was blind luck that I didn't earlier order some prawns, and scallops.

When it came to collecting payment, it was sure fast and furious... 😂 I would have to contend the total RM 78 bill was quite reasonable, that belie the not-so-outstanding quality of the Sea Bass dish, which aside from the Shark's Fins Soup was technically the only seafood item I had.

Will I be back again to Ong Shun when next in JB? I'll probably head to and check out San Law Seafood or Todak Orang Asli instead. Maybe I'll be...

If you are interested in feeding mosquitoes or having more than an hour to wait, feel free to come here for your dinner.

We arrived at the restaurant around 7:50pm and right away we had a place to sit and place order. We ordered a seafood fried rice, salted egg sotong, garlic fried vegetable, and a claypot tofu. The vegetable was served about 15 mins after we placed the order and salted egg sotong about 30 mins. The fried rice came almost 1 hour after the salted egg sotong and we decided to cancel the claypot tofu because they hadn't started preparing it at all. By the time we had 3 of the 4 dishes we ordered, it was 9:20pm already.

Now let's talk about the taste of food. The garlic fried vegetable is salty to our taste, but we figure it's because of the seafood fried rice. Why is that you would ask? That's because the seafood fried rice is extremely blant, missing the basic seasonings: salt and pepper. The squids in it are tasteless as well and the eggs are chunky for a fried rice. And the worst of all, the salty egg sotong is totally unexpected. The sauce is extremely thick and the sotong is not crispy when it is served. It feels like the sotong has been sitting around for a long time before serving out to us.

This is probably the first time I am posting a review without photos because we start eating what is served as we are getting hungry while waiting. When we are trying to find out what's happening to our foods, the waitress is just waving us off, telling us that they are still in the midst of preparing the food. Until the 3rd time we have asked for someone, we are being told that the 3rd dish is about to be ready, but the claypot tofu has to wait longer.

The quality of food is definitely not worth the wait at all. Price wise - it is alright I supposed. 3 dishes with 1 drink come down to RM43, but considering the length of waiting with a kid, I wouldn't recommend anyone to come this...

We often passed by this place and it seems very popular with crowds. Hence, we decided to try out yesterday for dinner. They accept reservations and restaurant seems fully booked especially among the Muslims for them to open fast. Since we were early arrived before 6pm and it was only two of us, hence the boss allowed us to dine in for quick dinner before the reservation crowds start to set in. The menu is very extensive and we didn’t know where to begin, therefore we just ordered randomly based on what we felt like eating. We ordered Asam Sliced Fish, Tomyam Seafood Soup, Salted Egg Squid, Salted Fish Kai Lan, two plain rice with Iced Barley and Iced Chrysanthemum. Total of the bill was RM62 for what we ordered. The price was super reasonable and the food was good only if careful selection was made. Salted Egg Squid is a must. Salted Fish Kai Lan was okay. The Asam Sliced Fish tasted more like Sweet & Sour Fish. Seafood Tomyam Soup was a disappointment as it was more like assorted vegetable soup that didn’t taste like Tomyam to me at all. Not much of seafood in the soup other than few sliced fish and two shrimps. Having said that, no complaints for the price we paid for. Maybe we didn’t order their signature dishes other than the Salted Egg Squid. The place seemed hectic and boss who took order seemed to be in a rush. Cashier who screwed up one of the customer bill before us, hence waited for quite some time to settle the bill. Overall experience was underwhelming and the taste of the food was neither lousy nor impressive (except the Salted Egg Squid which was good). Hence, it is given 3 star out of 5. Also, it is because we didn’t order their signature dishes, so we would give this restaurant a chance to return and try out their signature dishes such as Black Pepper Crab or Chili Crab. My advise is go early if you don’t make any reservations to avoid disappointment of being...