Kahang – exotic food paradise

KLUANG: Kahang town, about 40km from here, is fast gaining a reputation for its exotic food restaurants. 

“If you are a regular customer and the restaurant operator knows you, you will be offered dishes made from protected animals, including tiger meat,” said Danny Chin, who frequentd such restaurants in Kahang. 

He said the tiger meat, said to be good for health and an aphrodisiac, was served either fried with curry powder or cooked with herbs. 

“The supply is inconsistent and so only the lucky ones who come on certain days will be able to enjoy it. The price for a plate of tiger meat fried with curry power is about RM40,” said Chin, who is in his 50s.  

The restaurants also offer dishes made from wild boar, mountain goat, squirrel, mousedeer, bat, porcupine, anteater, tortoise, civet and various types of fish and prawn found in rivers in the Endau-Rompin National Park. 

Lek Keng Chai, 40, from Johor Baru, said Kahang was also popular among Singaporeans. 

He said the restaurants get their supplies from middlemen who bought the animals from the Orang Asli. 

Lee Siak Liang, 62, from Kluang, said the restaurants also offered python soup. 

“Kahang is not the only place where protected animal dishes are served. There are also such restaurants in Jementah and Labis.”  

Johor National Park Corporation director Abu Bakar Mohd Salleh said he had received reports about such restaurants in Kahang. 

He said the price of exotic animals like the tiger in the black market could be between RM100,000 and RM200,000 each “but normally, the meat, teeth, whiskers and sexual organ are sold to different people”. 

He dismissed allegations that the tiger meat served in Kahang was from those caught in the Endau-Rompin National Park. 

“We have not detected any tiger hunting activities in the Endau-Rompin National Park, except for one case in 2004,” he said. 

A researcher working for an NGO said those involved in the smuggling of wild animals around Kahang carried out their activities in a “very organised manner to avoid detection”.  

“It is an organised crime,” he said. – Bernama