A Day of Eating & Shopping at Johor Bahru

After our recent trip to Melaka, we decided once again to drive in for a day of eating and shopping. It was arranged on the Saturday before the school term starts again. What triggered our outing was to visit the new Alicafe at Johor Bahru (JB). After getting enough information on the location, we drove in in two cars, with a total of 14 passengers. Since we planned to have our lunch in Alicafe, we drove in in the late morning.
The morning showers didn't deter us from our original plan. We proceeded as planned. We went to pick up my sister, then set out to meet the other car, where my parents and the rest of my sisters were. We travelled to JB through the Tuas Second Link. It took us less than one hour to reach Alicafe.

The cafe is housed in a 2-storey shophouse. The decoration is set in black & white. From outside, it looks very retro. Upstairs, there was a cosy corner with WII set-up for the customers to play and enjoy. There were also four iMacs for customers to use. As it was still early when were there, we had the whole section to ourselves. The children jumped at the chance to play WII, while my eldest boy can't wait to login to Facebook and played his favourite games! The adults also took their turns on the iMac.

There were a wide range of food varieties to fill our tummy. We ordered individual portion and also some side dishes to share. The portion that arrived was HUGE! We couldn't really finished all the food!

After hanging around for quite sometime and with the lunch crowd coming in, we decided to leave the place and proceed to the Tesco Bukit Indah centre, which was just opposite the cafe.

We spent a couple of hours doing groccery shopping at Tesco. We found the prices in Tesco to be rather reasonable, and the range they stock were really wide! By the time we finished our shopping, it was already 4 plus.  Then we decided to go to Sutera Mall, which house a Carrefour Hypermarket and some other shops. The main objective of going to Sutera Mall, was to the Restoran Pekin, which will be the venue for our dinner.

It was about 10mins drive from Tesco Bukit Indah. The Sutera Mall has a lot more shops to offer compared to Tesco Bukit Indah. However, we didn't really shop much. We ended up having foot, shoulder, hand and back massage at one of the Health centre in the basement carpark! Hahaha... The adults truly know how to pamper ourselves! The kids were temporary "stored" away in the television lounge, watching some cartoon shows. After the massage, we went to Carrefour to buy some buns for breakfast for the following day. Can't believe the mexican buns were selling at RM0.99 each! What a catch!

We headed to Restoran Pekin for our dinner at 7pm. We were busy feeding the kids that I didn't have the chance to take photos of the food! It's a nice chinese seafood restaurant with alfresco dining. After our dinner, we celebrated my youngest sister's birthday. We bought a 10" chocolate banana cake from Seasons (known as Swensens in Singapore) for her. With it's promotional offer, it cost only RM42.00!

After the mini celebration, it was time to head home. We didn't have problem finding our way back to the highway. By the time we reached Singapore, it was close to 10pm. I'm glad the adults and the kids alike enjoyed themselves on this day trip. We're already planning for another trip out to Bukit Indah again! See you soon!

Here are the addresses of the places that we went:

Alicafe
No. 36, Jln Bestari 2/2, Tmn Nusa Bestari,
Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.

Tesco Bukit Indah
Aeon Bukit Indah Shopping Centre,
G-53, Ground Floor,
No. 8, Jalan Indah 15/2,
81200 Bukit Indah Johor, Johor

Pekin Restaurant
Pekin Restaurant 1 Jalan Sutera Tanjung 8/4,
81300 Skudai, Johor

Carrefour Sutera Utama
Sutera Mall L2-033 Jalan Sutera Tanjung 8/4,
81300 Skudai, Johor

If you would like to visit any of this places, you can drop me an email. I should be able to provide the directions. They are lesser known shopping areas, which are less crowded, and safer!