DimSum怡保Ipoh点到心头的好滋味

Story continued from  走不腻吃不闲的Ipoh怡保walk~ eat~ makan~

29/12/2012 6am Come on, everyone wake up~!  We must beat the crowd for the Dim Sum~!  However everyone could not be bothered with my exclamation !!!!

7am Mum and I went down to the Syuen Hotel buffet breakfast while waiting for the rest to crawl out from their beds.  The setting of the restaurant was nice but it was very obvious that they could not be bothered to prepare good breakfast as well, because the most famous Dim Sum shop was just one street behind the hotel.  Watery “Sambal” (grind dried chili paste), cheap industrial hot dogs… I so much wished that I could just walk to the Dim Sum shop immediately.

8am Finally all the “bosses” came down from their rooms.. enough waste of time.. I led everyone charge to my target of the day~! Ming Court Hong Kong Tim Sum 明阁香港点心 located exactly opposite the grandeur Fu San Dim Sum 富山茶楼。I chose to go to the MingCourt because I fully believed that FuShan was very commercialised and flocked in with busses of tourists.. look at the queue.. it was already stretched out to the middle of the main road.

I had a whole list of what must be eaten and what must not eat in MingCourt. 

不点NOT ordering： fried wanton 炸云吞, glutinous rice “LoMaiGai” 糯米鸡, fried fish ball 炸鱼丸, prawn steam dumpling “HarGao” 虾饺 and pork steam dumpling “SiewMai” 烧卖。They were claimed by many bloggers, too small in size or the taste were quite ordinary, so better be wise to save space for better food in our stomach.

However almost all the items here were self made by them, not mass production from the wholesale factory.

Things that were worth trying: steam fish ball 蒸鱼丸。Depends on your preference, because the texture of the fish ball was soft and dense, unlike any other fish ball, not as springy as we expected. 绵密而不弹牙  Genuine home made…

I personally did not like the “CheeCheongFun” 猪肠粉/粉肠. It was not chewy, quite pulpy in mouth, and the sauce did not blend into the roll, which made the flavour very separated.  The pan fried steam carrot cake “LoPakGou” 菜头糕/萝卜糕 was too soft for me as well 有一点软烂.. unless you have this kind of taste preference this would be a good one.

“CharSiewPau” Barbeque pork bun 叉烧包, the fragrant came from the amount of sesame seed that mixed in the barbeque pork filling.  Worth a try…

“WuKok” Yam fried dumpling 竽角, Superb~!  The filling was not salty and the yam dough was smooth powdery texture 粉脆的芋头搭上口味恰好不咸的猪肉碎馅.  This was always my favourite dish in DimSum shops but very rare to get such a good one. 

莲子羹 Lotus seed’s thick soup and 芝麻糊 Sesame paste were amazingly tasty~!!  I would definitely come back to Ipoh just for these.  Not too sweet and the genuine taste of the ingredients would burst your senses with all the fragrance of the fine grinded seeds 滑口醇香，湖而不腻，真让我爱不释手一碗接一碗  We continuously ordered 4 bowls, especially lotus seed’s soup was very rare to get in anywhere else.

明阁香港点心 Ming Court Hong Kong Tim Sum                   Tel 05-255 7134
36 Jalan Leong Sin Nam  30300 Ipoh                                              营业时间：6am-12noon

9am I actually intended to find the famous egg tart stalls 鸿记蛋挞 located inside 永成茶室。Followed my marked GPS map… I still could not spot that shop… Our crowd, 10 of us, had followed me walking up and down the street just to hunt for the egg tart.  Well it was a good morning walk as everyone had claimed to eat too full in that DimSum shop.  9:30am After spinning around 3 streets, I gave up with the search and headed to my next target, salted chicken 盐焗鸡。

We walked 4 streets down towards and spotted one of my targeted shops, 新荣香饼店 Sin Eng Heong Kaya Puff 加央角.  Trays of freshly baked kaya puff, fine pastry aroma filled the whole shop.  We would pack this home and have this for afternoon tea~!

新荣香饼店 Sin Eng Heong Biscuit                                  Tel 05-243 9659            
营业时间：9.00am – 9.00pm (Mon – Sat), 9.00am – 6.00pm (Sun)
64 Jalan Mustapha Al-bakri  Taman Jubilee, 30300 Ipoh, Perak

There were two famous herbal baked salted chicken shops.  Both started their business hour at 10am.  We walked 2 street down to Wan Li Xiang 万里香 which the chicken described by bloggers as more juicy but salty.  Then at the other end of another street up, Aun Kheng Lim 宴琼林 was described to be dry but not as salty as the other.  I went home and tried both.. Both were equivalent salty but great dish to go with rice.  Yet I give a thumbs up to Aun Kheng Lim because it had more herbal fragrance AND it had an extra chicken gizzard 鸡胗~

萬里香 Wan Li Xiang                   Tel 016-5919374 / 019-5716185 / 019-5588348
190, Jalan Sultan Idris Shah, Ipoh, 30000, Ipoh, Perak  30000   营业时间：10am – 9pm

宴琼林 Aun Kheng Lim                             Tel 05-254 2998
24, Jalan Theatre, Ipoh, 30300, Ipoh, Perak  30300                   营业时间：10am – 9pm 

10:15 Everyone was dragging their feet… Almost done ~!! Please people, one more stop to go~!  We walked back a street to the most famous TauFuFah in town, Funny Mountain Soya Bean & Tau Fu Fah 奇峰豆腐花.  They started their business at 10:30am, we reached there early and so we got to capture the sight where the Soybean pudding was just delivered in.  I was amazed that they used the traditional wooden bucket to steam the pudding.  As they were setting up their stalls, a queue of cars started to build up in front of their shop as they provide drive-thru service.  10:20am the boss said we could start queuing up then… It was served in a much smaller melanin bowl and there was no table no chairs, just stand by the stall to eat and drink… I think I would prefer the earlier “Bean Delights” 豆豆皇豆浆 TouFuFah and hope that they will always use the ceramic bowl to serve.

奇峰豆腐花 Funny Mountain Soya Bean & Tau Fu Fah                    Tel 012-516 1607
49, Jalan Theatre, Ipoh, 30300, Ipoh                                  营业时间：10:30am-until sold out

11am.. the end of our morning walk… I think my crowd of elderly friends wanted to kill me already.. haha… However we had a very good sweat…

1pm We met up with 2 of our Ipoh friends and they had been introducing so many things to eat in Ipoh which was impossible for us to finish within this 2-day visit.  One of our Ipoh friends suggested that we had to try the tourist centered famous Ipoh white coffee, Sin Yoon Loong 新源隆 Coffee Shop.  All great white coffee shops were located beside this old 20 storey apartment, one of the famous landmark in Ipoh.  Old Town White Coffee founder shop was just right opposite Sin Yoon Loong, which I heard that their egg tart was famous too.  However our Ipoh friend said this was still not the best in Ipoh, the best egg tart was in the morning market.  I will definitely track this down in my next visit.

However I felt this was not the best coffee I had.  My last visit was to Restaurant Danny White Coffee shop, somehow it tasted better than this in my memory, and even the “roti bakar” kaya toast bread looked and tasted better than Sin Yoon Loong.  However I will go back and visit that shop to double confirm my memory in taste..

Our friend, MrPang said the caramel custard pudding “Brulee” 炖蛋 was a must try in this coffee shop.  It was cold dish and very watery soft, just like slurping air with strong eggy eggy flavour, however the fragrance of caramel blend down the taste… some people may like it but not for my mouthful of chewy bitty teeth.  Very cheap though RM2.20, worth a try.

My friends started ordering bites and even fried Mamak noodles… HOI~ I came here for coffee not for all this… maybe they were trying to fill me up so that I would not bring them to go around another bush for food hunt.

Many said the Mamak mee goreng was nice also… to me it was just a normal dish that we can get anywhere else in Malaysia until Singapore.

The dried herbal shop next to Sin Yoon Loong Coffee shop was worth a visit.  There were many weird bizzare dried animals served as herbal ingredient.  Star fish, shark bone, and even a big shark head hanging right in front of their door.

The only thing we bought from this shop is the Hericium, which is a kind of mushroom, and the Chinese call it 猴头菇 literally means monkey head mushroom.  It was rare to get this in fresh bulk like this, great ingredient for any vegetarian dish.  I love the aroma of this mushroom… hard for me to describe it… just imagine the strong fragrance of mushroom… if you like mushroom…

新源隆茶餐室 Sin Yoon Loong 15A Jalan Bandar Timah ,30000 Ipoh
营业时间：6am-6pm

Time to set off back to our home south… Now then only our Ipoh friend told me that actually for them the Ipohrean怡保人 would not go to that tourist commercialize coffee shop.  For them, there were a few coffee shops behind a big Chinese Temple called “ThouMuKeong” 斗母宫, where the best white coffee hid in town… Aiyo… then bring me here at first lar~ I did not want to try what the tourist like lar… Ipoh.. I have to come back again.

Thank you so much for Mr.Chan guided us through the back lanes, avoided all the jams, caused by the flocking in of tourists during the weekends, came out of Ipoh town to this heart warming biscuit shop, Keong Kee Heong Peah 强记碳烧香饼.  This was truly great that this genuine traditional charcoal-baked still exist~!  Many “Heong Peng/Heong Piah” biscuits manufacture, including the famous commercialize one, labeled as charcoal-baked which I doubt they were.  For this, as we entered the small wooden house, there was a long table right at the entrance where they were knitting and shaping the dough.  They even welcomed us to visit their baking kitchen, everything happened within this small wooden house.  Piles of dried coconut shells were the source for charcoal. 

感动与感激这些还坚持传统香饼制作的强记工作团队。真正的碳烧香气无法被机械取代。新鲜的强记香饼脆到不行…… 齿颊间碳香四溢……呜~! 幸福~!

强记企业 碳烧香饼 KEONG KEE ENTERPRISE
(Gunung Rapat Biscuits)

                        
Tel 05-311 3529
362, Jalan Gunung Rapat, 31350 Ipoh
营业时间: 8am – 6pm 

This marked the end of my two-day Ipoh trip… more great food yet to explore… Ipoh I will be back real soon.