走不腻吃不闲的Ipoh怡保walk~ eat~ makan~

28/12/2012

看到这风光明媚马来西亚人都知道这是怡保啦~! 可惜这些山都在逐步消失中。人类不断开采Marble不知炸开了多少山，挖平了多少座。

比起童年时的怡保是有差了。

 

 

 

1:30pm We reached 4 stars Syuen Hotel, Ipoh.

Nice broad colonial style Lobby, I anticipated the look of the room.  However our rooms were not ready for us to check in, so we headed out downtown south to the famous fried yong tou-fu stalls at the Big Tree “Da Shu Tou” 大树头。I had done my research by reading many other bloggers information about Ipoh, the praises about the food made me persistant to go there for our first Ipoh meal.  Followed the “intelligent” GPS to Jalan King, yet we were still confused to head left or right at the junction because it looked very much like kampung road which made us hesitate to go further.  I even had to get down the car to ask for direction, after I got the confirmation from the locals, we had more confidence to head further in.  Shortly we saw many cars were parked around and the sign post 忠记 that I was looking for appears. uuhuuu~! first target found.  Maybe everyone was too hungry and our own crowd just went in and started selecting our own choice of ingredients.  However I was wondering as to where did the the crowd from the cars go to?… 2pm maybe we came late… by the look of the almost empty trays I thought it should be good.  There were many ways to prepare our “hor fun” noodels: “kon lou” dry mix, curry, Laksa or plain soup. 

Yet I was still wondering where did the crowd go… alamak… I saw there was the same type of stall 20 steps away next to where we were… and there were more people~!!!!  This was ridiculous for me… I came to the right place but the wrong stall.  I looked at the sign it was the same 忠记… but we were at the 2nd branch.  完了Why is it that nobody mentioned about this 怎么没人说有第二分店的忠记，而且还只是在旁边~!!!  Haiz… too late… already ordered…

Brother and I walked over, it was really “under the big trees” with natural coolness and cozy environment… despite the crowd of course.  There were many young workers at this main branch who kept frying and topping up the finishing ingredient.  There were more choices of food.  In my mind I was reciting “they should taste the same… they should taste the same…”  为了弥补来错档的遗憾买个春嫂Popiah回去为大家谢罪~!呜~ 有时手脚快也不是好事呐 -_-

我弟的Curry HorFun，本来order的干捞河粉在我去隔壁正牌的忠记兵如港口大树头炸料粉之时，被爸吃了。我的变成了清汤河粉。We thought they would have cut the ingredients into smaller pieces for serving, but the big pieces of toufu, fishcakes stayed as big as they were…

Time to judge the food.  In comparison with mum’s homemade hand blend fish paste, this still could not beat the texture of what was great in my memory.  However it was still slightly better than any normal food stalls that we can find anywhere else in Malaysia and Singapore.  More over we could not feel the existence of MSG which was good enough to put our half thumbs up…

春嫂薄饼 ChunSou Popiah at the center of the huge tree stalls was indeed all thumbs up for its solid texture.  The moment I popped one piece into my mouth I could feel the firm and compaction of ingredients wrapped tightly within the super thin soft dough.  Gratitude to the crunchiness of the stout fat taoge (bean sprout) which was also one of the unique foods in Ipoh. 

老板娘的手感高超，薄饼馅料扎实。淋上一层薄薄的辣酱，留到我们饭后吃也不会变湖而松软掉。厉害~!

忠记兵如港口大树头炸料粉 652, Jalan King, Pasir Pinji, 31650 Ipoh

Syuen Hotel was just next to Ipoh Parade and a walking distance to the famous Dim Sum restaurant which was one of my target in tomorrow’s food hunt.  Although the lifts’ and the corridors’ flooring were quite aging off but the interior of the rooms were very clean, cozy and bright.  我非常欣赏整片墙装潢成落地窗，采光十足让房间亮丽百倍。

Walah~! I had done my research homework and drawn out a map, marked the specialty stalls and restaurants recommended by most bloggers. 

4:30pm After we had a short nap, we decided to take a stroll around town.  Although I knew most shops were almost closing at this hour, yet we felt energetic and good for a walk.  I did not target on what to eat and which shop to go to, but to just admire the existence of the old buildings spreading from street to street.  We carefully walked towards Jalan Horley 古董街 where every Sunday morning from 7am to 1pm it would have 300 stalls selling antique and old items. It was not Sunday for us, as we walked there just by curiosity of how it would be like during other normal days.  Well it just looked the same as any other ordinary street in Ipoh with most shops closed, except for one “tou fu fah” shop.  I never heard of this shop yet no harm trying.  I do appreciate that the boss used the ceramic bowl and spoon to serve instead of plastic or melanin ware.  The toufu pudding was really smoother and softer than the toufu pudding from other states.  As this was not a very famous stalls yet I am convinced with the mineral of the water in Ipoh indeed produces a lot of good food.  For this “Tau fu fah” I really love the texture and the smoothness, it would be better if they could use brown sugar syrup.  Thumbs up up for this…

豆豆皇專賣店 Kedai Soya Bean Delights
20, Jalan Horley, 30300 Ipoh

Turn round the corner of the street we saw a pet shop full of huge colourful parrots.  This was a cute obedient parrot which could climb out the cage by itself and stand on the pet-shop worker’s arm.

The famous coffee shops that I knew from my research were all closed yet we were adventurous enough to try unknown coffee shops.  Some bloggers said basically all coffee shops in Ipoh serve relatively good white coffee… after trying this shop… I totally disagree.  It was unsmooth with very strong salty flavour.  It threw me out of Ipoh food fantasy at once… Woooh~ what was that… maybe the main coffee maker was on leave.. haha…

4 of us shared one piece of egg tart and a kaya puff… tasted bad as well.  It could be better if they had reheat it in the oven, or probably it was not fresh because the pastry was not crunchy at all, just like eating tree bark.

The final thing that attracted us to try was the Ipoh famous “nga choy kgai” 芽菜鸡 Bean Sprout with Chicken.  We saw the stall’s owner setting up and ready to start his business.

Just for the taste, again 4 of us shared a set.  It took 15 minutes for the boss to prepare a set meal.  Maybe he saw me with the giant “canon ball” camera, I looked most likely a reporter haha… We could see that he was putting extra effort in preparing.

In my last trip in Ipoh I had tried the tourist famous spot “Lou Wong” 老黄芽菜鸡, hospitality extremely bad down to the ground, food were also not as good as what we had expected.  The chicken tasted the same as any normal ordinary chicken rice shop.  BUT~! this “NgaChoyGai芽菜鸡” in Yee Lock Restaurant (coffee shop) 怡乐茶餐食 was truly amazing.  The smoothness and the tenderness of the chicken was superb, the Hor Fun 河粉 noodles fully soak with the soy sauce and dash of chicken soup flavour and the texture was so smooth to the extreme.  This was out of my expectation and blew me back to the Ipoh food paradise fantasy.  Even my mum, the chef of our house, loved this dish so much.  Thumbs up up up for this.

Actually for our dinner I targeted another famous “Nga Choi Gai” shop, Restoran Cowan Street Ayam Tauge & Koitiau 高温街芽菜鸡, which is highly recommended by most bloggers. It only open at 7pm however the rest day was not fixed, depends on our luck to be able to taste the food.  To pass our time, we went to Ipoh Parade for shopping…

Finally time for dinner, we walked 3 streets down to our target… bad luck.. It was closed~!  We thought of walking around other street and see if we could find any other specialty.  Yet mum was still reminiscing the flavour of that smooth chicken and crunchy bean sprout that we had late afternoon.  We then decided to head back to the same shop and targeted the same stall for dinner. 

Brother ordered soup HorFun this time.. the soup was another thumbs up.  It was filled with genuine prawn brewed soup, yet not too salty nor strong in flavour. 汤汁浓郁的虾香但又清甜不混浊，这虾高汤不得了  It was a perfect combination with the smooth rice noodles which slide swiftly through our lips. 河粉薄Q又不软烂，咻~! 吸满汤汁的河粉，就是那么滑…滑…滑… 绝配 Superb Yummy~!!!
Other stalls in the same coffee shop did not attract us at all.  We tried the Popiah but it was very lumpy compared to the earlier "Huge tree” stalls that we had in the afternoon, yet this was even more expensive than that.  Minimum must order two rolls, price RM2 per roll. 没有春嫂的薄饼扎实而且比较贵呐~

Yee Lock Restaurant (coffee shop) 怡樂茶餐室
38 & 40, Jalan Raja Musa Aziz, Pusat Bandaraya Ipoh

I was really proud of my strong legs which brought me around Ipoh town walking for hours… haha.. I really knocked off to bed real soon for that night…

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