Typical old town heritage shops, with distinctively squeaky clean streets, well grown and groomed trees, non-hectic traffic, surrounded by one-of-a-kind nostalgic Avatar-liked limestone mountains. In fact, lately it had just started to have new developments (condominiums/housing/hospitalisation/amusement park) that capitalise on symbiosis with the fantastic mountainous views such as the Lost World amusement/hospitalisation and "A Haven" condominiums (rumour has it that Amber bought one, not sure about Michelle) in the Timbun outskirt.
Aaron Kwok's After This Our Exile (父子 Fu Zi) movie and arrogant Fatt's were both filmed in Ipoh, on the same street ! But none capitalise on the Avatar-aliked mountainous views (Cameroon, what are you waiting for ?!?!) Hollywood can even film The Encounter sequel at the Kek Lok cave with the local folks sitting on the benches and doggies watching at awe a gigantic UFO spaceship landing crushing onto an eyesore cement factory shooting down another eyesore telecommunicaiton tower with a laser beam. Or Jackie and son can film After Earth 2 fighting for survival against the doggies on the mountains. Or even the Crash Of Titans with all the powerful Greek gods throwing mountains at each other. Or Tom Cruise's Oblivion 2 where the UFO lands on the eyesore cement factory near the Kek Lok cave to receive all the Scientologists to bring them out of the sorry earth. Or in the Myth 2 Jackie's son as an archeologist discovering some gravity-defying mountains which are actually floating an inch off the ground. Or in upcoming JJ Abraham's Star Wars VII where on the cliff of a mountain an army of Anakin Skywalker's (Darth Vader) clones light-sabering with Luke Skywalker who keeps shouting "I am the son of all of you!!!". No? I don't blame you because even Malaysian directors haven't discovered nor sleeping with the beauty of these mountainous views for their next films.
Back to food.
Some of its famous food stores are located within Ipoh's old town. Competing stores can be found situated on the same street or facing (off) each other at cross road. I would like to call some streets as the "puffed pastry street", "Dim Sum street", "Wat Tan Hoe street", "Kopitiam street", "Taugeh chicken Hoe Fun cross road", "salted chicken street?" and etc (there is one "coffin street" but this is outside the coverage of this blog). The Funny Mountain bean curd store does not seem to have any (surviving?) competitor on the same street, or had it? (There are even "competing" caves i.e. Perak cave, Sam Poh cave, Kek Lok cave etc and competing kacang putih houses-turned-factory-distribution-center-retail-shops in Taman Kacang Putih). You need to know which one is the "best". Asking the locals, or following the tourists will often lead a tourist to different store. Needless to say which one leads to the "best" one. To add more spins to already confused tourists, some competing stores even have similar sounding names such as Sin Yoon Loong versus Sun Yuan Foong, Tuck Kee versus Sun Tuck Kee and etc. I guess there would be one Fizzy Mountain bean curd store some day. Tourists may need to make ee-nee-mee-nee-my-nee-mo choices.
The "Dim Sum street" (Jalan Leong Sin Nam)
I have tried two Dim Sum stores there. I think one has more locals than tourists and vice-versa for the other. Fok San has more variety I think, and Ming Court has more Dim Sum that each has its own signature tastes that if you ask me to do Dim Sum blind taste I would be able to tell whether they are from Ming Court or not. For example it's one-of-a-kind Har Kau (prawn dumpling) which has softer chee-cheong-fun-aliked skin and it's simple but delicious prawn-cornstarch-salt-mixture content. It's Lor Mai Kai (chicken glutonous rice) is nicely sprinkled with aromatic wine. But I won't be able to tell it's Char Siew Pau in blind taste. Its chilli sauce is a mixture of typical Malaysia Dim Sum chilli sauce with more garlic and some type of fruit, it's so nice I kept eating the chilli sauce on its own whenever the waitresses were not watching.
Tuck Kee (open at night til dawn) has what I expect from a good Wat Tan Hoe (Fetucini-aliked fried vermacelli Kuay Tiau in broth thickened with starch and half-cooked egg) - aromatic&caramelised&non-mushy&chewy Kuay Tiau, delicious broth with well-balanced meat-seafood-MSG-salt taste, crispy pork lards and half-cooked egg as the broth's thickening agent.
There are Sin Yoon Loong, Sun Yuan Foong, Nam Heong (home to the Old Town franchise) Kopitiams (Malaysia's traditional cafe). Many customers ordered iced milk coffee. I am no coffee experts to tell which store's coffee is the "best" or the "original". What the hell just try each store's coffee and judge by yourself. I ate toasted bread (which was sliced very thin to the point the toast tastes a bit like biscuits) spread with margarine and kaya (gooey egg custard with pandan/screwpine leave). Each store has its own side dishes such as the roast pork in Sin Yoon Loong, Chee Cheong Fun in Sun Yuan Food and Penang Char Kuay Tiau in Nam Heong. I quite like the Char Kuay Tiau as it's old-schooled and well balanced in its slight caramelisation, very slightly wetness, well balanced saltiness and sweetness, which I can rarely find it elsewhere in Malaysia nowadays. There is no secret ingredient in Char Kuay Tiau, the chef's balance in the timing of adding the ingredients, length of cooking and the extreme heat used in stir frying makes all the difference. It's important the chefs are local old-timers or are with skills passed down from previous generation because different localities expect a distinct "balance" for example Singaporeans expect higher wetness. But all can agree that the Kuay Tiau must not be mushy, the bean sprout must be chewy slightly crunchy not overcooked, and there must be some slight caramelisation. Nobody cares whether there is a banana leaf underneath or not.
One must be tempted to compare Ipoh's Taugeh (bean sprout) chicken Hor Fun (Fetucini-aliked vermacelli) with the world famous Singapore Hainanese chicken rice. Don't, although Singapore Hainanese chicken rice set the bar very high. Firstly most people eat the Taugeh chicken with Hor Fun, not chicken rice. Secondly, the chicken is firstly half salt-baked and then half poached. Unlike Singapore Hainanese chicken rice which must be eaten with the aromatic fluffy rice with the tender juicy fully cooked steamed/poached chicken with very soft thin slurppy chicken skin. Ipoh's Taugeh chicken, because it's salt-baked, is slightly less juicy, but with skills they make it tender. Being eaten with chewy crunchy Taugeh, smooth one-of-a-kind Ipoh Hor Fun inside tasty chicken+veggie+MSG broth, it's delicious and fast finishing. To be fair to the famous Buntong Taugeh chicken Hor Fun and elsewhere's, we were short of time so we only tried the Lou Wong at the convenience of the old town locality, the Onn Kee was closed on Wednesday so we missed trying it.
Enuf said, you will find kacang putih and starch crackers 3 times cheaper than the repackaged ones in old town, and 6 times cheaper than typical Chinese New Year crackers. Houses were turned into kacang putih factories-distribution centers-retails. The crackers fryer and its sieve is so huge it can be used to literally deep fry a whole adult goat. You will be buying so much and end up carrying them to your car like Santa Clause.
I hope this would wet your taste buds for your next food trip to Ipoh.
Beam me up, Scotty !
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