Rant & Raves

On Sunday, Maria and I joined the family on a day trip to Ipoh. As usual, our family short trip consist of nothing but food, food, and more food.

First stop was the Tapah rest area where we met (since we were driving different cars) and the first thing we ate was Baskin Robin. Tapah is located about 50 KM from Ipoh, so it was the best place to meet before heading into the town since no one in the family, except me, is familiar with Ipoh. After we regroup, we set off again to taste good food!

We went to Khong Heng in the town area to taste the Shredded Chicken Hor Fun (Hor Fun is actually flat rice stick) and boy, it was great. It was better than last time because the last time I had it, it was holiday and I was there pretty late, so the soup were diluted by the owner. And then we added the Rojak and my brother-in-law loves to Rojak so much that he decided to buy 2 bottles of the sauce to bring home.

After taking the lunch, we went to the Cave Temple to pray a bit, and let our 4 years old niece playing and exploring the temple. And then we went to buy Pomelo, the most famous fruit from Ipoh. Rumors has it that the Ipoh’s Pomelo is the best in the world. So how could we resist that?

But the Pomelo stalls in Ipoh itself is a scene to remember. There were around 20 stalls outside the cave temples and when a car stop, there are around 20 young girls wearing spaghetti tops appear from within the stall to greet you. We decided to let the women do the shopping while the guys stayed in the car, so that we guys won’t be flirted and bought too many things which we would regret later. But after sitting in the car for 10 seconds, we guys decided to go down as well. Why waste the chance of being surrounded by young chicks?
After spending some time buying quite a number of Pomelo and some local biscuits (not sure what its called. But direct translation would be Chicken Biscuit), we set off to our next food target; the famous Salted Chicken by Aun Kheng Lim Restaurant. Located on No. 24, Theate street, it was famous around Malaysia and it was even featured on a TV food series, HoJak. My brother-in-law bought 3 chickens, and 1 to be eaten later, and 2 were to pack to home for later consumption. Crazy, I heard you said. Not if you have tried it. It is really good, and except to wait for hours to get one. So make sure you call earlier (Tel: 05 - 254 2998) for booking and go earlier to pick it up. If not, it will be sold out before 7:30pm.

While we were waiting, I saw another shop selling “Beggar Chicken” (translation: a famous food originated from beggars in China. They put in some chinese herbs, wrap the chicken in mud and let it burn in the furnace) located on No. 36, Theate street. It was slightly more expensive than the salted chicken but we decided to try it nonetheless. That’s why it was call the Ipoh Food Trip!

After buying those chickens, we wanted to go to Pusing Seafood Restaurant (Tel: 05-241 0306) and I heard it was the best local seafood restaurant. Unfortunately, they were hosting a wedding dinner so all was fully booked. So we went to Eastern Ocean Seafood Restaurant (located on the shoplots right next to Jaya Jusco Ipoh). We were pretty impressed by the standard, and the food came up to be quite cheap. There were 7 adults and 1 kid, and the total bill was RM151. Not bad at all.

We will be looking at the next place to makan (translation: eat).

PS: Unfortunately, my digital camera died on me, so I couldn’t take any pictures of the food that we ate.