Suki Jezz holiday trip to Heritage Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia – Day 1

My holiday trip to Heritage Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia – Day 1

31 May 2014 - Time for a short weekend trip to be away from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Wonder why, the smallest city will always be the busiest city and being chosen as the capital of Malaysia?

Argh, some or rather, we went to Ipoh during school holidays, which is peak season for families to go back or to go Ipoh for a holiday as well. Luckily, I have two wonderful friends in Ipoh. I managed to book a deluxe room at Ipoh Downtown Hotel http://www.ipohdowntownhotel.com/index.html with a special recommendation from my friend, Zion Ho.

Ipoh Downtown Hotel

But oh my, cannot imagine the basement car parks that are available in this hotel! The car park entrance was so small that we need to be so careful driving into the car park. “Well, the hotel management builds the car park just to accommodate the requirement set by the authority, which is why some of the car parks are designed without any thoughts of consideration,” explained YK Phong, another good friend of mine from Ipoh.

Driving to Ipoh from KL will take roughly 2 hours. Ipoh always famous with its white boiled chicken, bean sprouts, soy bean, rice noodles (named as Ho Fun or keoy teow in Cantonese) and white coffee, simply because the water in this heritage area is rich with minerals. Most of the buildings can be as old as 100 years old, unless they were demolished for new development purposes (crap, all just for the sake of money!) and oh yeah, some of the roads with English names (during the British colonial era) had been changed into Malay road names. Why such thing happen? Is there a need to make Ipoh sound like so Malay? Never change the history, or else what is the point we study history of one country for?

Once we checked in into Ipoh Downtown Hotel, the first place that Phong brought us was: chicken rice shop! Oon Kee Chicken Rice Shop is located just next to Lou Wong Chicken Rice Shop (competitor) , and its address is 48, 51, 53 Jalan Yau Tet Shin, Pusat Bandaraya, 30300, Ipoh, Perak.


If you ask me the exact lot number, I will be unable to tell you, because they had just moved next to Lou Wong. Most of the chicken rice shop will open from the early morning till the wee hours, for the tourists and also party people who had just finished clubbing in the entertainment outlet.

So we gave a try on eating Oon Kee’s roasted pork, pork ball, rice noodles, white chicken, and bean sprouts. My oh my, we cannot get the same texture and taste like that back in KL, no matter how famous one place is.

Oon Kee chicken shop

Pork ball

smooth texture rice noodles

crunchy bean sprouts

white boiled chicken

Next, went to do some simple shopping at Yee Thye shop http://www.yeethye.com.my/

Address: YEE THYE Cake House & Confectionery Sdn.Bhd, No.1-3, Jalan Theatre, 30300 Ipoh, Perak. Malaysia.

yee thye restaurant

 

Basically, they sell all kinds of biscuits, coffee, groceries, cookies, cakes, and confectionery for you to bring back for your loved ones. I bought their in-house label white coffee, garlic chili sauce and some biscuits. I don’t think I have seen their products being exported to KL, so better buy something from here when you are in Ipoh!

Next, the delicious egg tart in Sin Mee Fah shop. I mean they sell all kinds of confectioneries as well, but Phong strongly recommended their egg tarts. Whoop!


Address: 26 Jalan Theatre, Taman Jubilee, 30300 Ipoh, Perak

Contact: M.S.Yip 019-5589978/ 019-5579583

fresh and hot egg tarts!

Passed by the real classic chicken rice shops that have been in Ipoh for more than 30 years. Pak Kong and Rasa Sayang.

Next, soya bean. (Did you realize that I have been non-stop trying out food and drinks only?)

Well, nevermind. Tried out the soya bean at Funny Mountain Soya Bean, and checked out the long queue!

Address: 49 Jalan Theatre, Taman Jubilee, 30300 Ipoh, Perak

The funny part was their operating hours start from 10:30 am till…. Till they sold out everything… at all means you would not know their closing time at all!






Okay, now it’s teatime… actually made no difference I have been eating from lunch time till tea time, ha ha! Stopped by the local coffee shop - Kedai Kopi Sun Yuan Loong which was located just at the corner, opposite housing area.

My coffee boys...Federico and Phong

 Address: Medan Bendahara 2, Taman Taiping, 31650 Ipoh, Malaysia

White coffee and toasted bread is a must, and their operating hours are somehow interesting. The opening hours will be depending on the availability of the coffee maker, as they call them as master ‘sifu’ of coffee maker. So, they open on weekdays from 9am till 6pm, and weekends they open from the morning till 3pm. Whether the operating hours will change when you were here, well, you got to ask the master coffee maker!

hot white coffee

iced white coffee

toasted bread

the way they do the toasted bread

At 4pm, we checked out one of the beautiful temples in Ipoh – Ling Sen Tong temple.

http://www.ipoh-city.com/attraction/Ling_Sen_Tong_Temple/

 Then, we went to Nam Thean Tong, the cave in the temple.

We walked in the garden of the temple that full of colourful statues of characters from Chinese mythology, and climb up a staircase of 100++ steps (alas, we did not make it, because it was too dark in the evening hours).

the stairs to the cave

 Oh, liked this antique bell and antique melody wood horse near to the entrance of Ling Sen Tong Temple.

since 1899!

long long time ago...there is this wooden horse...

Alright, done for the half day trip. We went back to our hotel to have a rest. As we stopped at the traffic light, I noticed this old centre named as Jubilee Park.

Jubilee Park

 “Jubilee Park by the Shaw Brothers is the very first entertainment complex that offers a variety of entertainment and funfair games, like Ferris Wheel, darts, and cinema. Here is the story of Jubilee Park: http://db.ipohworld.org/view/id/1412

At night, we stopped by Tong Sui Kai food stalls, which is only 5 minutes walking distance from our hotel.

Address: Jalan Sultan Ekram, Taman Jubilee, 30300 Ipoh, Perak

the crowd!

Why is it named Tong Sui Kai, well, probably because it was famous with Ipoh’s desserts – ABC ice kacang?

ABC ice kacang dessert

 Anyway, we tried the wanton noodle at stall number 44. Oh yeah, all the stalls have numbers, so you can recognize the stalls. Hmm…. The noodles were fantastic as they made their own noodles, be it thin or think wanton noodles. I managed to buy the wrapped duck feet (I forgot which stall number, but it is the one and only stall selling this), and it was delicious with its thick black dark soy sauce, yummy!

fried wanton dumplings

thick wanton noodles

wanton dumplings in soup

wrapped duck feet

Next stop, we went to Tuck Kee restaurant for their famous ‘moonlight rice noodle’ whereby there is a raw egg (which represents the moon light I suppose) in a plate of fried rice noodles (Ho Fun or Keow Teow). Stir the egg with the noodles, and you get something extraordinary, but to tell you the truth, I still get better fried noodles back in KL, oops!

Address: No 61, Jalan Yau Tet Shin, 30300 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Tel No : +605-253 7513

tuck kee restaurant

tuck kee famous moonlight noodle

 And finally, as the Chinese celebrate Dragonboat festival, Phong ave me five delicious dumplings that he bought from his housing area, Menglembu, Perak. Aww….such a gentleman!

Chinese dumplings from Menglembu, Perak.

*****

Now, here is my day 2 Ipoh Trip....