Ipoh: 'Food' of the Hills

The funny thing about staying in your own country is that you always fail to notice the unique details that foreigners seem to perceive and love about it. That was always how I felt when I read rave reviews about Malaysia; the fishing villages found in rural Perak, exotic animals roaming around our lush rainforests or the ‘sampans’- small fishing boats gliding along the longest river in the country, the Sungai Pahang. Growing up in a small town on the east coast of Malaysia, I found nothing extraordinary about sampans, coconut trees, or rumah papans (wooden houses on stilts). After all, they have been a part of my everyday life. Noticed, yes, but never appreciated.

The city of Ipoh is located on the north of peninsular Malaysia, approximately 200km from the capital of Kuala Lumpur. Strategically positioned in the abundant tin-bearing valley of the Kinta River surrounded by hills; Ipoh, or the ‘Hill City’, was also once dubbed the ‘City of Millionaires’ from the riches obtained during the mining days. Despite being the fourth largest city in Malaysia, Ipoh is a relatively peaceful and quite city; a rather well kept local secret. Locals and tourists from nearby countries know that for delicious local cuisines, Ipoh is the place to go! Very much unheard of as compared to their touristy neighbor Penang, Ipoh’s gastronomy are not only as good as their counterpart, but much more reasonably priced.

It was during a weekend trip to this city that I truly comprehended the beauty of my wonderful country. The North-South Highway of Malaysia is a state of the art highway that connects the southern part of the peninsular to the northern end. Traveling the KL-Ipoh portion of the highway, I marveled at the palm oil estates, rubber plantations and limestone caves that greeted us along our 3-hour journey. The brilliant rainforest resembling moss green carpets stretched far and wide towards the multi-colored horizon in the distance. Turning out from the modern highway, along the unbeaten path, we passed old townships, small villages and fruit stalls adorning the winding roads. Every where we turned was a part of my beloved country that I have seen but never truly understood. And on that journey to Ipoh, wide awake and observing the surroundings outside my car window, I thought to myself, "Isn’t Malaysia beautiful?"

Quick Tips:

On hearing about my trip to Ipoh, my family had a whole list of food orders for me to bring home. Top on their list of ‘must get’ Ipoh fares are like the self-proclaimed ‘only in Ipoh’ salted chicken, the pamelo (a ‘football’ sized green citrus fruit), the Kampar biscuits and ‘lou poh’ biscuits (including various other cookies and snacks they could think of).

So, upon arrival in Ipoh, my friends and I were immediately hunting down the best places to obtain that long list of ‘to buys’ and the best restaurants to eat Ipoh’s renowned variety of food. Thus began the ‘eat ourselves to death’ journey; beginning with the chicken rice with bean sprouts, to the popular Pusing Public Restaurant for its higher-class Chinese cuisines, to the famed Ipoh dim sum and the assortment of local Chinese favorites available at the best known hawker centres in the city. And not to forget that huge load of foodstuff we brought back home…

Best Way To Get Around:

Nearly all the great places to eat are located in the centre of town. It is quite easy to explore the main centre on foot if the hot weather in Malaysia is not a big issue. Taxis and buses moving around the city are not in abundance. I only noticed a few throughout the time I was in the city. From Kuala Lumpur, there are many daily buses providing transport to the city of Ipoh. Taxis are also an option, but be sure to enquire and agree upon the fare before leaving.

Mention Ipoh, and the very first thing that comes to mind is dim sum! Don’t ask me why, but locals seem to associate the two together. And they would also inform you that there is no place else to sample authentic Ipoh dim sum than at the Foh San Restaurant. The reputation of this restaurant has been spread far and wide as the finest of the fine, and even has a range of frozen dim sum in its namesake sold in supermarkets all over Malaysia.

Everyone knows that the early bird catches the worm. This phrase rings true at the Foh San Restaurant, for it is running in full swing as early as 7am in the morning! The restaurant is frequented by the elderly of Ipoh (the early risers), dropping by after their morning walk to read the newspapers or yum cha (drinking tea in Chinese) with their pals while gossiping about the latest news.

With only a day in Ipoh, we had to try the famous Foh San Restaurant’s dim sum, even if it meant waking up as early as 7am in the morning and sacrificing our sleep on a Sunday morning! It was considered rather late as we arrived at the restaurant at 8.30am. It was a madhouse packed like a can of sardines! People were running about and shouting, making the place seem more like a market than a restaurant!

There was no place to seat and no waiting list, as the waitresses were too occupied to entertain us. We had to literally fight for a table, standing and waiting next to any one which the occupants looked like they were done with their meal and ready to leave. As rude as it sounds, my buddies and I choose a table each for the wait. Thank God we did not have to wait too long, I was lucky enough to be waiting at a leaving table!

Next obstacle. Getting the waitress with the trolley’s attention. The dim sum is usually served on a trolley that is wheeled around the restaurant by their waitresses. It was rather tiresome calling out to the waitresses to come our way so that we could handpick the dim sum that we wanted. Anyway, after lots of hollering and whining, we finally managed to fill our table with our favourite choices of dim sum, and a pot of chrysanthemum tea.

Dim sum comes in many tastes, ingredients and sizes. They are usually served in a small bamboo container or a small dish. They comes in many varieties, bbaozi(buns), steamed or fried dumpings(in choices of meat; chicken, pork, beef, prawns etc), fried rice rolls, egg tarts, ccongee lloummaikkai(brown glutinous rice steamed with chicken), ccheeccheongfun (rice noodle rolls with pork/prawn fillings) and many others. Each serving comes in small portions (about 3 dumplings or rolls), thus it’s possible to try a combination of dishes. Dim sum is best with a hot pot of Chinese tea.

It was around 2pm when we reached the heart of Ipoh town. And guess what everyone wanted for lunch? Yeap, the Ipoh Chicken Rice! Famous for storming up one of the best chicken rice in Malaysia, (trust me, chicken rice can be found on the menu in almost all the Chinese restaurants or hawker centers) it was one of the dishes I was not about to miss out on my trip to Ipoh.

There are two very famous Ipoh chicken rice restaurants in Ipoh, the Onn Kee Restaurant (which has two branches facing each other, one that opens in the day, and the other that caters to the night prowlers), and the Lou Wong Restaurant (which is reportedly better than the latter, but only opens after dark). And thus we had little choice but to stop at the Onn Kee Chicken Rice Shop for lunch.

The chicken is prepared using the traditional Hainanese method of boiling the whole chicken in chicken stock, garlic and ginger. After the chicken is cooked, it is then dipped in ice to provide a jelly like film on its skin. This is what the Chinese call the Hainanese chicken or bai ji (white chicken). The rice on the other hand, is prepared using chicken stock and garlic to give it the oily look, flavorful taste and fragrant smell. Upon serving, the chicken is garnished with cucumber, spring onions and parsley. It is also served with three dips, chilly sauce mixed with garlic, pounded garlic and ginger, as well as dark soy sauce. Ipoh has their own version of the chicken rice, just by adding beans sprout to their menu. A light mixture of garlic, oyster sauce and water is also poured over the chicken and the beans sprout, giving it its extra taste. You can even have your chicken with kueh teow noodles, if rice is not your thing.

Onn Kee Restaurant’s chicken rice is the least famous of the two, but equally as good. I thoroughly enjoyed my chicken rice with a cup of herbal tea. But if you do pass by Ipoh town at night, you may most probably be sucked into Lou Wong Restaurant rather than Onn Kee Restaurant, just because it is much bigger, brighter and crowded… which is usually good enough evidence.

The real culprit in luring us to the hill city of Ipoh is the Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant! Yes… we took a 3 hour car ride from the wonderful capital of Kuala Lumpur (where nearly the best of everything can be found) just to have dinner in this specific restaurant. Don’t ask me why we did it… it was merely a recommendation from a friend who told us that the Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant (or better known to the locals as Mun Choong) whips up the best prawn dishes.

I have heard stories that the Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant is so popular among the locals in Ipoh that it is packed every night. Not only do families come again and again for its good food, but wedding, birthday and anniversary celebrations are held here on a regular basis. Though the food served at the restaurant is rather on the pricey side, it does not seem to deter the locals from dropping by.

Our dinner reservations were booked for 6.30pm that night, with nearly 20 people in our group (yes, we drove all the way from Kuala Lumpur). We were lucky enough to get a private room all to ourselves, considering the fact that the restaurant was extremely crowded with people. I think there was some sort of celebration going on from the laughing and shouting from one end of the restaurant to the other.

We ordered five dishes that came separately one after the other, which is actually how Chinese dinner is served at functions. Our first dish was the standard Chinese cuisine starter, the Four Seasons dish. The dish comprises four separate rations representing the four seasons. We had fried chicken wings, fried vegetable meat balls coated with nuts, scallops in crab meat sauce and steamed dumplings in oyster sauce, all attractively placed around a large plate decorated with cucumber and a miniature statue of a horse. Our second dish was a popular prawn dish; fried butter prawns arranged neatly around a mountain of fruit salad. Our third and fourth dishes were a vegetable dish and fried dumplings in crab meat tofu sauce respectively. Our last and final dish was the Hokkien style stir fried noodles, which honestly is nothing to shout about.

Overall, the food in the Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant is definitely delicious… and it is worth a visit if you happen to be in the city of Ipoh. Nevertheless, though I did have a wonderful dinner that night, I was not completely bowled over by the food as I felt that I could have had an equally good dinner in Kuala Lumpur, minus the 3 hours traveling.

The Aun Kheng Lim Salt-Baked Chicken Restaurant

The Aun Kheng Lim Salt-Baked Chicken Restaurant is not your regular restaurant. It has no tables or chairs for anyone to dine in, it is in fact a 100% takeaway restaurant! The salt-bake chicken is a unique dish, and the AunKheng Lim Restaurant is famous for producing the best salt-bake chickens to date. I don’t know where the salt-baked chicken idea originated from, but people from all over Malaysia travel to this part of the country just to purchase it. And mind you, they don’t buy a box at a time, most locals and visitors can takeaway up to 10 boxes! The salt-baked chicken (or yim kuk kai in Chinese) is prepared by stuffing the whole chicken with Chinese herbs and spices and rubbing the skin with salt. It is then wrapped in paper and baked in an oven filled with coarse salt. After baking it for several hours, the chicken is then removed from the oven and packed nicely in boxes to be purchased by their customers. The packages are very well presented with cooking instructions written on it. I bought a box of the salt-bake chicken to bring back home for dinner. The chicken is soft and tender, with hardly any oil. It is best eaten with white rice, as dining on the chicken alone would be definitely too salty!

Yee Thye Biscuit Shop

This biscuit shop sells anything from cookies to snacks to coffee! All the famous Ipoh biscuits and cookies can be found in this shop. Not to be missed is the Yee Thye Biscuits that are packed in pink colour plastic bags, and is the most obvious selection in the entire shop, costing only RM6 per pack. Other popular Ipoh biscuits include the Kampar biscuits, ‘lou poh’ biscuits (rather spicy), crackers with meat floss and sugar peanut cookies. I also laid my hands on some white coffee packets, which are regularly served in many of Ipoh’s coffee houses. The items on sale at the Yee Thye Biscuits Shop are very reasonably priced and prove to be ideal souvenirs for friends and family.