We were also very blessed with very comfortable accomodations in Ipoh. We told Caleb that the hotel that we're staying in is called Sifu 6 Star Hotel. Here's the view that we have right in front of our hotel.
There's a children's playground and the limestone caves right at our doorstep.
The fish pond at the entrance that the kids love. They go there every morning to feed the fishes.
Our suite has got flat screen TV, king size bed, walk-in wardrobe, computer with wireless access, attached bathroom with bathtub and shower facilities, high-tech switches everywhere that I had to stare at to decide which button to press.
And a private movie room next door. The movie room has a wide collection of movies and they are not even DVDs, they are blu-ray discs. First time "sua ku" me ever heard of blu-ray. If you're as sua ku as me, they're basically a new storage medium made to supersede the DVD, so in short, very high tech lah.
So just in case you're wondering exactly where this is, hee, actually we stayed at ND's ex-colleague's place. His ex-colleague was like a mentor to him when he first started work so we've always called him Sifu. Sifu was extremely hospitable towards us throughout our stay. He actually gave up his room for our little family to stay so that we will be comfortable and everyday, he just drives us all around to bring us to all the "famous" places in Ipoh to try out the food. Isn't that 6 star service? So, we thought it was apt to tell Caleb that our hotel was called Sifu 6 Star Hotel.
Anyway, the food in Ipoh is really delicious. We were really stuffing ourselves silly throughout out stay. The food that we tried were all very flavourful and after taking the first bite, we all just can't get enough of it. (Though I have to admit that they are not the healthiest food to consume and some left us feeling slightly thirsty after that but while we were at it, we really enjoyed it.)
So, here's the good stuff.
Claypot chicken rice that's prepared and cooked on the spot on a charcoal stove when you place your order. This was absolutely yummy! Ok, the shot I took doesn't do justice to the taste. This was our first meal upon reaching Ipoh and we were really hungry. When the food came, we couldn't wait to dig in and then when we ate it, YUMZ! Then I decided we got to take a photo of this man! So, you get a photo of the messed up rice.
Other than the claypot rice, we got a taste of Ipoh's famous beansprouts. Somehow, due to the spring waters in Ipoh, the beansprouts grown there are exceptionally fat, juicy and crunchy. Sarah absolutely loved this dish. She couldn't stop picking at it. I think she ate like 1/4 of the plate by herself.
And here's the shop that sold the delicious claypot rice.
See all the rows of claypot rice cooking away on the charcoal stove.
I feel hungry staring at them! Now I'm craving for claypot rice...
Next up was Wantan Noodles.
The wantan noodles is different from the ones we get in Spore. There's no char siew and they literally serve you noodles and the wantans separately. The sauce that they add to the noodles do not contain any ketchup or chilli. Theirs seem to be a mixture of some light and dark sauce. (At least that's what I think lah. I can't decipher the ingredients. I just know how to enjoy my food!)
We ordered the wantan in soup and the deep fried ones to try. They were both good but I thought the deep fried ones were exceptionally nice. They stayed crispy throughout the meal.
They also had this special tri-colour tea which I tried. Sifu said it was probably a concoction that the shop came up with themselves coz he's never heard of it before. I quite like it. They lined the bottom layer with a sweet caramel sauce adding a layer of milk and lastly the tea. Tasted a bit like a slightly sweeter version of teh chino.
This is the shopfront. Decided to take it so that we could remember it next time.
Next up is the famous Ipoh Hor Fun. In my opinion, this is really the best that I've ever eaten. After tasting this, I don't think I can order a plate of Ipoh horfun in Spore and say yah, I'm eating Ipoh horfun. Firstly, the real Ipoh horfun is not like the ones in Spore where they come in a dry version. The Ipoh horfun that is sold in Ipoh, is actually served in a soup form. The soup is very sweet and tasty and seems to be a mixture of chicken and prawn broth. The noodles are extremely smooth and fine. The chicken slices are very tender and the prawns are cooked just right. After I took one mouth of the noodles and soup, I asked Sifu in a very desperate tone,"Can we come back here again before we leave?"
Ya, and obviously he had to accomodate the preggy's request, so we actually ended our Ipoh trip with lunch here.
The shop selling the real Ipoh horfun. Btw, according to Sifu, in Ipoh, if you want to know which shop sells good food, you just got to look at the traffic situation near the shop. If you got cars, parking all over the place just next to the shop, chances are the food is good.
Btw, this shop has a side store selling chee cheong fun. They come in a variety of sauces: Light sauce with sesame oil, curry sauce, the sweet pink sauce etc. We decided to tabao some for tea coz Caleb's going through a growth spurt and is perpetually hungry and we chose the one with light sauce. Let's just say that when we had tea that afternoon, I've never seen Caleb eat so fast before. The cheong fun was really smooth, just like the horfun. I told Caleb that we were all going to share the chee cheong fun and it was so good that he tried to eat as fast as possible so that he could eat more of it. After that we told Sifu that we thought the chee cheong fun was really good and he said,"Huh? This is not even the famous one leh!" He promised to bring us to the famous chee cheong fun store in Ipoh but unfortunately on the afternoon that we were going to leave, we arrived at about 2pm at the shop and they had finished selling all their chee cheong fun.
On our 2nd night in Ipoh, Sifu brought us to this hawker center place that's located opposite Woolley Food City. The hawker center actually has it's own name but according to him, somehow when people talk about good to Woolley to eat, the're actually referring to the hawker center opposite Woolley Food City.
So, somehow this hawker center place actually reminds of the hawker center in people's park in the '80s. It's a one storey building with lots of stalls and when we walked around, EVERYTHING looked delicious. ND and Sifu went off on their own to order whatever they thought was nice and here's what we ordered for 3 adults and 2 kids. (Btw, EVERYTHING that we ordered was delicious and we really ate till we all felt like bursting!)
Kangkong with cuttlefish aka "Jiu Herh Eng Cai". Somehow, the veg that they used didn't look like kangkong to me. The Ipoh version that we tried was very generous with their peanuts and the sauce had a nice peanut taste to it. Personally, I like it better than the ones in Spore.
Curry noodles! ND ordered this and the curry smell was really frangrant and they had this huge, generous portion of "harm". If not for the fact that I'm preggy, I would have wiped up all the shellfish. The curry noodles in Ipoh all come with mint leaves as garnishing. I think it helps to make the dish more fragrant. Anyway, we thought this was really good. As usual, we looked like we were super deprived coz Sifu said that this is just from a normal store and he promised to bring us to the famous curry noodles store in Ipoh.
Penang Style Char Kway Teow. I like the Penang style Char Kway Teow so we ordered a plate to try and we were not disappointed.
See Caleb using chopsticks to savour the Char Kway Teow
Popiah. ND really liked the popiah. The unique thing about the popiah is that they added some ingredient that was really crispy and crunchy as part of the filling. It seemed to taste like deep fried dried shrimps but I really dunno lah. Like I said, I can't dicipher ingredients, I just know how to eat, eat, eat and enjoy my food.
Rojak. Ok, I really love this one. Everything was toasted nice and crisp and they added fruits like mango on top of the usual ingredients. And they used the Penang type of shrimp paste that is much thicker and fragrant. I think I ate up half the plate of Rojak.
Muah Chee. Such a simple dessert but even this tasted good!
We actually ordered a claypot noodles for the kids to share. We forgot to take a photo of it partly coz our table was really filled with food and partly, it paled in comparison with the rest of the food that we were eating. But even then, if I ate it on its own in Spore, I would think it's quite good.
After the very sinful and fulfilling dinner, we decided to take it a little slow the next morning and Sifu brought us to try their niang dou fu for breakfast.
The Ipoh Niang Dou Fu is generally quite similar to Spore's. Just that they serve it with fried beehoon and beansprout. They have the usual toufu items that come in fried version or soup version.
This is meatballs with beef tendon balls. Never tried anything like this before. I thought it was not too bad but ND who doesn't like to eat tendons didn't quite fancy this.
For our last night in Ipoh, Sifu brought us out for seafood dinner.
This restaurant is supposed to be very popular. You don't quite see the crowd below coz we arrived before 6pm and when we were there, there was apparently some crew filming the chef preparing some dishes. Our guess was that they were probably filming for some food variety show.
The star dish for the night got to be this crab claypot rice. It was huge, the crab was a good size and had lots of roe that were mixed in with the rice. We thought that it was very well done. Best part of it was, I think a dish like this and at that size, would cost S$50 at least but it cost us about S$16.
The other dish that was very good was the fishballs. Initially I thought Sifu had ordered fishballs for the kids to eat but later he told us that this shop is famous for their homemade fishballs. I looked around and true enough there were other people ordering fishballs to go with their seafood dinner. The fishballs were very big and springy and tasty. Really one of the better ones that I've tried.
Other dishes that we order. Tofu with minced pork for the kids.
Marmite prawns
Lala
Very satifisfying dinner. This was also our most expensive dinner. For 3 adults and 2 kids, including drinks, the meal came up to almost S$50 in total.
If you're wondering about our other meals, on average, we were spending RM20 - RM25 per meal. For the amount of food that we were eating, I would say our meals were really cheap!
Ok, and here's the famous curry noodles that Sifu brought us to eat on our last morning in Ipoh.
There serve a few versions. First, you can choose whether you want it dry or with soup. Then you can choose the ingredients like char siew or chicken etc. We ordered one of each to try.
This is the soup version. ND prefers this version.
This is the dry version which I prefer. I like the thick gravy.
Another shot of the delicious noodles. Btw, the kids didn't eat this lah. It's too spicy for them. The shop also sells the traditional kaya toast and half boiled eggs so we ordered those for them. I thought they were as good as Yakun Kaya Toast, if not better.
Anyway, we forgot to take a shot of the shop front. But from what I remember, this shop is opposite Thean Chun, the famous Ipoh noodles store. These two stores are located at Jalan Bandar Timah at Ipoh Old Town. Apparently Jalan Bandar Timah is lined with shops that sell really good food so if you make your way there, should be very easy to find all these shops.
Blogging about all these food is making the preggy hungry. I shall blog about our activities when I find time in the next few days!
