Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Ipoh Food Crawl - Day 2

My fridge died on me.
Sigh. It has been a good & faithful fridge, serving us for the past 15 years (I think) and I certainly mourn its passing. I think the amount of foodstuff stored in it all these years has finally done it in and it's time to go to fridge heaven.
Luckily I have a 2nd smaller fridge... so now that is packed to the brim... plus I have an assortment of other dried foodstuff now all laid out in my kitchen which kinda resembles a mini war zone at the moment.
Hopefully the new fridge can arrive by tomorrow.

OK, now that I have sorted out the fridge dilemma (Hitachi or Sharp or Mitsubishi??), let's get back to the food crawl.

We started out early, heading to Menglembu again! On the way, along the main road heading to Menglembu (on the right), we stopped by this old-time kopitiam which sells big-portions dim sum.

The name's Sun Kim Aik... and as you can see, even their staff are old timers!


These boisterous aunties insisted that I took their pics! We didn't eat here but tapau lots of their paus and fishballs - huge ones! You have to be early coz their stuff sell off very fast!After packing the paus and dim sum, we headed on to Menglembu town... for the Twins' Curry Chee Cheong Fun! Read about Motormouth's post about them here.

Located in a unassuming corner lot, Restoran Wing Kat Fong is where the twins ply their spicy stuff. Right across is this very laid-back Rojak stall.

As you walk into the shop, you will be greeted by this big pile of fried goodies. We had the Fried Prawn Crackers which were very good - crunchy and full of prawny goodness!
The trays of curries, sambals and other yummy-looking dishes really made it hard for us to choose! In the end, we ordered their Curry Wild Boar, fresh-from-the-wok Fried Chicken...

and of course, the Chee Cheong Fun with Curry Pigskin - the reason why we went there, in the first place! I must tell you that I am a Ipoh CCF fan and with pigskin somemore, I'd be happy anytime! While the CCF here may not be the best one in Ipoh, I would say it's still commendable and I would go for it again (if I have the time when back in Ipoh!). Oh, their Curry Wild Boar was good! Fried chicken - hmmm, while very freshly fried, the skin was somehow not so crispy and lacked taste in its marinade - can skip this.

Next... went to the town centre to tapau more food... the kaya puffs in Sin Eng Heong. This place has been blogged to death... so I don't think I need to say anything more. Just look at the queue - and this was the queue of people who had placed prior orders, ok! If you didn't order, you don't even get to be in this queue - go another day!

Luckily we did phone in & made prior booking, so we got our 3 boxes of the kaya puffs! They do sell other biscuits which are not popular (I wonder why they bother with these - why not just bake ONLY the kaya puffs, huh?!). I tried their hamtan-soe (kinda like mooncakes - lotus paste with salted eggyolks) which were actually good.

Next...another must-tapau item whenever I'm back in Ipoh ... the Salt-Baked Chicken of Aun Kheng Lim...
We went home, dumped all the tapau'ed stuff and then head on to our 2nd breakfast, hehe!

This time, it's to Canning Garden...the halal corner-lot coffeeshop: Restoran New Hollywood. And right across that, there's this cool dude selling Rojak. He saw me taking his pic and gestured to me that I must try his rojak because it's very good! Okayyy... I ordered a plate, he brought it over to our table inside the coffeeshop... and it was actually pretty good :-)

My niece's absolute favourite item in this place is the Indian Rice... served by a smiling lovely Indian lady... I find their curries a tad too salty but what daheck, my niece polished off her plate in next to no time!
Other stuff which we ordered were the Cha Kway Teow (good stuff), Fried Crullers (also good stuff)... Prawn Mee (so so only) and Assam Laksa (no good!)...

Ahh... my brother's fave item was the Hor Hee but he opted for tunghoon (glass noodles) instead of hor-fun. We had to wait for a very long time for this small bowl of noodles!
It seems this fella only sells at this shop on Sundays - no other day! Frankly, I don't find anything spectacular about the noodles - just plain soup with a few fishballs & slices of fishcake. I only 2 mouthfulls of this and I suspect there was a lot of MSG in the soup too!

Just look at my car boot - almost full with all the tapau'ed food!
Until the next Ipoh trip...burpppS!

18 comments:

J2Kfm said...

very fruitful eh?
should've met up lah ...
the New Hollywood coffee shop is in fact, a pork-free shop, and you can see a lot of Muslims dining there.

Anonymous said...

agree with you, the seng kee noodle stall at hollywood really a lot of MSG.....someone recommended said nice...but a NO NO for me

PureGlutton said...

Hey J2Kfm, we'll meet up next trip, hehe! Ya i know that shop is halal.

PureGlutton said...

SimpleGirl: Ya lor, i didn't think the noodles were anything to shout about but i dunno why my bro loves it so much!

Ciki said...

sometimes the most exciting crawls are the away fm home food crawl! nice one:D

Jason said...

I think this is the first time I read so many features on Menglembu town. Hehe...

The dim sum you stopped by at the roadside is located in this small area called Falim.

PureGlutton said...

ciki: yeah, we should go outta town more and find more great grubs along the way!

PureGlutton said...

Jason: Oh yes, i was determined to go look for all those delish menglembu makans, hehe! I know u r a true blue ipoh-mali when u know tat place is Falim (wah-lam-si in cantonese, right?!)...yayyy!

Unknown said...

so many things that you had in one day??? *salute... *applause :)
I don't know if I manage to stomach all of those in one day or not...

bout your fridge... Sharp or Toshiba should be OK

Pureglutton said...

Jenn: There were quite a no. of us and so we were able to order more stuff to try & share, LOL! And some of the food were tapau'ed.
Ahh...my fridge - I have decided on a Hitachi :-)

Rebecca Saw said...

ta-paued so muhc to go where? You stayed overnight right in Ipoh?

worldwindows said...

That was a long odyssey. Any part 3? I think I will try Menglembu next. Hardly go there.

PureGlutton said...

Nomad: Tapau to bring back to KL la, LOL! But yes, i stayed 1 night in ipoh for this trip.

PureGlutton said...

Worldwindows: Menglembu does have some great makans! Part 3 will have to be next trip la, lol!
Anyone wanna go to ipoh with me?!

Precious Pea said...

SO MUCH FOOD!!!!!!!! Hehe..but you did a good job. So proud of you ;)

PureGlutton said...

P.Pea: Ya, must maximise food choices & tummy space in a time-limited trip, lol!

HairyBerry said...

wow, that's a LOT of food in your car there! and did you guys buy any more food along the way back to kl? hehe...

PureGlutton said...

Nic: Oh, all that food was not for us only - i shared & distributed among in-laws and neighbour, too, hehe! Nope, didn't buy anything on the return journey - nothing worth buying along the NKVE!