Blissfully …
March 8, 2010 | 1,180 views| 24 Comments » |
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A Love Story – Of Nuptials & Food, Glorious Food @ Hee Lai Ton Restaurant, Ipoh
1. The dashing couple erm … dashing through the aisle. You know lah … how ‘punctual’ Chinese wedding dinners can be. 
2. And then the Four Seasons/Four Happiness/Four-whatever was served, predictably. After the relentless wait. (But seriously, it was not that daunting)
3. Then of course, after the first platter of appetizers was walloped in a flash, chopsticks crossing like swords and all, the soup ensued. It’s either shark’s fins, fish lips soup (direct translation lah … dunno what’s Yue Soon Kang is called), or some other variant.
4. Ooohhh … Motormouth’s personal favourite. Crackly skin and gamey, tender meat. Erm, at least the poor piglet died a purposed, fruitful death? (I’m sadistic, eh?)
5. Steamed fish normally arrives on the table, in the midst of the meal. If it arrives too late, everyone would be slow in chomping the fish up, hence the risk of cold, hardened flesh. This pomfret was a REALLY fat one, almost 2 inches thick.
6. Of course lah, no wedding dinner without prawns. Prawns in Cantonese is ‘Har’, resembling the sound one makes when laughing. Or something. So it’s auspicious okay? And don’t you just hate those who can effortlessly peel those shells with chopsticks alone?!!
7. By now, everyone would be either : Snapping photos like make-believe models, Releasing the button of the pants to open up the extra storage space, OR Digging into the plateful of fibres in a most phobic/guilty mode.
8. And when the glutinous rice/noodles/fried rice came at the end of the feast, you can see people requesting for plastic bags. No, NOT for the stomach to churn out excessive contents, but the “Ta Pau” (take-away) tradition comes into play here.
9. But Hee Lai Ton Restaurant makes a rather delightful version of red bean sweet soup (or was it black sesame/black glutinous rice instead? Hmm …), and those dainty morsels of chewy mochi & Tau Sar Pneah-like creations.
Congrats to the newly-weds. Yes, a post in a different direction from Motormouth. And no, I’m not sick, schizophrenic, nor running out of topic to write about. But given the fact that the groom has persevered with the most bizarre of Motormouth’s antics, from his most annoying horns-a-blaring orchestra ensemble while being asleep to his omnipresent needs to snap any and every dish throughout the countless excursions, I felt compelled to pen (or rather, type) this story down, since I probably won’t be uploading the photos to Facebook in the near future.
Hehehe … The lazy bones kick into action, more often than not.
HAPPY MONDAY, and remember this, being all gloomy and Monday blues-y will affect the mood of those around you. So DON’T be. Instead, think about the many eating opportunities you are going to have throughout the week!
Hee Lai Ton Restaurant
No. 274, Jln Sultan Iskandar Shah,
30000 Ipoh,
Perak, Malaysia.
Tel: 05-255 0737
Directly beside the roundabout connecting Jalan Sultan Iskandar Shah (Hugh Low Street), Jalan Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah (Jalan Gopeng), and Jalan Sultan Idris (Brewster Road).
.. btw...
yum yum, I’m guilty. I like shark’s fin soup~
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hey, i guess hee lai ton has outlets in various states. cos i think there are restaurants of that same name in puchong and pudu over here. haven’t tried it before, but the food in your pics looks pretty decent. =)
i don’t even bother to peel prawn shells. ever since i was a kid, i’d just chew up the shells with the flesh and swallow everything…
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Yes. There are several branches elsewhere. Pudu there’s one that I know of.
Aiks! You spoke my mind! Sometimes they pan-fried the prawns til damn crunchy right? Hehehe … then the other guests on the table would be saying, eh ..why all your prawns left only the heads?!
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Love your style of writing this round — very entertaining! LOL…like Sean, I tend to just chew the shells with the flesh. Got choked once, and since then, rif peels prawns for me. =D
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I think I like the fish balls of the 4 seasons with a bit of soup in it. Was it good have never seen such a combination so far.
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
The fish balls-like morsels were good, as far as I can remember. But the Four Seasons platter was a bit weak, at Hee Lai Ton. Not as memorable.
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We love & hate wedding dinners for their arduous 6 course meals , loving those special dishes but hating the horrifying waiting time ..;& the yam seng to none in particular !
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
But we LOVE the YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM SENGGGGG !!!!!!!!
Just so we can make noise in a decent dining environment.
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after the 1st and 2nd dish… most of us will be feeling filling ya??
i like the description.. the swords! hahahahhaa
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Hahahaha …. how true eh? Crossing swords and such. Famine ma …. can’t help.
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Hee Lai Ton has been whipping out good Chinese dishes for quite a long time now… I love going there for wedding dinners (if my friend ever hold his/her wedding there lo) at the restaurant…
However, these days I become very boring to attend wedding dinners.. partly because the dishes have become more and more predictable.. sigh!!!
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Yeah, how true. I wish they change the order of the spread, or at least add something different for a change.
Duck maybe a good choice, and the fish need not to be steamed only.
I wonder what will happen if suddenly Chinese dinners served curries instead.
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Interesting shot of the dashing couple! Very papparazzi like.
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Hahaha ….. they were dashing in every sense of the word.
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The pomfret is really huge! Or your close up photo shot make it even bigger? Hehe…
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Hey it was REALLY thick, one of the thickest we’ve ever had.
Dunno whatever GH they injected into the fish, I cant be sure ….
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lovely.. i love weddings too. am a sucker for church weddings.. will be bawling my eyes out!
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Uiks! Ipoh also have Hee Lai Ton? the ones in Puchong,KL and Seri kembangan, S’gor were very good.
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J2Kfm Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Yes, been some time really, this Hee Lai Ton. But maybe overwhelmed by the Tai Thongs, Oversea and such.
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Hahaha
I believe they will hunt you down. I mean the environmental activist. :p
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hey u know what? i was thinking, why restaurants always quote so high for the set menu for weddings? i am sure if we order ala carte, they dont worth so much right?
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OMG, how I miss Malaysian-Chinese banquet dinners, just the first dish alone is enough to set my mouth watering. I loved going to weddings or birthday banquets when I was in Malaysia, never wanted to miss the great foods.
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The food seems very nice…….
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[...] The aforementioned restaurant occupied a spacious lot on Hugh Low Street (next to the current Hee Lai Ton Restaurant), and was one of the pioneers among dim sum eateries in Ipoh during the 80′s, aside from the [...]