Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

 De Dine Pasta (MYR20.90) – Succulent and fresh prawns (six of them) blanched lightly to retain the crunch, then served with spaghetti in a lightly spicy pasta sauce infused with sweetness from the prawn stock and caramelized onion and charred fresh garlic bits. This was definitely a must-try, and relatively value for money in my opinion

As much as I wanted to write in a more frequent manner this festive season, this old Dell laptop (9 years and counting …) that is somewhat still functional albeit at a very unpredictable manner kept me on the brink of insanity with constant restarting, warning messages popping up at the most inconvenient of times and loading times equivalent to the time one needs to finish a whole container of nga ku (arrowroot) chips.

Seriously.

The proliferation of cafes in Ipoh has opened up the selection for late night yum cha sessions; a very common routine among the Ipoh folks fulfilling our annual homecoming pilgrimage from all corners of the globe.

Quantity aside, sometimes the convenience comes at a price – compromised quality, overpriced yet mediocre fares and thus leading the pack back to more established (and somewhat more affordable) means; Old Town White Coffee, McDonald’s 24 hours outlets and even Starbucks outlets in Ipoh (yes don’t be astonished there is even a drive-thru outlet at Sunway City in Tambun).

Today’s review will be focused on De Dine Cafe in Bandar Baru Medan Ipoh, the area behind of Tesco in Ipoh Garden East where there is an ever-growing community of gourmet cafes, steamboat restaurants and Japanese eateries.  Read the rest of this entry »

Jamon Iberico (Spanish cured ham made from the prized black Iberico pig – read more here) with Rock Melon and Salad (MYR48) – Morsel Eatery could be the first place in Ipoh to daringly include iberico into their special menu

Happy Chinese New Year to all dear readers and followers of Motormouth from Ipoh and All About Ipoh!

Another year, another season to binge without guilt (okay, less guilt) and another period of get-together, planning for the meetings, catching up over lost time between family and friends,watching nonsensical Chinese movies in the cineplexes (and remember to visit GSC @ Ipoh Parade Mall for their entirely new movie halls; now numbering 11 and rivaling some of the best in Klang Valley), and of course …. prepare yourself for the slaughterhourse, ie: dining out can be a nightmare with restaurateurs doubling/tripling their prices through special “CNY menus”.

We completed our prayers and it was almost lunch hour. Thanks to a hint from a friend of mine, I steered the batalion of hungry souls over to the Greenhill area around Tower Regency Hotel and found myself parked right across the road from Morsel Eatery.

This looked exactly like another clone of Jose & Deli, Josephine or Myth @ M Boutique Hotel. At least, the outlook, colour tones and general vibes gave me that impression. But …. look beyond the misleading physical stereotype and be wowed by the passion in their cooking …   Read the rest of this entry »

Curry fish head from Up & Up Restaurant, at their second  branch in Bandar Baru Medan Ipoh, started about a month ago

“Motormouth has finally come home for the season” …

The homecoming feeling sank in rather late this year, probably contributed by a couple of reasons – some from a pure logical point of view (ie: the rapid change of pace due to nature of my work) while the rest was somewhat evoked by emotional barriers (ie: our family is not celebrating in a traditional sense to honour grandma’s demise in April last year).

However, upon touching down at the Ipoh airport yesterday afternoon, there’s somehow this unexplainable feeling of pride, gratitude and warmth gradually building up to a crescendo from deep inside. Watching the vast green fields, low-rise buildings and houses and unclogged roads set against a magnificent backdrop of limestone hills from above is therapeutic to say the least.

The Chinese New Year weather is back with a vengeance. Coupled with a gradually building up traffic congestion within the city area and major hotspots (read: shopping malls), traditionally I treat these minor nuisances with disdain, but as the homecoming trips are getting lesser and fewer in between, I now view the burgeoning crowd during festive seasons as a major boon to the local industry.

Well, let’s start with the marathon of Ipoh food stories (I guess this should be the part that is the most enticing); a curry fish head specialist that has been around since 1978. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was originally published on The Malay Mail Online. Read it HERE.

Noodles topped with minced meat from the beef noodles stall is delicious when paired with the various pieces of yong liew available for choosing

The expected reaction when one talks about breakfast in Ipoh’s old town — the area recognised internationally thanks to the popularity of white coffee — is usually geared towards visions of sipping the aromatic brew over at Sin Yoon Loong or Nam Heong; both at loggerheads (from a purely business point of view, of course) over at one end of Jalan Bandar Timah.

However, throughout the three years of working within the vicinity, I managed to uncover several places I went to again and again, some even on consecutive days or at least more than once a week.

The first unassuming kopitiam is Sin Lean Lee Coffee Shop, located across the road from Kong Heng coffee shop which is the hallmark of a traditional kopitiam in Ipoh.

First timers to the old town area are forgiven for choosing either the two white coffee specialists mentioned above, or Kong Heng/Thean Chun (also known as the Hall of Mirrors) next door for those are definitely Instragram-worthy places and one needs to tick certain boxes with first visits anyway.

This is just as how one cannot miss bean sprouts chicken at Lou Wong or dim sum at Foh San, no matter how strongly the locals advocate against eating at these established outlets.

However, veteran foodies should know better and explore the possibilities of expanding their eating experiences in Ipoh old town.

Let’s go back to Sin Lean Lee. This coffee shop opens early in the morning and closes after lunch. There are only a handful of hawker stalls here, but what they offer is quality cooking. Read the rest of this entry »

 #14 – Invasion of Cafes in Ipoh

Now you must be familiar with this tradition of revisiting highlights of the year (read 2012’s Top 12 and 2013’s Top 13), compiling a list of eateries that may NOT be necessarily new to Ipoh, but have left a mark in my memories among the hundreds of dining experience within the past 12 months.

And so, let’s kick the list off with #14, a bucket list of cafes that were mostly new (sorry as I could have missed a few significant ones such as Patisserie Boutique; the odd hours destroyed all my planning thus far) in Ipoh.

While I tried to pick ONE out of the many and place this in a spot among the Top 14, it proved to be not an easy exercise with more than a couple of dozen new cafes mushrooming across the city; dwarfing the almost stagnant growth of traditional kopitiams and even the in-betweens; Old Town White Coffee outlets and the likes.

Ben & Lynette, The Happy 8, The Roquette Cafe, El Negra Distro and Vanity Haus were but a few of the cafes covered during the festive CNY 2014 run earlier this year, though none among the list made an exactly impactful impression. Something’s Brewing on other hand, exceeded expectations slightly with the unconventional spread and fine choices of loose leaf tea brews, while Bougainvillea City Cafe capitalized on the chef’s training from Le Cordon Bleu. PT Grande whipped up a mighty delicious squid ink pasta, Tea & Tattle (ex co-owners of Something’s Brewing) upped the tea-loving fanaticism ante by creating more than 100 (!) choices of tea while Scenic Cafe Garden won hands down in the ambience category with a vivid reimagining of what a traditional kampung house would look like as a diner in the modern city.

CONTINUE TO #13 & #12 ON THE LIST

Every now and then you get incoherent, incomprehensible and utterly annoying barrage of rants from Motormouth.

Well, today is well suited for such an exercise after weeks of traveling, squeezing my brain juices dry like a piece of forcefully-wringed rag, seeing (tragic) things unfold in front of my beady eyes and yet, calmly I folded my arms, diverted my glance and here I am ‘surviving’ on a beautiful Friday morning in Singapore.

Munching a few pieces of leftover Seng Kee heong peng, sipping on a cup of Twinings’ English breakfast with honey and fresh milk and serenaded by well-paced, atmospheric tunes from Bon Iver (not very mainstream, but amazing band I tell you), it’s moment like this that allows me to release knotted brain wires, sit back and look at issues from a 3rd party perspectives, all the while taking deep breaths to quell the stomach-churning thought embedded deep within …. I will be a year older, a year wiser and 2014 will finally come to a pass. Read the rest of this entry »

Wanton Mee dressed in a mix of soy sauce and lard oil, with a handful of bean sprouts from Buntong, finely-chopped scallions, and bits of pork fat (notice those tiny, white speckles on top of the noodles?), served with a side of  fish balls and stuffed beancurd sheets in peppery soup.

There probably isn’t any other way to fully immerse in the Ipoh hawker experience than by zooming in with a bunch of equally (if not even more) voracious eaters, picking a seat by the streets or a table set up on the sidewalks, order a crazy load of food to be shared, and tucking in with hands and all.

Come sundown in this sleepy city of Ipoh, the number of hangouts made possible for the night owls (okay, depends on your definition though … in a serene, slow-paced city like this, anything beyond 10pm on a weekday is considered late) are seriously limited.

The wantan fish ball noodles stall is operated by a family with a somewhat short fuse.

I have always been thrown with this challenge to recommend supper spots in Ipoh. First of all, 24 hours establishments are limited to a handful of Mamak stalls and the fast food chains.

But obviously, one does not come to Ipoh for a serving of we-hope-they-are-chicken nuggets or a plate of freshly smoked Tandoori chicken.

The choices for hawker fares are aplenty, though most of these are situated at odd ends, for instance, the Menglembu Glutton Street (Wai Sei Kai) that I am going to cover in today’s chapter. Read the rest of this entry »