Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

This article was first published in Crave section in The Malay Mail Sunday edition. Read it HERE.

The pulut kaya at Keng Nam Coffee Shop is to die for; a very traditional, Hainanese style of kaya that will leave you wanting seconds

One of the perks, if you can call it that, of living in Ipoh is the abundance of great spots for breakfast on Sunday mornings.

It’s true.

Aside from the usual suspects ie. dim sum restaurants, white coffee specialists in Old Town and the super-crowded curry mee (Xin Quan Fang) and hakka mee (Paris Restaurant; formerly Yin Yau Kui) stalls situated a few shops apart on Hugh Low Street in town, there are a few lesser-known names tucked away within the neighbourhood. The kopitiam that introduced me to, and subsequently left me in awe and completely head over heels in love with, pulut kaya is this resilient humble coffee shop named Keng Nam at the end of Cowan Street.

Pulut kaya or steamed glutinous rice served with coconut jam (or kaya, the quintessential Asian jam) was a crowd puller at Keng Nam back in the late 80s up to the early 90s, and still is enticing new fans and loyalists after all these years. I mean, it’s not hard to see why.

The ability to steam the glutinous rice to a perfect texture; neither too hard or soft and sticky is a tricky skill to master but the old lady has never faltered when it comes to sustaining the quality.

Sit back, relax and soak in the Sunday morning atmosphere with a cup of brewed milk tea

And the spoonful of golden, creamy kaya on top of every serving is the icing on the cake. The coconut and egg jam has quite an intense fragrance from the screw pine leaves (pandan) and just the right level of sweetness that leaves one craving for seconds after mopping up a plate in record time. But really, the portion is meant for a light snack than actual breakfast, so feel free to ask for a second helping. Or a third.

No one will judge you.

And it is not particularly hard to imagine why I was so enamoured by the taste when I was a kid back then. Sweet, creamy kaya paired with chewy bits of sweetened glutinous rice. A dream come true for the sweet-toothed, no doubt.

But that’s not their trump card, seriously. At least, not the only one. Read the rest of this entry »

Dry Chicken Kuey Teow (Kai See Hor Fun) from the new stall at Macy Cafe was good; yet a pale shadow of the former stall operated by the grumpy duo.

Time flies. Cliched as this may sound, it sure felt like yesterday when I kicked 2014 off with this BEST OF 2013 post; a series of 13 dining discoveries (or re-discoveries in some cases) of the previous year. We are now drawing the curtains on June and the first half of 2014, ushering in the second half of the year with heads held up high and prayers for better weather and haze-free skies ahead (in Klang Valley, at least) or your favourite team to win the World Cup.

For Motormouth, the thought of leaving Malaysia for a year in slightly less than 2 weeks time is daunting. An exciting yet disturbing sensation overwhelms me; a dreadful realisation that I may take time to cope with the change in environment, work load and well, to some extent, the longing for delicious Malaysian street food.

Dear readers, I will be moving down south to Singapore for a year.

Read the rest of this entry »