Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

Char Siew Wanton Noodle – Beautiful combination of springy egg noodles (very thin strands, if you noticed) tossed in a medley of savoury sauces, caramelized barbecued pork with ample proportion of fats, pork dumplings (wanton) in soup and an acerbic crunch from the pickled green chillies.

Okay, here’s another noodle story. One that deserves a mention, nevertheless. Not quite in the league of the legendary Da Pu noodles of Pudu yet, but the 6-7 years in business should be honoured with a pat on the shoulder.

For about 3 years, Chan Meng Kee was operating in Section 17, before moving to SS2 about few years ago. This noodle house took over from another famous brand; Ho Weng Kee (read this post from KY Speaks written in 2008), which also had a strong following back then.

A pity some had lamented, since Ho Weng Kee’s famous for their beef brisket noodles that’s supposedly “flavourful, fork-tender and moist after long hours of cooking in slow fire”.

Did Chan Meng Kee live up to the hype generated by its predecessor? Read the rest of this entry »

For all the posts on this Hong Kong/Macau food fest, click HERE.

Extremely thin strands of egg noodles with a prominent aroma of lye water (alkaline water, or ‘kan sui’) made up bowls after bowls of noodle in soup with either dumplings, beef brisket, pig’s parts, etc.

At the time of posting this, you must be scratching your head wondering what the heck has gotten into Motormouth lately. DAILY posts?!! Almost unheard of, since … erm, aeons ago when I was back in Ipoh and leisure time exceeded working hours by a far margin. After all, stuck in traffic jams after office hours was almost unheard of back then …..

Before this passion to put my thoughts into words fizzles out, I’d better keep this momentum going. After all, this trip was more food hunt and shopping than sight-seeing, as opposed to the last trip back in 2008. So there will be more posts on FOOD (hurray?) than anything else.

Still in a daze, I started this week by waking up in Hong Kong, then journeyed to Macau for 2 nights, before coming back to Malaysia for a subsequent night, and finally travelled down south to Singapore last night. I am back in PJ now, but this weekend will be spent in Ipoh (double hurray?!!).

Since it’s Friday (that darn Rebecca Black’s tune kept playing in my head, for some incomprehensible reason!), let’s keep today’s post short, shall we?

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Woh Heng Coffee Shop – Still preserving the facade from the yesteryear’s, albeit with a minor facelift that renders the nostalgic charm still intact yet relevant.

This is another God-knows-how-long-was-it post. Dug deep and discovered a treasure trove of pictures left to rot from the olden days (okay, so less than half a decade’s not considered antique … but still, the memories linger). And thus, come this Friday + May 13th, let’s put all revolting ideas to rest.

For one brief moment; just relax, sit back and forget about the mundane day-to-day routine.

Concentrate on the happier times in life, when the mouth works and the senses get stimulated from the myriad of flavours, textures and elements.

Ipoh famous dry curry flat rice noodles (hor fun) – This one came with slices of lean barbecued pork, cockles, shredded chicken and lots of bean sprouts. Conventional, yet can’t help but salivate at the thought of slurping this up with an icy cold glass of Ipoh white coffee or milk tea by the side.

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#1 – The almost legendary (nomadic?) Beach Street’s aunty selling banana pancakes with raisin and lots of toasted sesame seeds. One of a kind, no doubt.

#2 – The Hokkien Mee (Prawn Mee to you and me) with mantis prawns. Just like how Ah Leng Char Kuey Teow upped the ante with the addition of the ‘premium’ crustaceans.

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Signature freshwater prawn (sang har) noodles with a 45 minutes poached egg swimming in a cauldron of prawn bisque; hearty, sinful and extremely addictive. (RM26.90/USD9)

There was this one time when we decided to venture out to Sunway Giza Mall for dinner; more to because Kota Damansara to me was an entirely new area; uncharted territories if you will. But then again, the sheer lack of in-depth knowledge about the food there got us wandering off to Waroeng Mas Timoer (hope I spelled that right); a Sundanese cuisine specialist. The food was not bad, the various sambal was FIERY to the point me choking on the food.

And trust me when I say my threshold for spicy food is rather high.

Anyway, fast forward a month or so, that place has ‘chup lup’!!! (ceased operations, tutup) Wah, high turnover of restaurants/cafes here, that’s what came to my mind. But the Coffee Chemistry experience was good; and set off wagging tongues I supposed, judging from various reviews thereafter.

For this time around, let’s see how My Cookbook fares; a restaurant serving a myriad of Asian cuisine with a twist. And believe you me, this ain’t another passe of a ‘char chan teng‘ (Hong Kong style of cafe) ….. Read the rest of this entry »

Pontian Wanton Mee – Comes in 3 different sizes; the smallest size being the “S” priced at RM4.00/USD1.30 seemed to be enough for a light dinner. Bouncy, egg noodles without the curls.

WHAT?! Wanton Mee again ah? Wait wait, Before you go and throw tantrums over Motormouth’s tiresome ordeal of seeking for dinner every single night, bear in mind that in KL (generally), a few types of street food tend to stand out amongst the crowd.

Of course, let’s not take into consideration the various Ipoh Chee Cheong Fun, Kai See Hor Fun (Chicken Kuey Teow Soup) or Penang Char Kuey Teow. Those imitators/emulators never failed to amaze me. Not so much for the authenticity but more for their tenacity. In other words; thick-skinned. But let’s not digress.

The ambience should be sufficient to calm a child with ADHD down in an instance. Or maybe not.

And can you imagine this was already my third or fourth wantan mee experience in KL? In a matter of 3 weeks, I have already ventured a few places, and ended up with more or less the same stuff.

Mostly noodles, there was one day when I had pan mee TWICE in a day! Silly me for waltzing in a cool manner without realizing that the shop sells only pan mee. Better let the instincts lead the way, rather than the hunger pangs. Anyway for today folks, let’s see what this specific Pontian Wanton Noodles (with 60 years of history, no less!) in SS15 of Subang Jaya managed to dish up …. Read the rest of this entry »

If he says wanna chop you into 18 pieces, would you have run or still stand around and snap? 🙂

Okay, since we were on yong tau foo, fish ball noodles and the gang, today let’s see some wantan mee for a change. And given the fact that KL’s populated by floggers (food bloggers, not the ones in prison), bloggers, vloggers (video bloggers?), and logheads (hehe, everywhere also got …), getting a breakfast-brunch-lunch-dinner-etc partner ain’t exactly hard.

Nor rocket science. Just ask, and guaranteed someone somewhere will have an idea on where to eat, what’s new and chic, as well as what NOT to eat.

Plain Jane of So Bland? Not really. For sometimes, the simplest works best. Trust Koon Kee Wantan Mee to bring back the flavours of the yesteryear’s ….

And so, Ken of Foodpoi became my victim one fine morning. Hahaha …. though you can’t say that you’re not privileged (ahem, cannot ah?) to be doing good deeds like bringing Motormouth around for food in KL, given the fact that I’m new and looking for quality street foods in KL can be categorized into an Amazing Race-impossible road block. 🙂

Let’s read up on why this certain Koon Kee in Damansara Uptown is far better than that other Koon Kee on Petaling Street …… Read the rest of this entry »