Motormouth From Ipoh – A Malaysian Food Blog

Since I haven’t been writing much about outstation travels around Perak, allow me to get back into the groove, and share a simple post about this restaurant (or rather, coffee shop?) that serves Taiping’s version of chicken noodle soup for breakfast. The name of the shop? Restoran Kakak.

One glance and you’d be forgiven for thinking this is another bowl of “Kai See Hor Fun” from Ipoh, or even a toned down version of Penang’s Koay Teow Th’ng.

The name of the shop is actually “Jia Jia” (literally translated to Every Family), but when converted to Malay (or English), it becomes Kakak.

A little misleading, for a traditional Chinese coffee shop to be named as such?

They were caught up in the bustling atmosphere, in an almost clockwork-like trance. The breakfast crowd was impressive, even on a weekday’s morning.

But of course, I did not stumble upon this quaint little coffee shop, tucked in the middle of a row of colonial shophouses on Jalan Pasar (Market Street) in Taiping town. A friend from Taiping actually introduced me to this shop, stating that this is his family’s favourite as well.

Usually serving noodle soups with chopped chillies, or ‘cili padi’ in soy sauce, at Restoran Kakak, you’ll get to dip those shredded chicken meat into their patented sambal instead

The familiar ensemble of koay teow or ‘sar hor fun’ (flat rice noodles), with chopped scallions and bean sprouts in soup does remind one of Ipoh’s famous “Kai See For Fun”, but in fact Kakak’s version is slightly different

The piping hot bowl of smooth koay teow arrived with pieces of shredded chicken meat, crunchy bean sprouts, and garnished with chopped scallions and fried shallots. The thin, almost translucent slivers of flat rice noodles was impressive, but personally not on the same level as Ipoh’s variety.

Don’t get me wrong here, the koay teow was good in its own right; being smooth and slithered down my throat with ease, but the noodles were generally thicker. Taiping has at least one noodles and koay teow factory (I know, for sure as I’ve visited the factory previously), hence the question of the source of supply was never raised.

Braised Chicken Feet in Soy Sauce was a tasty accompaniment, requiring no dipping sauce nor extra kick from the chopped chillies.

The soup was sweet, almost passing off as MSG-laden broth, but thankfully the thirsty after-effect was minimal. But the steel mugs of possibly-homemade spicy sambal sauce on every table was evidently not something you’d want to miss. Perfect as accompaniment to the “Liew” (stuffed fish paste, or better known as Yong Tau Foo), or the shredded chicken in your bowl of noodles.

Not an unfamiliar sight in the mornings, the shop can get REALLY packed, and we were even seated on the walkway in front of the shop.

The time is nigh. I should be going on various excursions from now on. After the two initial honeymoon months of inactivity, let’s see how fruitful this year’s food-hunting can be.

RESTORAN KAKAK
111, Jalan Pasar,
34000 Taiping,
Perak, Malaysia.
Opens daily from 6.00am until 1.00pm.
Closed on Mondays.
Here’s a GOOGLE MAP to Restoran Kakak, for future reference.
And if you’re not familiar with Taiping’s roads, hop over to my previous post on Yut Sun Hainanese Restaurant for the directions at the end of the post. Yut Sun is also situated on the same road as Restoran Kakak.

You can also read Places and Foods or Makantrip.com (they highly recommended the Kakak Ping, a combination of Nescafe + Barley!) for their takes on Restoran Kakak.