CNY Set Meals

Chinese New Year is a festival celebrated with much fanfare for any Chinese family, regardless of poor or rich. The rich will have 10-course meals with dishes fit for a king, while the poor make do with lap ngap and lap cheong and abit of soy sauce over white rice (a rare luxury). How does the middle-class feast? The middle-class indulge in a little bit of the rich but will still behave like the poor- choosing dishes that are worth the money.

For most of us falling into the middle-class category, CNY Set Meals is the way to go for that CNY feasting experience without burning a big hole in the pocket. After all, there are many restaurants that offer set meals ranging from RM199-RM999, enough to feed a table of 10.



Ours is the RM398 package from Mun Cheong Restaurant, a relatively established and well-known restaurant famed for hosting wedding dinners in the quaint little town of Ipoh.



The obligatory CNY appetizer- Yee Sang. Ingredients that I love most? The crackers and salmon!



What irritates me most of the time during lou sang is how brash some people are. They just don't give a damn about 'lou-ing' it properly. Most of the time you'll find the aftermath of a lou sang is a very messy table! Honestly? I don't really care about saying all the wishes when 'lou-ing'.



Some abalone slices, brocollies, mushrooms and fatt choi (black moss?) dish. I wish to think it's authentic abalone though... most of the time when they're sliced like this, it gives me an impression that they're just another artificial abalone made to look and taste like real abalone.



So, authenticity of abalone here is questionable.



I think this what the Malays will call "Ikan Tiga Rasa" or in English "Three-Flavour Fish"- onion, red and green capsicum.



Some veges with bonuses that come in the form of cashew nuts!



Prawns for New Year is always auspicious.



Just like my wish to my Dad on CNY- To have big prawns and big fish!



Thai Style Fried Chicken with Shredded Mango. Tasted nothing out of the ordinary.



Lotus leaf rice. Geez, it's my least favourite dish in any chinese restaurant dinners.



And the el cheapo dessert. Whatever happened to pan fried Shanghainese pan cake or slow boiled red bean with dried mandarin skin kinda desserts?

Oh I forgot. It's a CNY Set Meal after all where everything has to be cheap and fast and worth the money.


Mun Cheong Restaurant
511, Jalan Pasir Puteh,
31650 Ipoh,
Perak.

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

Eat, ate, eaten in Ipoh!

[Continuation post of CNY in Ipoh...]

Ipoh, they say is a factory that manufactures leng luis which I cannot deny (*ahem, shamelessly points self) but more distinctively is a land of good food. I shall not harp on the obvious as it is already a very well known and accepted fact :)

Even Wikipedia says so.



We brought HB to our favourite Kai See Hor Fun (Shredded Chicken Hor Fun) stall which is run and managed by E's music teacher at Lok Wee Kui coffeeshop, just opposite the famous Salted Chicken. I've blogged about this here. Seriously, this is one bowl of kai see hor fun that I will not be sick of. It's just so darn good, I love the added shrimp oil for the extra flavour and colour! It was so good I had a regular bowl on Chor 2 and a big serving on Chor 3 before embarking home...



One of the must have in Ipoh would be the big fat juicy beansprouts, known only to be grown and available in Ipoh due to the natural limestone water. HB isn't a big fan of beansprouts but he gave his 2 thumbs up!



At the same coffeeshop, HB and Z had the Chee Cheong Fun in just sesame oil and a little soy sauce with some fried shallots and preserved green chillis. We have always grown up to love this version of the CCF as it is 1) simple 2) delicious 3) delicious 4) delicious 5) erm, delicious???

The only place where I found this style of CCF served is in Petaling Street, blogged previously here.





At the same coffeeshop again, we ordered some fried wantan, fu pei, meatballs, fishballs and fishcakes. It was nothing worth boasting, maybe because when we eat at Lok Wee Kui, we only go for the kai see hor fun and nothing else. For these 'liu', we'd prefer the ones at Dai Shu Geok. I miss the fried 'liu' so much!



Another famous item on the list is Ipoh White Coffee. We went to the place where Ipoh White Coffee was born, somewhere along Jalan Bukit Timah where all the famous coffeeshops are located- Sin Yuan Loong, Nam Heong and Kong Heng. We went to Nam Heong as Sin Yuan Loong was closed. There were 4 of us but only 3 white coffees and a herbal drink. Guess who didn't have the white coffee despite telling us that Wikipedia said Ipoh White Coffee is famous? ;)



Ipoh Char Kuey Teow to satisfy our CKT cravings!



And a bowl of assorted Yong Tou Foo to have a try on alittle bit of this and alittle bit of that ;) Oooh, note that the fishballs are not in conventional 'ball' size but flattened! Looks abit like those black white pieces in Go (a board game). The YTF taste pretty good, with the fish paste fresh and springy.



Quite miserly, right? An eggtart into 4 quarters. Nah, we were too full to have one ourselves. Tastewise, it's decent but my favourite would still be the ones from Hong Kee @ Cockman Street which is rumoured to have 40+ layers of pastry. Unbeatable. Yum yumm.

Just when we thought it was impossible to get anyone to snap a picture for us (there was an absolutely crazy crowd, packed like sardines, busy waiters... HB assured us that someone will be able to take a picture for us, he can ALWAYS get one.



So, yeah a kind hearted soul snapped a picture of us thanks to the persuasive power of a famous blogger :)

Read HB's take on Nam Heong Coffeeshop, from a Sibu boy point-of-view.

Dai Shu Geok @ Ipoh

Ipoh hor fun

Over the last weekend, my college friends suggested a jalan-jalan-cari-makan daytrip to Ipoh, the land of good food. And so we embarked on this gastronomic journey up north with a van-load of teenage kids who has never/almost never set foot in Ipoh. It was a long weekend as the following Monday was a Public Holiday, there was a traffic jam on the highway! But our consolation to being stuck in a jam is having the opportunity to be part of the 'wannabe convoy' of Fast & Furious cars from Singapore- all in all, we spotted 3 Subaru Imprezas, 1 Nissan Skyline, 1 Lamborghini, 1 BMW 3 series and 3 Porches. When we exited the Simpang Pulai toll, we saw these cars again. I guess they were on a day trip to Ipoh all the way from Singapore as well!

p/s: If you saw a Toyota van with a bunch of teens jumping with excitement at the sight of F&F cars, that was probably us :p


Comfort but sinful food

As usual, to kickstart the gastronomical trip, my ideal place would be the famous Dai Shu Geok (literally meaning 'under the big tree'). Located under a really big tree (which ultimately provides the shade from the scorching sun) at Jalan Pasir Pinji (my friend from Sungai Petani demanded to know what 'Pinji' means, he finds it awfully funny I don't know why???), Dai Shu Geok can be located very easily if you know where the famous Tuck Kee Restaurant is. It is so famous that if you ask every single Ipoh folk, they will know it. It's like asking the KL-ites where Mid Valley is.

There was already quite a crowd when we arrived at noon time. This is basically how the system works around here if you want food on your table. First, pick your items using the bowl and thongs that you'll see at the counter. Then hand over your bowl to the lady taking the order, she will ask your choice of noodles. Tell her where you're sitting and your yummy fried bowl of goodies will be delivered to your shortly. Easy peasy.










Fried goodies

I picked alittle bit of everything because everything seems so good! My favourite would be the fried fu pei which I have mentioned before that only Ipoh I can find fu pei with fish paste in it! They're so yummy! Another favourite of mine is the fish cake. Best eaten when it is freshly out of the wok as the fish cake is very soft but still tangy!! I can have that for lunch and dinner for consecutive days!


Ipoh transluscent hor fun

We had the obligatory Ipoh hor fun which is transluscent and big fat juicy tauges. The broth is clear and really goes well with all the fried goodies.


Popiah- RM1.50 each

A friend ordered the Popiah and it was great as well. Not as a main dish but absolutely good as a side/appetizer.

The lunch was very comforting although I was so full (trying to fill up on my quota of months I haven't been eating all these... hehehe). Total bill was only about RM5 per person for all the food we had. So cheap and worth all the calories/cholestrol :D


Related post:
Dai Shu Geok Revisited


Dai Shu Geok 'Under Big Tree'
Jalan King, Pasir Pinji,
31650 Ipoh, Perak.

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

Chicken & prawn kuey teow @ Ipoh

Chicken & prawn Ipoh kueh tiow

This is one of the very backdated post. This Ipoh makan trip was 3 months back! Hehe, didn't I told you guys before that laziness and procrastinating is my forte?


Busy whipping up yummylicious noodles!

Located at the corner of Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri @ Ipoh is a kopitiam which has been around for ages... Can be very busy and packed with people at all times! I suppose this is nothing uncommon when you're in a food haven like good ol' Ipoh town. Anyway, right at the corner of this busy kopitiam is a stall which sells chicken & prawn kuey teow. We have been patronizing this shop ever since my sister, Eiling learns her Gu-zheng. What has kuey teow and Gu-zheng have in common, I hear you ask?

Well, the 'chef' in white above was Eiling's Gu-zheng teacher! Haha, didn't know a hawker can be a master in such fine art as Gu-zheng, did you? We have been loyal and regular customers of his noodles too.


Soda gembira

Hehe nola, it's not called soda gembira... it's one of the 'specialty' drink at this kopitiam, some rose syrup with 7up topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I remember my sisters and I used to pester our mom for this drink when we were younger but after growing up, we'll stick to the good ol' refreshing sugarcane. But the color looks pretty, doesn't it?


Ze prawns, ze chicken, ze noodles and ze chives

I have tried many chicken & prawn noodles but nothing comes close to this one. It is inarguably the best and our favourite too. And I absolutely love the orangy prawn oil... the ones I have had all come in pale orangy color and the chives, you can barely count with your fingers. This one comes loaded with chives (I used to dislike this green but some things change when you grow up!). Soup's so good that we always gulp till the last drop!


Prices- Small at RM3.80, Big at RM4.50

Honestly speaking, there's no cheap food in Ipoh anymore. It used to be around RM2.80 per bowl before this little town caught up with the rising costs and inflation. Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind paying a little extra for something good.

And just something extra,


Porky noodles

My favorite pork noodles of all time. I wrote a review on this before, so click here. At the background is my favoritest drink of all time- gingko barley! Satisfaction to the core!



Chicken & prawn kuey teow
Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri,
30300 Ipoh.

(I can't recall the name of the kopitiam, but it is located opposite the famous salted chicken shop, Aun Kheng Lim and Kamdar textile shop)

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

kedai kopi kong heng @ ipoh

malaysians' favourite- satay! (chicken, pork, pig intestines, pig blood)

when in ipoh, ask any locals to suggest kopitiams with good food and nostalgic ambience, a few names come into mind: nam heong and sun yun loong for the white coffee, thean chun (also known as house of mirrors) for the char kuew teow, and kong heng for the satay, popiah and caramel custard.

shameful to say, i have never tasted kong heng's satay for the past 14 years i was born and bred in ipoh! it was only when i moved to kl and started reading these food blogs that i discovered such gems within the quaint little town of ipoh. well, as they say... better late than never!


barbequed and chewy

initially we were recommended by khian to have the famous caramel custard but unfortunately we were abit too late as they have sold out. not knowing what to order, i saw a plate of satay on everybody's table and decided to follow the crowd. if everyone's having it, it sure must be good eh? we were thrusted with a plate of satay consisting of chicken meat, pork, pig intestines, and pig blood. i was quite confused, not knowing how the system works but later on found out that they will thrust you with a plate of assorted satays, you eat what you want and you can reorder the type of meat you like, just leave the ones you dont want and they will calculate based on how many sticks you ate.

oh just a word of caution: the leftover uneaten satays will be 'reheated' again and served to the next customers. i'm thinking that the pig blood satays must have been recycled alot since generally alot people don't take satay to that extreme!

while the chicken and pork tastes quite normal (until i can't really make out whether its chicken or pork that i am eating), the pig intestines won our hearts as it was our first having such exotic satays and chewy, just what intestines should taste like! moreover, it's bbq'ed! ok think i sound like a carnivorous -___-


chee cheong fun in soy sauce and sesame oil

just thought i'd try the chee cheong fun out but was quite disappointed as it wasn't what i had expected. the petaling street chee cheong fun is still among the best! my definition of chee cheong fun would either be the hk style with prawns and char siew fillings or just plain ccf in sesame oil and soy sauce- YUM!


egg tea ('dan cha')

last but not least, we had the 'dan cha' instead of white coffee as we both have never tried this before. i saw the next table ordering this and decided to follow suit. 'dan cha' is a type of herbal drink with a hard boiled egg. we found it a very interesting combination, something herbalish to wash down the sinful teatime.


kedai kopi kong heng
75, jalan bukit timah,
ipoh.
business hours: 7am-4.30pm

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]

ong kee chicken tauge @ ipoh

onn kee (tauge ayam)

they say, "if you have not eaten chicken rice balls, then you have not been to malacca!"

well, the same goes for ipoh. if you have not eaten the famous kuew teow chicken tauge, then it's almost as good as you have not been to ipoh!


jalan yau tet sin, ipoh

located along jalan yau tet sin, ong kee is a rival to the more famous lou wong. if you are a local or know any locals, they will probably tell you that ong kee is a better choice as lou wong is too commercialized and often very crowded. so, being once a local and listening to another local, we opted for ong kee instead of lou wong.


translucent hor fun

the best noodles to go with chicken and tauge would of course be the famous ipoh hor fun, which is translucent and smooth. this pairing is match made in heaven, the thought of slurping down smooth hor fun and then picking up a piece of smooth steamed chicken with soy sauce is already enough to make me mouth water!


steamed chicken with soy sauce and sesame oil

to be honest, there was nothing spectacular about the chicken. it was nice nonetheless, just how the chicken should be.


big fat juicy tauge

another ipoh famous must-eat is none other than the big fat juicy tauge (beansprouts). many say that it is because of the water used to plant these beansprouts that contribute to the bigness fatness and juicyness. ipoh is surrounded by scores of hills and mountains (with natural water source), so such claims is not without its truth. whenever we make our family trips back to ipoh, we will without fail bring back a big bagful of beansprouts home (very cheap too).


awesome meatballs

this my first time having the meatballs and i must say it is not too bad, although my fav meatballs would still be the ones from wan hou steamboat- big and juicy, yum!

chicken tauge hor fun is a must have when you are in the small little ipoh town of good food. i wonder when will be my next time having this again...

till then, happy independence day and a long weekend!


ong kee tauge ayam
jalan yau tet sin,
30300 ipoh.

[disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are based on my personal views, tastebuds and preference and may vary for others. please dont sue me, i dont have money. kthxbye.]