Ipoh

We woke up, ate some breakfast in the apartment, and headed out.  Today we are headed to Ipoh.  In the 1880's, Ipoh was know for mining tin.  Today it is know for its food, notably nga choi kai, or Beansprout Chicken Rice.  

After a somewhat traffic-laden drive, we arrived in town just after 1:00 PM, a perfect time for lunch and a perfect time to try nga choi kai.  Well...everyone else tried the chicken part of it, I had the beansprouts, and noodle soup with fish balls.  The entire meal with drinks that fed all 4 of us cost 96 MYR => $21.50 USD.

While we were eating, we noticed something or someone making tapping noises.  We looked back and saw this man.  He was making bags of Gula Ketuk (Tap Sugar), a type of candy made from hard maltose flavored with sesame and ginger.  Gula Ketuk is made in bulk in a round pan and is broken using a special chisel tool as seen below:

Of course I had to buy some for 7 MYR => $1.60.  It is sweet, crunchy, and delicious.

Another food that Ipoh is know for is biscuits.  I bought a Salted Egg Lotus and a Taro Biscuit (the purple one).  Both were very good, although the salted egg one actually had an egg yolk in the middle...a bit different, but somehow worked.  

If there is a line, there has to be something good at the front of it. In this case it was Soybean Milk And Tau Fu Fah (a block of silky tofu sitting in white sugar syrup.  I bought one of each, but I had my soybean milk with black jelly in it...delicious.

By this time our apartment was ready, so we drove there, parked, and relaxed for a bit before heading out to explore the old town part of Ipoh.  We are only staying here for one day, so we have to see as much as we can today.

Like other cities in Malaysia, Ipoh has some very nice street art of which many are located in one area named Mural Art's Lane, just before crossing the bridge to the old town.

Wow...just some incredible art...right?!?

​We then walked across the bridge to old town, and of course there was a cow herder with his cows under the bridge.

Old town had its own amazing street art.

Wait...what is that over there across the street?  Is that a picture of the Mona Lisa drinking a beer?  Sorry...I didn't take a photo of it :-(.  We walked over to investigate and noticed the sign had a list of beers and also had "Toddy" listed.

So...while watching YouTube videos about food and drink in Malaysia, I came across a video of someone drinking Toddy in a bar in Kuala Lumpur.  He did not say where this bar was, so I have to hunt it down when we get there, but I have been looking for it during our Malaysia trip so far, with no luck.  Is this the stuff?  We got a glass and realized that it probably isn't the stuff since this is made by a brewery and it is less than 5% alcohol where the actual Toddy is more of a wine, so would have a higher alcohol content.  Oh well..the search goes on.

It was then I realized, as we were drinking a drink made by a small brewery, that this was actually a brewery...here in Malaysia.  So here is our obligatory brewery visit photo:

By the way...if you are interested in breweries, then visit our brewery blog.  At this point, we have visited 684 unique breweries.  Click here if you are interested.

After the beer we continued on our Ipoh Old Town walk including the famous "Concubine Lane," AKA "Second Wives Lane."  Back in the 1890's this is where opium, gambling and brothels could be found.  Later, it became a residential area where the concubine of rich Chinese tycoons were reputedly kept.  Now it is a tourist heaven with food and souvenirs.

We did a little more walking around town to see some of the British colonial-era architecture.

Han Chin Pet Soo, Miner's club (1929)

Cool looking townhouses

Perak River Hydro- Electric Power Company (1930)

S.P.H. De Silva Building (1890's)

One of the more interesting buildings is this delapitated Municipal Car Park.  It is supposedly the first multi-storied car park built in Malaya in 1962.

Here is a cool old building with a paper airplane mural painting on it.

Wow...it got late and it is time for dinner.  By the time we found a place that was opened it was after 8 PM.  We didn't know what to order, so the waitress suggested these two dishes.  The first one is called 炒老鼠粉 (fired mouse noodles).  I guess it looks like a bowl of mouse tails? The second dish is something...I don't know what it was called, but it was good.  We washed it all down with a Tiger beer and a couple of 100 Plus' (a gatorade-like drink).  Total price was 39.60 MYR => $8.89 of which almost half of it was the cost of the beer.

We got back to the apartment around 9 PM, jumped into bed, a bit of blogging, and then sleep.  Tomorrow we drive up into the mountains east of Ipoh.  Until then...