Food Cravings Back In Ipoh

After a month or so, I went back to Ipoh this week for my weekend getaway. At a steady 110-120 at the highway going back at a wrong time, that is after midnight; reached home at 2.30 a.m. An ungodly hour, well since because I had some things to finish in KL before going back.

I just really missed the food there. It costs 10-20 percent less but the same quantity you get in K.L. Kampar fish ball noodles at my favorite shop, my favorite kuey tiau noodles and spring rolls at Old Town Ipoh, etc..A bowl of wanton noodles, medium size is at $3.80 plus double amount of small meat dumplings. In K.L it's within $4.50 to $5.00 but less dumplings!


But since today's the Dumpling Day (rice wrapped in banana leaf for Chinese people) I had the chance to have one, but sadly I will never get to enjoy grandma's dumplings, since she was no longer here, gone. The last time she made those, I think it was back in '05, when I just started working in K.L.


And then there's the Kampung Simee egg tarts and ("baked siew pau") that costs just $1 a piece, and it's something that I wanted to get each time I'm back in Ipoh. I had to rush to the Simee wet market in the mornings no later than 10 a.m, since the vast supply comes from early morning. I heard Lim Kit Siang was there weeks before election meeting the consituents there, and I saw the stall selling those stuff....yum!

Fine Dining In Ipoh Part I

I was in Ipoh since last Thursday until Sunday. I remembered a story that my dad told me a few weeks back that he took the family to a place at Brewster Road (Jalan Sultan Idris Shah) opposite Padang Ipoh for dinner. That place was simply called Brewsters (opposite the famous F.M.S Bar.)

The restaurant's signature dish is called Pork Knuckles. Unfortunately, when I went there that day, I was told that they only sell that on weekends.

But there are some signature dishes that after that round, I really enjoyed it. I remembered my mother tried going there one Monday in November while we're all in Cameron Highlands for the family trip, but it was closed.


The best starter dish would be the Pan Fried Sauted Mushrooms. The mushrooms are those button ones. Thursday's special includes a Ham Salad - the ham was cured with some honey and vinegrette and with some salad.


Besides the pork knuckle, one of the dishes was called the Wicky Wicky Pork Chop. Served with mint, mushroom sauce with potato salad, the pork was deep fried with a crispy skin outside. It's fillet portion too!

I recently learned that they had successfully acquired the liquor selling license, which means, in the next month or so, they would start selling wine there as well. Upstairs, is a special room catered for parties that can accommodate 60 people.

I find the pricing there is reasonable. The serving size is quite big given its price. It's worth the food there. Another place for fine dining would be Indulgence, but it will cost another 20 percent more for the same quality of food.

I thought I saw this in a Star Central Metro article, but instead, I found out through my blog buddy Howsy. The owner was one Anne Dass, whom I thought she was someone else until I read the post.

Basically, it's easy to find the restaurant, except having the trouble to find parking. It's directly opposite the FMS Bar and just next the the Perak NUBE office.

Address: No 5, Jalan Sultan Idris Shah, 30000 Ipoh, Perak

And You're Saying About Oil?

Earlier on New Year, Najib was saying that the nation will go bankrupt if the opposition takes charge of the government that is willing to lower the prices (headed by the opposition).

You see, the government has used the $4.4 billion of subsidies saved in 2006 - resulted in increase of 30 cents per liter just to bail out the Port Klang Free Zone project, all because of Ling and Chan. With that, there was no extra development of facilities for the people in 2007 or almost. Tax payer money got wasted away. And they have owed most petroleum companies in Malaysia of the total subsidy to be paid for. That is why BHP and Exxon Mobil are slowly selling their stake in Malaysia to other fuel companies because of insufficient operation funds due to unclaimed money. Also, some other fuel companies are finding it hard to trade here or dig oil because of the extensive red tape in registration.

Because of the subsidy money emptied out, they will want to increase it after Chinese New Year and after general elections. With Malaysiakini reporting that the MCA elections put on hold until probably April, we can suggest that election is coming on March 15 2008. Then it is after that event where they will say petrol goes up....!

And before the opposition makes the response to that statement, we are hit by cooking oil shortage - that resulted in rationing. That, of course was due to the panic buying due of rumors of oil increase on new year and coming Chinese New Year. It means the government could be scoring an own goal behind their yard. Now you call others of mismanaging money whereas the government is mismanaging?

Image by Mob

Sometimes, if the oil prices are increased here, it presents a high chance for future price deflation. Matthias Chang has theorized that:

Many products are made from petroleum. So when petroleum price goes up, so would products derived there from as the costs in making these products have increased.

In time to come, as more and more people have less money to spend (same amount of wages, but lower purchasing power) they will buy less goods and services. Sellers faced with decreasing demand, will lower the prices (sales, bargains etc.) to attract buyers. This is already happening massively in USA in the last Christmas spree.

With increasing foreclosures, rising bankruptcies, credit card debts / defaults, more and more people will not be able to buy things. The “consumer boom” will collapse. In this final scenario, prices will generally collapse also. Businesses will close down, as there will be no demand for their products.

THIS IS PRICE DEFLATION.

My friend Eric did mention something of canceling out the effects from petrol increase. From that, I also stumbled upon an interesting piece of read that was sent by my dad to me. It describes tips - some scientific - yet useful from a petroleum insider working in San Jose, California. The four most potential tips that can be used to minimize or cancel effects from petrol increase when refueling your car are:

1. Fill up your car or truck in the morning when the temperature is still cool. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground; and the colder the ground, the denser the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands, so if you're filling up in the afternoon or in the evening, what should be a gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature-compensated so that the indicated gallonage is actually the amount pumped. A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don't have temperature compensation at their pumps.

2. If a tanker truck is filling the station's tank at the time you
want to buy gas, do not fill up; most likely dirt and sludge in the tank is being stirred up when gas is being delivered, and you might be transferring that dirt from the bottom of their tank into your car's tank.

3. Fill up when your gas tank is half-full (or half-empty), because the more gas you have in your tank the less air there is and gasoline evaporates rapidly, especially when it's warm. (Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating 'roof' membrane to act as a barrier between the gas and the atmosphere, thereby minimizing evaporation.)

4. If you look at the trigger you'll see that it has three delivery settings: slow, medium and high. When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to the high setting.You should be pumping at the slow setting, thereby minimizing vapors created while you are pumping. Hoses at the pump are corrugated; the corrugations act as a return path for vapor recovery from gas that already has been metered. If you are pumping at the high setting, the agitated gasoline contains more vapor, which is being sucked back into the underground tank, so you're getting less gas for your money.

Also, do you remember that Citibank is aggressively promoting the 5% rebate credit card with Shell? I was contemplating of switching my existing card to that one but I was warned not to do so. According to smartconsumerbanking.com, the condition mechanism of the card will kill you before you can claim your rebate. Read here (this also applies to other cards like the UOB 4% rebate one):

Again, our friend Mr. Chang, I have to admit that he is no Sarah Connor but sometimes having their pleas and warnings fell to deaf ears could be the start of punishment for our ignorance. If Sarah's warnings of nuclear apocalypse on August 29 1997 rings true after an apocalypse perhaps we might consider Mr. Chang's rantings well. But this time better if before the disaster strikes. Where is Malaysia's safety net if an economic meltdown happens later on?

Tis' The Spirit of Christmas

In layman, we say Happy Birthday Jesus!

I got invited by my aunt for Christmas dinner. Boy, this was the first time since 98 where I had dinner with the same group of people and relatives. Except this time, there's no turkey, since the price of the halal ones shot up tremendously than those non-halal. (some of them were held by Customs in ports).

I thought I could not make it there since there was a bad jam on the highway (the first half of the journey) I got delayed by about 15 minutes or so due to the traffic there. I supposed it's either the rain or police roadblock that causes that, but it was due to the former.

It was easy for me to find my aunt's house as I was given the address a week before. Everybody was there. There are Christmas presents lying at one corner of the house.

I remembered that while my aunt was in Ipoh visiting my grandfather, she took one alley cat home and raised that bloke. That bloke is called Patches and he has grown up. Now he weighs a ton!


There's the great sense of camaraderie among the family before dinner kicked off at 8 pm.


Look at that dinner. Rice salad, fruit juices, wine, roast lambs, roast chicken, fruit salad....can't finish it all!


The desert...dark chocolate log cake bought at Coffee Bean.


While we're resting. I just tested shooting it at the compressed size and in sepia tones.


Time for presents. That's what I got. T-shirt, Adidas toiletries, CDs, socks and shirts.

There's chit chat...with all the jokes....!

That's what Christmas is all about. I just loved it. They said that they wanted to have my brother being part of the show next year. They know that he's studying in Cyberjaya coming February...

Spoilt Food

When I came back from Ipoh on Tuesday night, I thought the small fridge in the room was running. The room got cleaned up by the landlady's Indonesian maid, who started working since early of the month. If the fridge's running, I would be hearing the humming sound of the motor behind.

But the fridge was switched off for many days! And when I opened it up, almost all the food inside got moldy. Even my fruit juice got spoiled as there are molds on the cap. I am not sure of the butter as there is little left. The left-over jelly that I brought back from my cousin's dinner got moldy. I could even smell molds.

Yuck..so much for my fruit juice. I guess the maid had forgotten to leave the fridge running....

Malaysian Delicacy Health Advisory Warning

I thought this was a sick joke or something, but when I read through an interesting piece of read that my father told me about, I started to ask myself whether Malaysian delicacies here are something that should not be taken so often.

Hell, I was wondering whether the Health Ministry, ran by my friend's ex-neighbor in Batu Pahat should issue an advisory warning over eating this kind of food.

This piece of health info made me wonder whether the ruling of mandatory offering of nasi lemak and roti canai in the hotels for morning breakfast is to be questioned or not. I'm not sure who's fault is it to introduce such rules....

First thing is about roti canai. Sometimes, it is a favorite of some people who want to have a different taste of Indian breakfast. If you are exercising, don't eat roti canai after exercise. You gain nothing.

Why? The main reason is of the oil content absorbed when it is cooked on the heating pan. Secondly, an interesting fact is that the amount of calories it contains is equivalent to the amount of calories you lose if you perform a 5km jog or run. That amount of calories is seen in just one piece of roti canai.

As an alternative, you would go for the capati as for breakfast. It has less calories than a roti canai does. Some guy doing Sports Science in UPM said that if we eat a piece of roti canai everyday starting from the age of 20, there is a high probability we would not go beyond 55.

Number 2: Nasi Lemak is the mandatory thing seen in morning breakfast or at hotels. But not many people know that it is fattening given that the rice has coconut milk content. If you ask someone of the age who is above 80 and still going on, there is a probability that they hardly or never eat nasi lemak. Try asking Royal Professor Ungku Aziz and he'll say that!

I think it is time for some of us and those who really love those two food and rendang to start thinking again on eating those kind of food, given of high oil content.

The Best Damn White Coffee!

White coffee is much different from the conventional coffee that we drink. The method of blending the beans is slightly much different from the way you get the coffee from Java beans or whatever beans you can say.

Another thing of white coffee is that to achieve the smooth taste, two types of milk, (all halved) from the conventional measurement is used. Both condensed and evaporated milk is used to mix the coffee. For evaporated, I would recommend the use of Ideal evaporated milk.

Some of you particularly tourists from elsewhere do not where to find white coffee.

There are two shops that you can look in Ipoh. They are at the Old section of Town. Look for this road called Leech Street (Jalan Bijih Timah). Make sure you look for the one that has Kwong Fatt Textile Shop along the road.

Go to the end and there are two shops selling those.


The best one is at the shop called Sun Yuan Foong. There is a canopy that says, "The Best White Coffee in Town." The other one is called Nam Heong. About 10 years ago, the shop was at the other end near Market Street before it moved to the other end of Leech Street.

If you buy your Old Town coffee packs there, you get it a lower price because it does not involve transportation costs, that is included when you buy those from supermarkets.

How proud to be from Ipoh....!

English Ladies In The Making

On the second day of our trip at Cameron Highlands, we had an afternoon tea session at The Smokehouse. Located somewhere between Tanah Rata and Brinchang, all of us decided to go there for tea. This was one of the oldest spots in Cameron Highlands.

Staying there is roughly at around $150 to $200 USD per night so it would not be a problem for tourists to come here and stay for a night or so.

It was a great time for all of us to have tea time, despite being priced at $22 per person and interestingly, there's infinite refills.



My cousins and my aunts were at one corner and tried hilariously to reenact a tea-time session among themselves as English ladies while the men had theirs at a bigger table.


This is what we had as tea - freshly baked scones with Tea.

More tea, vicar?

It was raining there heavily in the evening. We couldn't move out to get our vehicles, but there was a piano there which my uncle played many songs that most of us would tag along. Unfortunately, the room guests were complaining about the noise we made and we stopped after someone from the staff came and told us about it.

Further Readings:

1. Reminiscing the Past, 55 Years Later
2. Am I Driving As In The Shining?

Hari Raya Open House PWTC

The plan to meet up with a few friends took a bad turn when neither of them showed up in time, one of them was in an engagement somewhere else, whereas the other one did not return any calls until today, as of this time of writing.

I thought at the beginning to park somewhere else outside PWTC as they might charge people many for parking, however, I was surprised to find out that it was free parking at PWTC yesterday.

The turnover was over 100 thousand people and the final cost of this open house was at $1.5 mil.

You need to queue about three times before you get to meet the ministers and go into the banquet hall to get your food.


This is the first queue, whereby there are to ways of going. The right path up ahead will let you skip the shaking hands and two more queues, and you can go and take food all you want. The left side will allow you to go to the second queue.

You will go up and you will stop at the second queue. Another flight of escalator steps.

Finally, the last queue before you get to meet the ministers!


Yum..yum food, chicken, biscuits, noodles, cakes...all you can eat. Saved my money for lunch and dinner!

I shall tell you of something I felt when I met the ministers. The people that I shook hands were:

1) Jeanne - Mrs. Rosebud, slightly warm, but AAB wasn't there - must have gone off for a nap.
2) Mustapha Mohammad - Higher Ed. Minister - okay, with his wife.
3) Azalina - Now, here I felt kind of cold when shaking her hands. After all, she's in charge of the UMNO youth cybertrooper division. Out to make trouble on the blogging community. I managed to take a picture of her, but it's blurred as I was in a desperation.
4) Azmi Khalid - the Eco. Minister and his ex-newscaster wife Normala. Okay lar.

I also bumped into Mohamed Yakcop when I met the ex-journalist who was sharing his views.

Last year, I met the PM, Najib and the Kerisman.

While I had food, I get to meet a local celebrity, Angeline Tan, I know her as playing the role of Gina in Gerak Khas TV series. I still took many pictures, but not on my usual camera as my camera ran out of battery.

Chewing Like a Candy

Monthly trips back to Ipoh have given a nostalgic feeling for me. It would make me feel that I really wanted to go back to the point where I had my childhood. I fear that might not see it again in the next 30 years or so as Ipoh had gone tremendous landscape changes particularly during my previous visit in September. Who knows that I might be working overseas or whatsoever. I really wanted to go back and savor an extra day at the house where I grew up with.

I read some articles from my fellow town man James Wong who named his blog Clare Street after the street opposite Central Market now called as Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri. The nostalgic feeling is in the air!

Alright..alright. Almost every time I am back at Ipoh, my mother would buy a big number of Kampar Road coconut buns that are fresh from the oven. I can't remember which shop is it in town that sells that, but there are two things that I know about the bun:

• You can't get it on Sundays.
• It's my dad's favorite bun.

The bun's filling has scraped coconut mixed together with Gula Melaka baked with in a wholemeal bun. On Saturday, I took two. I started to love having the bun, after my mother insisted that I have try when I was a kid. Dad had lived in Ipoh for more than I do, he would go there sometimes while dating my mother in the late 70s.

Ah...the memories. I in fact gave one bun to my colleague at sales department, K.K. I just drove back from Ipoh 6.30 in the morning. Couldn't go that fast because today was day 2 of Ops Sikap, the hardworking period of police officers in conjunction with the Raya celebration. I met him at the carpark of my office, went up the lift together and handed one to him. I wanted to give my finance manager William another one, but he doesn't take buns too much. But we would talk about hometown as well sometimes at lunch, William was from Pusing, surely I would remember of Tanjung Tualang seafood and of course, claypot braised pork with salted fish - the famous dish in Pusing. Pusing would be right after Lahat and further to Lumut, where my poor mother would have to go very early in the morning. She's not taking it for long. She wanted to stop in July next year.

Compensation For Mistakes

My colleagues and I went for lunch today at a new cafe nearby office. Today was the first day and opening so we went in to try their food. We were made to wait for the food to come...took about more than 30 minutes.

We were pushing for them to bring our food in.

And there's some confusion behind the kitchen so some of the food that my colleagues ordered ended up later than mine. But we didn't expect the people there to approach us and ask for our feedback. So we hammered them with complains and suggestions like:

1. Bring a trolley.
2. Self-service for ready made food.
3. Drinks are too expensive
4. Sort out orders more effectively.
5. Food lacks taste.

The fourth complain was the longest part talked out. But we were the last group to leave the cafe by the time it was close to 2 p.m. But given the amount of criticism we gave out, we didn't expect them to compensate with desert and bottles of soy bean milk. The desert was complimentary. I guess they are embarrassed already, maybe it gives the first impression that customers might not be coming back to the premise again.

We bought a cake and celebrate birthdays for those who are born in June, but since the manager's birthday is somewhere around this week together with some others, we threw a small party together at the office pantry at around 3 p.m.

Photos are in the next post.

Man, I feel quite frustrated. I just could not figure out an answer to an assignment. Just no one knew about Access VBA so I tried fiddling around with Access. Finally, I just got an answer: just create a damn bloody sub-form!