Part 4

When we weren’t eating at restaurants and kopitiams in Ipoh, we were busy buying food. What? Obsessed with food? Us? Certainly not!

We drove in circles looking for Gunung Rapat where the famous Yee Hup is located. All that effort for heong peng. It’s funny how when you’re not looking for something, it appears before you several times. But when you’re searching high and low for it, it plays hide and seek with you.

Suffice to say that we found Yee Hup even when we were looking for Tambun to buy pomelos.

Yee Hup is the place to buy heong peng. There is usually a long queue and a steady stream of cars outside, all for the delectably sweet and sticky, flaky delicacy.

When in Ipoh, one has to buy pomelos. It’s expected of you. Sadly, we couldn’t find Tambun (seriously!), so we ended up at the stalls outside the Sam Po Tong temple which is built in a limestone cave. The temple, not the stalls. Because we were quite inexperienced in selecting pomelos, we chose the ones with unblemished skins. 🙂

Salt baked chicken is another delicacy from Ipoh, and the place to go to is Aun Kheng Lim. On one side of the shop are several ovens in which the chicken, wrapped in paper, are baked under mounds of salt, and on the other side of the shop are boxes stacked six feet high, ready for packing.

And of course, when in Ipoh, one has to drink Ipoh White Coffee which is made of robusta beans roasted in margarine. There are several coffeeshops in the same area, all claiming to be the original white coffee specialists, but we went to Sun Yuan Foong which was home to the original white coffee. 🙂 The coffee is served sweetened (translated: sweet!) and we ordered some kuih along with it.