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Ipoh Cycling Sojourn 2022 Day 3: Shopping Ipoh

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Ipoh Cycling Sojourn 2022: Day 3- Shopping Ipoh

Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia Day 3: Thursday 14th April 2022

This is part of a road/cycling trip from Kuala Lumpur to & around Ipoh.

Today's adventure is a drive around Ipoh to shop for Ipoh goodies before returning toKuala Lumpur:

Upper East>Pasir Pinji>Taman Kampar>Ipoh New Town>Kuala Lumpur.

Distance: Not applicable | Level: Not applicable

Time: Not applicable | Time Taken: Not applicable

This is page 4 of a 4-page blog, Click Here To Go To Title Page.

< Go To D2-2 Kinta Riverside | Go to Other Days |

Route Recommendations:

1. Traffic Directions!

Malaysia's traffic is right-hand drive, so drive or cycle on the left. Same thing applies when crossing the road, be careful and take note of the direction in which traffic is approaching from!

2. Places of Interest

Enroute were several places of interests, some of which we visited and others we did not for lack of time (Note: click on GPS coordinates for directional map to respective places):

- Ming Yue Confectionery (明裕食品) (GPS: 4.58240, 101.08711) at Taman Kampar,

renown for their peanut candy.
- Feng Weng Ipoh Salted Chicken (GPS: 4.59489, 101.08423) at Ipoh New Town, renown for Salt Baked Chicken, Smoked Pork, and Smoked Duck.

- Sin Weng Fai Peanut Candy Shop (GPS: 4.59388, 101.08469) at Ipoh New Town, for peanut candy, Kaya (Coconut Jam) Puffs, etc.

- Kedai Biskut Sin Eng Heong (GPS: 4.59488, 101.0848) at Ipoh New Town, for Kaya (Coconut Jam) Puffs.

3. Food

Breakfast: Wing Fat Xiaochao Restaurant (GPS: 4.57968, 101.08520) at Pasir Pinji:

Ipoh Chicken Hor Fun (Kai Si Hor Fun) with good soup stock fr. Ah Tiong's Stall,

Very good Char Keow Teow with good wok hei from Fire King Stall, and

Good Ipoh White Coffee.

Lunch: Ong Kee Restaurant (GPS: 4.59388, 101.08395) at Ipoh New Town:

Ipoh Bean Sprout Chicken (Ngah Choy Kai)

Afternoon Tea: Magical Beans Express (GPS: 4.59338, 101.08405) at Ipoh New Town:

Polo buns ("Pineapple" buns) with very good Ipoh White Coffee.

5. Weather

April is within the inter-monsoon period, although there could be short showers, weather can still be hot. The saving grace is the overcast skies do give some shade. At Ipoh, mid-afternoon temperatures were 32°C and night temperature averaged 27°C. There was some light drizzle in the late afternoon and evening.

A useful weather forecast site is AccuWeather. For more detailed weather, including cloud cover and wind speed, use Weatherspark and Ventusky.

4. Communicating with Locals

For the uninitiated cycling in foreign lands can be a daunting experience, especially when one can only speak a smattering of the local language or if there is no common language to speak to each other (like English). Most Malaysians can speak fairly good English; but in the rural areas the locals speak only some rudimentary English, so learning some basic phrases in Bahasa Malaysia will be helpful.

This could be partly overcome by using translation apps like Google Translate. Do install this app into your phone and before you leave on your tour do some basic translation as it will be saved onto a list of recent translations.

And do install memory-resident translation apps into your mobile phone.

5. Staying in Touch

When travelling in a group it's important to be able to communicate with each other, especially if one got lost or just to share photos and moments. Pre-paid phone sim-cards are easily available from most phone shops in the main towns.

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PRELUDE

Yesterday morning our local buddy, Eugene, had taken us on a tough but memorable ride from Tanjung Rambutan up the foothills of Bukit Batu Suluh to the KOA (Kampung Orang Asli) Tonggang.

In the afternoon we said our goodbyes to him and continued for a scenic ride along the Kinta Riverside that spans both Ipoh Old Town and Ipoh New Town. This included a quick ride at Ipoh Mural Art Lane!

Today will be a non-cycling day, as we will be going around both Ipoh Old Town and Ipoh New Town to eat and shop for foodie goodies to bring back for friends in Kuala Lumpur.

!Yummy!

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THE RIDE

Route: Upper East>Pasir Pinji>Taman Kampar>Ipoh New Town>Kuala Lumpur.

A drive route to go for eats and shopping for foodie goodies at both Ipoh Old Town and Ipoh New Town.

(Click here for Shopping Ipoh Google Route Map Link)

Today is a happy day, we will meet up with an old friend Patrick and his missus Stella. No cycling today as it's half a day in Ipoh before driving back to Kuala Lumpur, and there's a fair bit of shopping to do too. So, instead we popped into Patrick's car and he took us around.

It's always good to follow a local friend around as they know all the "secret" places that us, out-of-towners, are often oblivious to.

We kicked off with a good breakfast at Wing Fat Xiaochao Restaurant (in Pasir Pinji) with this very appetizing Ipoh Chicken Hor Fun (Kai Si Hor Fun). I must say it taste better than the one we had at Kong Heng in Ipoh Old Town, the soup stock was sweet with good prawny flavours and a underlying hint of chicken.

(Note: some photos are by Anne)

The Kai Si Hor Fun is from this stall, Ah Tiong's. I am not too sure whether Ah Tiong is this young man seen here, or his father. I do hope it's his father, then there will be someone young to take over the business and continue to serve us this good noodles for many years to come!

Now this Char Koay Teow is a real surprise find! It beats many of the Penang ones hands down. Although slightly wet, it had very good wok hei with the slightly burnt koay teow flat noodles adding to the aroma! And to add to the yumminess, were the fresh & crunchy Ipoh bean sprouts (reputedly the best in the world!), and they were very generous with their crispy lard bits. NOT TO BE MISSED THIS ONE and I will be back to savour it again when up in Ipoh next time!

The superb Char Koay Teow from this stall called Fire King, perhaps his name has lent the good wok hei to his frying!

Here too, they have very good Ipoh White Coffee, serve in traditional coffee cups.

From Pasir Pinji we wended our way over to Taman Kampar, where it's biscuits galore at Ming Yue Confectionery (明裕食品)!

They sell a wide range of local biscuits here..... BUT unfortunately we were a bit too early and their renown peanut candy were not ready yet!

Here too they make and sell fresh kaya puffs. Since I "discovered" the ones from Sin Eng Heong ten years ago, more and more shops selling these have cropped up 😁.

Next on the list is another Ipoh specialty - Salt Baked Chicken (Yim Kok Kai, 盐焗鸡).There are many shops selling this, but we headed for Feng Weng as the shop also sell.....

..... Smoked Pork (shown above) and Smoked Duck, Anne discovered this on her previous trips. Slices of these are good for adding to spaghetti, stir-fried veggies, instant noodles, etc.

More things to buy here are their frozen pre-cooked, vacuum-packed food like this Dongpo Pork, and Yam Pork (Kau Yoke) - we did bring thermal bags and a cooler box along, heh.. heh..!

For those who are interested, here's their on the wall price list. Easy stuff to micro-wave and show off to friends your "cooking" skills 😂🤣😅.

Since we did not get to buy the peanut candy earlier; we dropped by another biscuit shop, Sin Weng Fai Peanut Candy Shop, for more BISCUITS GALORE!!

Ooooo..... la....LA!

All this shopping made us hungry, and time flew by. Suddenly it was lunch time and at Ong Kee Restaurant we finally got to try Ipoh Bean Sprout Chicken (Ngah Choy Kai) - here's a plate of the yummy broiled chicken with extras of chicken liver and gizzards .....

..... and the favuorite crunchy Ipoh bean sprouts; hence the name Ngah Choy Kai!

Our makan escapade was not over; just across the road it was dessert time at Magical Beans Express. Nice Polo buns together with our second round of Ipoh White Coffee for the day. I must admit that the coffee here was the best Ipoh White we had for our trip!