Review: Sin Eng Heong's Mini Kaya Puff from Ipoh

**Non-Halal**

I have to declare this - my hubby is a Power Kaya Puff Girls Fanatic!!!!!

Ho Chak on 8TV featured this place in Ipoh that made kaya puffs some moons back. I looked at the puffs, they looked kinda ordinary and the hosts showed the cross section of the puff which to me is like... so little kaya filling one??? Hubby who was sitting next to me was literally drooling away at those puffs and he said he loved kaya puffs, yeah, as if I don't know after knowing him for 11 years! He ordered asked me to write down the details at the end of that segment. At the end of the show, he said "Let's go to Ipoh next weekend and grab these puffs!!". So tell me, is he a kaya puff fanatic or not???

Well of course, it didn't happened the next weekend with this busy schedule. The following weekend, MIL went to BIL's place in Ipoh and hubby was secretly hoping that they will grab him some puffs as I've messaged his nephew asking about them. When his mother came back, he see no puffs LOL... very disappointed.

Many weekends came and gone... finally he need to travel up north on boiboi's birthday. Happily he told me that he will definitely stop by Ipoh to get his dose of kaya puffs. He sms me right after he got his puffs, hmmm very happy indeed.

When he reached home, I saw many boxes of kaya puffs, kwai far goe (a type of glutinous cake with red bean or lotus paste fillings) and hiong pheng. Nearly fainted haha but luckily hubby told me most of them are to be given away. We kept 2 boxes of kaya puffs and one box of kwai far goe.

One box contained 10 mini kaya puffs which cost RM4.50, I've placed a Chinese soup spoon next to one just to gauge the size.

After one piece, I'm completely blown away! These jewels are sooo crispy and fluffy even it was eaten the next day!!! The flaky pastry is made with lard hence the fluffy texture. As for the kaya, even though it wasn't filled to the brim but it's enough to bask in the same glory as the delicious pastry. Smooth and very fragrant indeed... it's a star on it's own. The best part was... my boiboi who never liked kaya puff kept on asking for more after one bite!!!

The fresh kwai far goe is absolutely lovely. I haven't had one in Kuala Lumpur that tasted this good for a long while. The one at Chinatown is no longer "edible". This is soft yet chewy (not tough) with light pandan fragrance (not fake essence) and contained reasonable amount of fillings. My boiboi simply adores them!

Technorati Tags: ipoh + pastry + malaysian food

Review: Indulgence Restaurant and Jazz Room, Ipoh

Oh dear, I shouldn't be posting this now cos it will make Jason, Ipoh Mali, homesick. Poor boy :p hehehe...

One Saturday, hubby's karzheng (read in Hokkien :p) got itchy and decided to take a slow drive to Ipoh. Gave his brother a call and off we went. We reached there around 1.00 p.m. and we were told to wait for him at Jusco whilst he ran his errands. I had to take my boiboi inside since he need to answer nature's call. My oh my... soo soo crowded! Seriously, it's like the whole of Ipoh's folks were there and it's so HOT and stuffy inside.

Anyway, my BIL called and we followed him around a bit to finish up his errands. Once done, he took us pusing pusing (going) around and we reached this huge white washed bungalow... oh my... I told hubby that his brother is taking us to Indulgence! As usual lah my blur hubby gave me a blank look. So I told him a bit about this place and tiramisu is a must order according to a friend of mine. As I was standing at the driveway, geee... this place reminded me of Bon Ton/TopHat in Kuala Lumpur.



Took a seat and his brother told us his wife and kids won't join us cos the younger one was preparing for his exam. So we glanced at the menu and placed our order. Hubby ordered a pasta and since I wasn't hungry I opted for a salad. Didn't order anything for my boiboi since he had some food earlier. A bread basket was served. The bread was good but too bad it was served with butter. Could have been better if they've served them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.



I took a bit of time to observe the surroundings... the main dining hall is bright and cheery but I find the tables lining the 2 walls are very close to each other. I could practically hear every single bit of conversation the next table was having.

It took quite a while for our dishes to arrive. How slow... and they're not even full house. All in all they have like errrmm less than 10 patrons in there and a few of them were already in the midst of eating. Can't imagine what would it be like if they're running on a full house.

Anyway, hubby's pasta dish came. I'm not very sure what it is but its a hand made saffron spaghetti with seafood. Apart from cherry tomatoes, we were arguing what were the rest of the purplish berries until we took a bite of them. Hehehe they were grapes! I had a few strands of the spaghetti which is a wee too thick to me and the texture is totally different from spaghetti. This is more like hand made noodles used for pan meen. Well at least it came in saffron tinge.



Next, my salad came. The smoked duck salad actually had a catchy name but alas I can't recall. Sorry horr me old already... have major memory issue! Anyway, I really liked my salad. It came with loads of greens (has rocket leaves too!); mangoes and oranges; and smoked duck with a tangy dressing. The whole shebang of saltish duck slices, fruit slices and greens blended very well with the dressing. Topping the salad is a huge nest of deep fried katafi liked strands which I don't really fancy. The smoked duck could be one of their specialty cos I saw vacuumed packs of them in their fridge display together with their cakes! Yeah, with the cakes hehehe...



I was so full and did not order any cakes nor desserts. Hubby got a tiramisu, BIL got a piece of chocolate cake and I asked for one scoop of ice-cream for boiboi. Sorry no pics of these cakes cos we were busy chatting and my BIL was giving us a low down about Indulgence and the sitaopor (lady boss) hehe... apparently upstairs, they've converted the place as a boutique hotel.

Back to the cake, I had a few bites of the tiramisu but it didn't rock me! Seriously, the fabulous Baker did a better job! In fact sooo much better! Even my hubby commented the same. The Baker does take order, check his repertoire here.

Funnily they sent 3 scoops of ice-cream for boiboi but thank goodness he's not the greedy type and will stop when he had enough. So in the end the mummy have to ingest the remainder up blehhh...! Mummies usually have the same job as Alam Flora *roll eyes*

There are hits and misses here but I don't mind coming here again to check out the rest of the items in the menu. Sorry no prices since BIL footed the bill and for the lousy pics as we sat in a dim corner.

Indulgence Restaurant and Jazz Room
14 Jalan Raja Di Hilir
30350 Ipoh, Perak
Tel: 05-2557051
Fax: 05-2426297

Technorati Tags: malaysian food + ipoh

Review: 1919 Restaurant & Gallery in Ipoh

Ahhh finally I managed to dig out the pics for this place we stopped by for lunch during our Penang trip recently. We've actually planned to have reach Penang by lunch time but due to a couple of traffic jams and peepee n ice-cream stops for the kid, *roll eyes* we were delayed.

Anyway, since we don't really know the way around Ipoh and also did not want to stay too far away from the highway... well it's an unprepared stop, remember? Otherwise I would have done some homework kekeke... back to this, I only remember how to come to 1919 Restaurant & Gallery cos someone brought us here not too long ago in one of our day trip to Ipoh. My only landmark was Jusco and Tesco which were pretty easy to look out for. So I managed to guide my dad there based on my rusty memory. 1919 is located right behind Tesco.

I'm not really sure what kind of restaurant this 1919 is based on, most likely on the Nyonya side. There is a menu for the dishes, otherwise just ask them to recommend. The staffs are very friendly here.

We're going light so I ordered a Pineapple Fried Rice which is 1919's specialty. Slight spicy, fragrant and fluffy rice were served in a hollowed pineapple shell. Actually this is an individual order but the portion is pretty huge and can be shared with 2 persons or in our case, 3! We all loved this rice as it's very tasty with hints of belacan. Lots of huge prawns... ermmm all gone as seen in the pic below. I was kinda late sighhh...



A Choy Yuen (young choy sum) With Enoki Mushroom was recommended to us. Nothing to shout about for this dish since this is basically stir fried vegetables topped with a thickish gravy of enoki mushroom and carrot strips.



King Sauce Chicken came next which is like honeyed chicken. A sticky and slightly sweetish honeyed sauce coated the deep fried chicken pieces. My boiboi loved this chicken so much that he only had them without any rice nor vegetables! Naughty fler there! He was also busy going round the restaurant checking out the antiques, furnitures and decors which some of them are up for sale. I was kinda worried he go round and break things grrrrr... Anyway, the decor in 1919 is very pleasant with low lighting with some teak furnitures holding some antiques and decoration items.



The vegetable and chicken dishes came in small portion plus the pineapple fried rice costed us just RM28.77 inclusive of 5% Government tax! Very reasonable I would say. Chinese tea and plain water were complimentary! Way to go 1919!!! We ought to have more of such establishment in Kuala Lumpur. I noticed many restaurants now charges 50 sens for plain water, what more for Chinese tea! Some no refill too! Boycott!!!

1919 Restaurant & Gallery
No. 1 Jalan Medan Ipoh 6,
31400 Ipoh, Perak
Tel: 05-5477196

Technorati Tags: malaysian food + Ipoh

Goodies From Ipoh

Miss Sweet 16 went up north to the town of Ipoh (about 2 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur) in Perak recently and she bought me some delicious goodies. She has always been very sweet and generous especially to her chee muis (sister in Cantonese) like me. How not to share with you guys huh? Hehheh...

Inside the goodie bag, there is this packet of spice biscuits.



They looked oh so pretty in spirals and the brownish part is where the spice part of the biscuit. From what I gathered after one mouthful of it (whilst photopgrahing them, hehehe me greedy greedy, can't wait hahaha), the spices in there may have contained 5 spice powder, cinnamon and pepper but I may be wrong. The label doesn't help much as it just mentioned spices as one of its ingredient. The biscuit is rather thick and its slightly chewy instead of crispy. Rather wonderful texture to munch on whilst savouring the spices taste.



Now, this is how typically a packet of hiong pheng (literally translated as Fragrant Biscuit in Cantonese. It's a type of Chinese pastry found here in Malaysia.) looked like in the olden days. The hiong pheng bakers knead the dough and slap on the sticky muk ngar thong (maltose in Cantonese) mixture in the centre. Roll into a ball before flatening it. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top and they are then sticked (err due to the stickiness of the dough actually) on the sides of a cylindrical charcoal oven to be baked. Strangely such pastries are usually found in a few towns located in Perak state ie. Ipoh (the city of Perak), Sitiawan (where the concentration of the FooChow clan is located. BTW, I'm a FooChow gurl from KL who can't speak a single word of the dialect. Oit, don't blame me ok cos my grandfather don't speak to my dad in FooChow since my grandmother is a Cantonese.) , Bidor, Kampar and Tanjung Malim.



The hiong pheng has very very crispy pastry that practically breaks when one bites into it. Kinda messy when one bite into it. The pastry practically "fly" everywhere! And when you bite into the centre, the filling is soft, sticky and chewy... striking a very contrasting balance indeed. Hmmm... lovely!



Thank you Miss Sweet 16! She bought these goodies here (I presumed) as stated on the goodie bag. Hey, next time drive the bigger car and bring me along ok ;-)



OK, now the modern version of hiong pheng packaging looked like this. These were given to me by my colleague whom balik kampung (go back to hometown in Malay, a very famous two words used especially during the festive seasons where the town dwellers will back back to their home towns scattered across the country) recently to Kampar. Each hiong pheng is individually wrapped in foil packaging to ensure freshness. I must say the modern packaging does served it purpose well cos each biscuit is extra crispy and fluffier. However, to the die hard fans of olden method of packaging, this particular bakery DOES have the usual plastic bag packaging as well. I know cos my colleague had bought me those before from the same bakery.



Once opened up, they looked like these. This one you can see the maltose centre clearly. I've friends who bought me some plain hiong pheng before. It's not that readily available and not all such bakeries have them. Actually I quite like this version too cos the pastry is very flaky and crispy minus the sweet and sticky centre.



To get the modern packaging ones, try this bakery next time you are in Ipoh.