I organised an Ipoh Trip by tour van load to Ipoh back in January 2011 and had a blast there. We visited the beansprount farm, Ipoh Old Town, ghost town Papan, Tin Mine Dredge and had yummylicious food at Tg Tualang.
What do you normally do in Ipoh? Eat? Visit old temples? After a few visits of the same things, I got bored and was very lucky to have Winky (an Ipoh hometown outgoing guy) to bring us around. We started by going to his brother's Restoran Kaki Bukit at Menglembu for breakfast. As I forgot to charge my camera, I was conserving battery and didn't take much photos. I really love their homemade kaya...thick, fragrant with pandan, egg n coconut...very delicious with toast!
Next, we went to the beansprout farm in Buntong. It is a cottage industry which runs on a 24 hour schedule as the water soaking the beans/sprouts had to be changed every 3 hours! The mung beans are from Thailand and they are soaked in underground mineral water (I tasted the water and it was clear and had a lightly sweetened taste). During the first stage of soaking till it starts to sprout is very critical and must be handled carefully....no dirty hands must touch it or the beans will not sprout. Once they sprout, the best is found on the top layer and usually each plastic blue tong has 5 to 7 layers (qualities) of beansprouts. Once the sprouts are ready to be harvested, it is sprayed with high volumes of water and then washed to loosen the skin from the beansprouts heads.
Loads of sprouts here...
The biggest and fattest beansprout layer is the 1st layer which is sold to Ipoh's famous chicken rice shops. The 2nd layer is sold to Kuay Teow T'ng and Char Kuay Teow sellers, the 3rd, 4th, 5th layers are to the wet markets and normal customers, the final and last layers will be used as feed to livestocks.
The photo shows what a 2nd layer fatty beansprouts look like...this is to be sold to the kuay teow soup and fried kuay teow hawkers...so nice, so fat, so crunchy, so sweet!!!!
Next, we went to Kong Heng at Ipoh Old Town for lunch and I had my all time favourite Pork Satay and extra special kuay teow soup...
RM0.60/stick...delicious lean pork meat, pork coagulated blood and intestine...super duper yummy fragrant peanut sauce....
Extra ingredients for the Kuay Teow Soup at RM7/bowl....smooth slippery kuay teow noodles, rich tasty prawn and chicken broth with some chives, smooth chicken flesh...really worth the steep price *slurrrps*
After lunch, we adjourned to the Tanjung Tualang Tin Dredge a.k.a. Kapal Korek. I first saw the Tin Dredge was when I read Lat's Kampung Boy comics. To see it in actual life took my breath away. As the Perak Government is poor in promoting their tourist spots, not many people know that the tin dredge is actually available for visitors...We paid RM5/person to enter this historical ship
Although it was sinking but I was in total awe when I entered the ship. Only half of us climbed up this half rusting ship. The others chose to stay on the ground. We had to be super careful climbing up the stairs and walking on the platforms as most were rusty and may not support our weight.
Here are some giant scooping bins that was used to scoop the precious metals along with the soilbed to be processed, sifting out the tin ore....
After a hot and sweaty tour of the Tin Dredge, we continued our journey to the last destination - Tanjung Tualang to enjoy our prawns dinner. We ordered 2 types of freshwater prawns, 1 Guinness Stout spare ribs, 1 Yam Ring, 1 Green Vege and 1 Thai Tofu. All these came to RM25 per person Truly satisfying...
Just done nicely. Sticky, not too oily and Meaty
Tangy, Sweet, Crunchy Thai Style Tofu Salad...a refreshing dish
Delicious Yam Ring with a chockful of fresh vegetables
Dry Fried Prawns...fragrant, tasty and delicious
Loads of delicious Nai Yau Prawns....noms....delicious
Woaah....take a look at this roe rich prawn!!! Super delicious....!
What do you think?? It's well worth the RM25/pax for 9 person!
