Ipoh 2025 - Lunch at Kong Heng Kopitiam and Train Ride Home (Day 3)

 

Before leaving Ipoh, I still have to eat my KaiSi Horfun! The dish that I first fell in love with when I first visit Ipoh when I was a kid. Luckily Kong Heng Kopitiam was finally opened on Friday! They closed on Wednesday and Thursday. And guess what, our hotel is always walking distance from here. It's just one street away from my beef soup shop :P

We also love the satay here, although the first time we tried it the peanut sauce was so chunky. They also serve innards satay like intestine and liver :)  After lunch, we checked out from our hotel at 1pm and took a Grab to the train station to wait for our train at 4pm.

Bye bye Ipoh! I think maybe next time I can try doing a day trip and see how that works out!

Snacking on my pastry on my ride back. Managed to finish all 4 pastry within half an hour of the ride :P

Saw BichiMao Ipoh version at the train station too. Love that BichiMao is drinking White Coffee!

When I reached Butterworth, I went to take another better photo of BichiMao eating Laksa!

It was still rainy season in Penang, so this was the view when we took the ferry back to Penang Island!

Penang! Was happy to be back even though I wished I've bought more Salted Baked Chicken! Those were gone too soon. Maybe I can try visiting Taiping next time too! Lol. Anyway, that's all the blogging on Ipoh, and for this year. The next travel blog I am planning to do is Scotland, so as to motivate myself for my Scotland Part 2 trip 2026! Go Go Cordy!

Ipoh 2025 - Breakfast and Changjiang White Coffee (Day 3)

 

Last morning of our trip. Was gonna go back to the same dimsum place again for breakfast since we weren't satisfied with the portion we ate the day before. My friend said he will be at our hotel at 8am..... I was debating whether I can eat a bowl of beef soup before breakfast with him. Since I don't visit Ipoh that often, and I really really love the beef soup, I decided to head there again at 7am :P  NO REGRETS!

2nd breakfast was rather boring. I did tried their porridge, but it wasn't that great. I thought my companion will order more to eat, but they just ordered all the boring stuff, so I didn't eat much.

The usual suspects.

Random Ching Gay Mural nearby just because I love the orange colour scheme....

After breakfast, I dragged everyone back to Gerbang Malam to buy my salted baked chicken, biscuits and pastry. Then my friend wanted to try Chang Jiang White Coffee, so I took them all to People's Park branch. It's another park that looked shabby that I wouldn't dare walk in alone. But I saw a video on Facebook that shows exactly where ChangJiang Coffee Shop was, so I was comfortable walking in with two guys by my side. For someone who travels a lot, I am rather paranoid about everything. I am often surprised by the reckless things my travel companions sometimes will do..... tsk 

Chang Jiang Coffee is a rather cheesy place. I would go there just for the photo shots. I have tried their instant coffee before, and they are super sweet for me, so I don't really have a good impression of them. 

I do like their menu. Plastic bag drinks are so nostalgic! 

Another reason I don't like coming here is the price. It's almost twice the price of a kopitiam coffee. Nam Heong Coffee is around 2+rm, here they charge 5rm! And it doesn't even taste half as nice as Nam Heong. Seriously, even my Lam Fong instane coffee taste nicer! No offence. 

My friend's hot white coffee. It looks perfect though. But as expected, he said it was too sweet. 

I ordered the iced coffee, cause I saw from the social media video that they serve it in a rather cool way. Plus, with all the ice, perhaps it won't taste so sweet after the ice melted. It was a good choice. It would have been better if the ice jug was made of glass instead of plastic..... But it was the experience of drinking coffee here I guess. Super overpriced. I would suggest you try their Tasik Cermin's branch instead. At least there you get to dine inside a limestone cave area.... Next trip to Ipoh, maybe I go visit Tasik Cermin and explore the caves there via boat.... :D

Ipoh 2025 - Egglet at Aeon Kinta Valley, Sun Marpoh Dinner and Pasar Malam Uptown Ipoh (Day 2)

We spend the afternoon of our second day mainly in the mall. My companion were happy to get to a mall with the air condition.  We went to Aeon Kinta Mall since were would be meeting my husband's friend again for dinner around that area. The mall was just 3 storeys tall, so we soon ran out of things to see, and decided to spend the rest of the time at the food court. I had these lovely egglets there.

It cost me 7rm, which is expensive for a snack. They sell these in Singapore too, but I found out that the ones in Malaysia are always better, with thinner batter. Converting 7rm to SGD wasn't that bad, so I decided to treat myself. My friend also ordered the cheese flavoured ones, cause he is rich, lol. 

Nearer to dinner time, we took another Grab to the restaurant nearby. Sun Marpoh. No reservation, so we were there early in case we needed to queue. There was a total of 10 o us, me with my party of 3, husband's friend family of 5, the friend's father and one more friend. 

It's so nostalgic to have a round table chinese dinner at a local chinese restaurant. I love how they serve hot tea with a bucket of ice for you. All the food was ordered by the friend, and I enjoyed every dish. Seriously, Malaysia does have better food!

Looking at this photo, with so many people eating together and talking, maybe I should socialise more.... Or maybe not... lol. I don't know. Maybe only with people I like and get along with. 

After dinner, we took another Grab to a nearby night market since we were already nearby. From the google review, we already knew that it might be bad, but when we got there, we realised it was worst! From the outside, everything looked bright and spacious, but the moment you walk in, it was dead empty. Most of the stalls were closed, and not many people around. Even the food section was pretty boring, with mainly only Malay style food. I am guessing this is a muslim area, hence the rather dead crowd. Or perhaps we were there during a rainy season on a weekday night.... Don't know. Not going there ever again! Even Gerbang Malam isn't as dead as this!

We spend around 20minutes there before calling a Grab back to our hotels. Rumah Hantu indeed!

Ipoh 2025 - Cave Temple Visit and Vegetarian Lunch (Day 2)

 

I actually wanted to visit Kellie Castle, but I hate that it was kinda rainy, and the Grab ride and back would cost us around 50rm. Plus, entrance tickets too! So we ended up following my friend to visit the Cave Temples instead since he was footing the Grab cost anyway :P We visited the 3 caves I previously brought my husband to. I won't go into details of the 3 caves, you can read about them here if you are interested.  This post is just a summary and some different things we saw here. 

Above, my friend as we urged him to walk into the cave tunnel :P I think if you don't do your research, perhaps you might actually missed out the tunnel all together and be wondering what's the big deal about the Cave Temples are all about :P

What's different this round was, my friend actually wanted to have a vegetarian lunch at the temple. I told him that there is a cafe there, but it was always closed. Well, on this trip, we decided to just walk in and kept walking anyway until someone stopped us. After going through some dark hall and corridor, wow! We landed up in an actual dinning hall! I seriously wonder why they don't lit the path better so that people actually know that there is a restaurant here. It's super unwelcoming for visitors who don't know about this place!

Luckily, there were two tables of people already eating here and chatting away. They seems like regulars. One of the uncle told me to go to the kitchen to look for the lady to place our order. I went and found a very grumpy looking middle aged lady, who reluctantly came to the counter where I placed my order. They were closing soon, like in half an hour, so I didn't dare order too much. She told me they don't serve individual servings, every dish was for sharing. Okay...... I ordered a plate of beehoon and a bean curd dish. 

I didn't order any tea, but she serves them to us anyway, lol. Strangely, the tea was super nice! Thank you grumpy lady. The whole place and experience kinda reminded me of that time I went to had lunch at an abandon tea house in JiuFen. It's just a very surreal and whimsical experience.

The beehoon came, and it was quite a huge pile for a small serving. I started eating a bowl, and found it quite delicious, so I think I might have ate 3 bowls :P  

The sweet and sour bean curd came later, and the colour didn't look anything I would expect from a sweet and sour dish. I was expecting orange. It came out black. I think they use vinegar to make it sour. And it has pineapples in it! I super love it! I would 100% eat here again! Next time I'll come earlier and order everything on the menu! Hahahaha. After eating, we paid and ran off before being chased out by the grumpy lady. Actually, I think she is grumpy cause there were 2 older couple who was cooking in the kitchen which we think is probably her parent. They were just arguing at each other while cooking :P

After lunch we went to the next cave temple, and I don't recall seeing so many wall art the last time I was here. I was pretty sure I walked all the way into the cave..... But this time, I was amazed at the art on the cave walls inside. Goes to show that maybe you should visit a place more than once, cause you will always find new things to admire.....

Saw this jolly painting on one of wall. I thought it looked nice, with the red paper lantern hanging there as well, and how white the limestone cave walls are...

Also found a painting of Goddess of Mercy, with a lovely black background, standing on a golden dragon. I remember the last time I was here I was just fascinated by all the dragons and the crooks and crony of the caves that houses different deities. I don't recall at all these paintings on the wall. Were they new?

There was also a painting of the unicorn-green-cow inside with a monk/god sitting on it.... strange....

This round, while walking back to the entrance of the cave, we saw that there were stairs going up along the caves. They might have been there last time, but they were probably off limits? I don't recall being able to climb up into the caves. But since I saw some guy walking down from there, I invited my companion to go explore! It was a series of steep stairs going up and up, and there are some smaller altars up there. But the fun was actually climbing up those steps. 

This is what some of the stairs looked like. We went up one at a time cause they were pretty flimsy. And super steep. We had to walk down backwards as the steps were also pretty small. A small adventure :P There was a time in my younger days that I won't go up such stairs our of fear of falling. But after climbing the stairs here up and down, nothing seems too much for me anymore. 

Here is my husband climbing up one of the steps to another small altar hall....

The levels are all over the palace since this is a cave. You could look out from the opening, but there are gates there. I wonder why they build all these for. It was just so weird..... Perhaps there were spirits here?

The 3rd temple we went to, I was already too tired to run around exploring. My friend continued to explore, but I basically stayed on the ground and saw these 4 beautiful tiles in one of the Goddess of Mercy Hall. Are these the great four beauties of China?

I decided to take a photo of all four, to specifically post it here so that I can always look at them whenever I wanted to. Maybe one day I can even draw them? They are so pretty!

Some reminded me of those beautiful carving I saw in the National Museum of China in Beijing. 

Lovely <3

And so that was how we spend our late morning on our second day. Above a photo taken at the first temple's miniature garden. I don't recall seeing this before too. It reminded me of Japan a lot. I haven't visited Japan in 2025 at all.... time to go back?

Ipoh 2025 - Morning Walk, Beef Soup and Zhen Hi Hao Dim Sum Breakfast (Day 2)

Day 2 of our short trip to Ipoh. Managed to take this colourful photo from our hotel, looking down to St. Michael Institution. What a lovely morning! We were going to meetup with my hubby's friend for dimsum breakfast at 9am. 9am! What was too late for me, so I decided to go for first breakfast just opposite my hotel!

Ta-dah! My favourite beef soup. The husband ordered the wrong one for me the first time. He ordered beef slice koay teow, but I wanted the ones with tendon! So I took his instead :P  I waited a long time to eat this bowl, so I won't compromise! We were there around 7am. If you come slightly after 7am, the waiting time is a lot longer. The white coffee here is less thick, so not my favourite. But I ordered a cup whenever I am here anyway, cause this is Ipoh! 

My friend came a bit late, around 715am, and he ordered their signature dry beehoon and meatballs. He didn't like it. It was a shame, cause I recommended their beef soup koay teow instead, and he might have missed something delicious! Hahahaha. Bochap. More beef soup for me!

We were still early after breakfast, so we took a walk around Ipoh to show my friend around. Saw more murals I haven't seen before. I like this one with the old man drinking coffee. I think Ipoh should just advertise itself as the best coffee town in Malaysia!

Also saw another 3 uncles on a mural advertising NutriPlus. Is that a kind of soya milk powder? Was too lazy to walk closer to get a better shot. The above shot was taken from Birch Tower with my handphone camera zoom. 

We also went to the park and some baking shops before actually ending up at the dimsum restaurant at 9am for breakfast number 2. Above the place we ate at, recommendation from husband's friend who haul from Ipoh when he was younger. We had breakfast with him, his wife and their 3 kids. 

Above was the shop's signature dish, cheong fun with fried tempura-like prawns inside. The first time I tried it, I thought it was fried meesuah inside. But due to some misunderstanding, we didn't get to eat a lot of dimsum that morning......

Some of the things that were ordered, but wasn't enough to go around..... The fried prawn in soya bean skin was super nice here though. 

I like the way the lomaikai was served here, in small serving, in a very traditional upside down bowl. I didn't try any of these though. I remember these used to be one of my favourite thing to eat when I was a kid..... Nowadays if I want to eat this, I just cook them in a rice cooker :P

The lomaikai after you let them loose from their metal prison. Lot's of stuff inside.

After breakfast, I was really not yet fulled. When asked what else I would like to eat in Ipoh, I mentioned soya bean curd. Ipoh has very good bean curd, so you got to try them when you are here. The husband's friend took us to a shop in Gerbang Malam where we all had a bowl, some of white syrup, me with Gula Malacca. It has a hint of ginger in the syrup, but not too overpowering that I was still able to enjoy my bowl happily. So smoooooth. 

I've never taken a pothole photo here before, so when I saw this one with the Gerbang Malam written on it, I just had to stop and take one, even though it was kinda in the middle of a crossroad! Luckily this was a weekday morning, so the road was pretty empty. Yay! One for my collection!