Ipoh cuisine facts for kids

Ipoh is the capital city of Perak, a state in Malaysia. It's super famous for its amazing food! Most of the food culture here comes from its large Chinese population, especially people from Cantonese and Hakka backgrounds. But don't worry, you can also find delicious Malay and Indian food in Ipoh, like the nasi kandar served at a well-known local Mamak stall that has been open since the 1950s. You can even find special foods from nearby towns in Ipoh.

One of Ipoh's most famous exports is Ipoh white coffee. It's made from coffee beans roasted in a special way with palm oil margarine. This unique coffee drink started right here in Ipoh's Old Town.

Tasty Dishes from Ipoh

Savoury Bites

Ipoh's famous beansprouts, topped with sliced chilli and chopped spring onions.

A bowl of Ipoh laksa.

• Bean Sprouts Chicken (Chinese: 芽菜雞) – Also known as nga choy kai, this is probably Ipoh's most famous dish! It has chicken meat and local beansprouts. They are quickly cooked in hot water and then served with soy sauce and sesame oil.
• Beef Brisket Noodles (Chinese: 牛腩面) – These noodles are usually served on their own with a dark soy dressing. They come with tender, stewed beef brisket cooked in the traditional Cantonese style. It's served with white radish and spices in a clear soup.
• Chee Cheong Fun (Cantonese: 豬腸粉) – A popular breakfast food. It's made of large, flat rice noodles rolled up and served with sweet or spicy sauce. Unlike other places, Ipoh's chee cheong fun often comes with minced pork and mushroom sauce, pickled green chillies, crispy fried shallots, and sesame seeds. Some places even serve it with a curried gravy.
• Claypot Chicken Rice (Chinese: 瓦煲鸡饭) – This is chicken rice cooked in a claypot, traditionally over smouldering charcoal. People often add salted fish and Chinese sausage (lap cheong) to it. The area of Bercham in Ipoh is well-known for this dish.
• Curry Chicken Bread (Chinese: 咖喱面包鸡) – This is a bread or roll shaped like a bowl, filled with delicious curry chicken. It's also called Golden Pillow Bread. While it's a specialty from nearby Kampar, you can easily find it in Ipoh now.
• Curry Mee (Chinese: 咖喱面) – A bowl of thin yellow noodles mixed with rice vermicelli (bee hoon) in a spicy curry soup. The soup is made rich with coconut milk. It's topped with tofu puffs, prawns, cuttlefish, chicken, long beans, cockles, and mint leaves. A spicy sambal is usually served on the side.
• Dim sum (Chinese: 点心) – A Cantonese specialty that many people enjoy in Ipoh. There are several famous dim sum restaurants on Jalan Leong Sin Nam.
• Dry Curry Mee (Chinese: 干捞咖喱面) – Noodles that are quickly cooked and then mixed with soy sauce. After that, some curry gravy is poured over them. Dry curry mee usually comes with shredded chicken, char siu (BBQ pork), cockles, and sometimes crispy pork (siu yuk).
• Fish ball Noodles (Chinese: 鱼丸面) – Noodles served with round, bouncy surimi (fish paste) balls in a light soup. Some local versions have tiny fish balls or come with sides like pork meatballs with cuttlefish bits and stuffed tofu skin rolls. Another type called hor hee (Chinese: 河嘻) is a Teochew-style noodle soup with small fish balls, sliced fish cakes, preserved vegetables, bean sprouts or lettuce, and savoury fish dumplings in a fish-based soup.
• Hakka Mee (Chinese: 客家面) – A simple dish of noodles topped with a tasty minced pork gravy. It comes from an older recipe called Dabumian, named after Dabu County in China, which is a center of Hakka culture.
• Ipoh Laksa – The laksa served in Ipoh is very similar to the assam laksa from Penang. The main difference is usually in the toppings used.
• Hainanese chicken rice (Chinese: 海南雞饭) – A very popular Chinese dish found everywhere from small food stalls to fancy restaurants.
• Roti bakar – This simply means toasted bread.
• Kaya toast – Toasted bread spread with butter and kaya. Kaya is a sweet spread made from coconut milk, eggs, and sugar. Kaya toast (or roti bakar) is a popular breakfast or afternoon snack.
• Rendang – Perak has its own types of rendang, and the most famous is rendang tok. This rendang uses a lot of dried spices and is much drier than other rendang types in Malaysia. The gravy is cooked down until it's a thick layer coating the meat. You can find rendang tok in some Ipoh restaurants, usually made with beef.
• Salt-baked Chicken (Chinese: 盐锔鸡) – This traditional Hakka dish involves wrapping a whole chicken in grease paper with salt and Chinese herbs. It's then baked for several hours. This cooking method keeps the meat tender and locks in the chicken's flavour. The salt and herbs give it a special taste.
• Sar Hor Fun (Chinese: 沙河粉) – Ipoh is famous for its flat rice noodles, which are made with local spring water. There are two main types:

* Kai see hor fun (Chinese: 鸡丝河粉) is served in a clear chicken and prawn soup with shredded chicken, prawns, and spring onions. * Chau hor fun (Chinese: 炒河粉) is fried with a little dark gravy. This is different from Penang char kway teow, which is fried without gravy, and Cantonese-style wat tan ho, which is covered in a clear, egg-starch gravy.

• Satay or Sate – Grilled meat skewers served with a peanut sauce. Satay in Ipoh is similar to satay elsewhere in Malaysia, but it's often a bit sweeter. Since many Chinese people live in Ipoh, you can often find satay made with pork.
• Sotong Kangkung (Chinese: 魷魚蕹菜) – This dish has cuttlefish with kangkung (water spinach) and is topped with a sweet and savoury sauce.
• Tempoyak – A popular Malay food. It's durian fruit that has been preserved by fermenting it in a special pot. People often eat it with chillies and other dishes. It's also used to flavour gulai (stews).
• Wonton Mee (Chinese: 雲吞面) – Thin egg noodles with wonton dumplings (Chinese: 雲吞), choy sum (a leafy green vegetable), char siu (BBQ pork), and a side of pickled green chillies. The noodles are usually mixed with a dark soy sauce dressing. The wonton dumplings can be boiled or deep-fried and served on top or in a separate bowl of soup.
• Yau Zha Gwai (Chinese: 油炸鬼) – This is a type of traditional Chinese fried dough. The dough is shaped like two chopsticks stuck together, and its funny name means "greasy fried ghosts." It's a breakfast favourite! You can eat it plain with coffee, spread with butter or kaya, or dip it into congee (rice porridge).
• Yong Liew (Chinese: 酿料) – Better known as yong tau foo (Chinese: 酿豆腐) in other parts of Malaysia. This dish involves different items like brinjals, lady fingers, tofu puffs, tofu skin, bitter melon, and chillies. These are stuffed or mixed with a paste made from pork or fish meat. They can be deep-fried or boiled and served in soup. You can also find a type of fritter made from shredded yam bean (also called jicama) and the meat paste.

Sweet Treats and Pastries

A pomelo, a large citrus fruit.

• Caramel Custard – A classic dessert and a popular specialty at some of Ipoh's best food places.
• Chicken Biscuit or Kai Zhai Peng (Chinese: 雞仔餅) – A popular souvenir for visitors to Ipoh. Even though it's called "Chicken Biscuit," the original recipe doesn't have any chicken! It's made from wheat flour, candied winter melon, lard, red bean curd, sesame seeds, molasses, and egg wash. Pun Chun Restaurant in nearby Bidor is famous for this biscuit, as it's where the Chicken Biscuit first started.
• Egg tart (Chinese: 蛋挞) – Several bakeries in Ipoh are famous for these Cantonese-style custard tart pastries.
• Heong Peng (Chinese: 香餅) – Flaky biscuits with a sweet filling. Tourists often buy them as souvenirs. Locals know that 'heong peng' from the Gunung Rapat area is especially famous, as it's said to be where they were first made.
• Ipoh white coffee (Chinese: 怡保白咖啡) – A popular coffee drink that started in Ipoh. Unlike regular Malaysian black coffee, "white" coffee is roasted with only palm oil margarine and no sugar or wheat. This makes it a much lighter roast. It's usually made richer with condensed milk before you drink it. This drink even inspired the OldTown White Coffee restaurant chain, and you can find instant versions of it all over Malaysia and even in other countries.
• Kacang Putih or Kacang Puteh – Originally from Buntong, kacang putih refers to different Indian snacks made from legumes, nuts, or flour and many spices. They are roasted or fried until golden.
• Kaya Puff – Pastries with a flaky crust (like curry puffs) filled with sweet kaya (coconut jam).
• Kuih Limas or Kuih Tepung Pelita – A steamed sweet treat wrapped in banana leaves. It has two layers: the top layer is made with thick coconut milk, flour, and a pinch of salt; the bottom layer has thin coconut milk with pandan paste, flour, and sugar.
• Lempeng Pisang – A Malay-style pancake made from mashed bananas and grated coconut. It's wrapped in banana leaves and grilled.
• Pomelo – Ipoh is famous for its fruits, like seedless guava, cempedak, durians, and especially pomelos. You can buy pomelos in front of Sam Poh Tong (三寶洞) along Gopeng Road. These stalls are mostly for tourists driving into Ipoh. Or, you can go directly to the Tambun-Ampang area, where most of the pomelo farms are, to find more choices and better prices.
• Tau Foo Fah (Chinese: 豆腐花 or 豆花) – A very soft and smooth tofu pudding, traditionally sweetened with brown sugar syrup.
• Tong Sui (Chinese: 糖水) – Sweet soups made with different combinations of ingredients, such as black beans, sea coconut, yam, sweet potato, longan, and more. In Ipoh, there's a whole street with food stalls dedicated to tong sui, called 糖水街 or Dessert Street.

Popular Food Centres

Ipoh has several large food centres where you can try many of these delicious dishes:

• Ipoh Garden
• Wooley's
• Gerai Makan Hoi Teen
• Dai San Yen
• Big Tree Foot
• Perak Stadium
• Tong Sui Kai