Breakfast Stories: Ipoh, Malaysia

Surprisingly, breakfasts were the favourite part of our Malaysia tour! We, who excel at skipping breakfast at home, would be out on the street early digging into bowls of noodle soup or an assortment of dim sum or simply toast and coffee and Ipoh was no different. Our days would start in kopitiams, those old school tea houses with vintage tiled floors and painted bamboo chick blinds, and we would linger, charting our plan for the day over the best breakfasts in Ipoh.

IPOH / MALAYSIA

I emerge from my hotel, still sleepy, on an empty street in old Ipoh and the heat slaps me awake. It’s not yet eight in the morning but when you are so close to the equator, it is blazing hot from sunrise to sunset. Hot and humid. And here in Ipoh, with its pretty Straits-style shophouses, there isn’t a roadside tree to shelter me. Making a mental note to wake up earlier the next day, I scutter into Nam Heong, the kopitiam that takes pride for inventing Ipoh’s famed white coffee and it’s already bustling inside! The marble-topped tables are laden with noodle soups and char kuey teow, sunshine yellow egg tarts, dim sums, and, of course, kopi. The Malays love their kopi, be it black or sweetened with condensed milk, so much that one of Ernest Zacharevic’s famous murals, Kopi-O, depicts those plastic packets that locals use as takeaways for coffee. I settle into a chair, perspiration already plastering my hair onto my scalp and brow, and order a bowl of curry mee. The smoky aroma of prawns being seared for char kuey teow fills the kopitiam but it is soon overpowered by the irresistible perfume of freshly-baked egg tarts. If you are looking to eat local food in Malaysia, you must eat at a kopitiam.

Egg tarts are my weakness. I can’t stop at one! Can anyone? The sheer joy of popping those golden delights into my mouth– the custard creamy and just the right amount of sweet and the crust buttery and flaky, unravelling between my teeth, on my tongue– is second to none, so I order one. Then another one before I get busy slurping, like those around me, noodles sloshed in gravy and topped with pork balls and fried tofu skin. I wipe beads of sweat from my brow with my sleeve, order an iced kopi, and continue slurping. Eating was really the best part of our 3 days tour of Kuala Lumpur and it is the same in Ipoh. There’s nothing like these noodle soups of Malaysia, and I am yet to visit the rest of Southeast Asia, and almost every morning, I order a different bowl, each comforting and hearty, and savour the harmonious symphony of flavours. Some mornings, it’s a bowl of laksa. On others, a bowl of Hor Fun, and so on it goes, my unquenchable appetite for noodle soups but on some mornings, I choose to opt for a lighter breakfast and order toast instead.

And it comes slathered with butter and kaya. Kaya: You could dip your fingers into a jar of this eggy, coconut jam and lick it till the end of time! I didn’t know I could crave jam until I had kaya, so much that I packed a bottle on the way home and lamented when, despite all this hoo-ha about globalization, I couldn’t find one online. At Kedai Kopi Sin Yoon Loong, I spend slow mornings relishing kaya toasts and kopi-O. Sometimes, I order dan zhi, the eggs runny and reminiscent of all that’s good in the world or stop by the counter selling chicken floss and salted egg puffs and pastries studded with whole prawns with eyes and antennae intact. When we visit George Town, we eat all the wonderful food that Penang has to offer. Throughout our 2 weeks travel through Malaysia, I often linger at stalls looking at what’s on display: trays piled with dried roses, fish, spices, starfish, and ingredients my limited vocabulary of the local gastronomy cannot identify. Once, I spotted dried butterfly pea flowers. Nilkantha, as I call them at home, the blue flowers that Maa offers to Lord Shiva every day, are used by Malay cooks to make Nasi Kerabu. Blue rice (that I relished with rendang at Dǒng Café at lunch).

Then there are those lazy mornings at Foh San and Chef Fatt that are spent gorging on dim sums and jasmine tea without a care. The first few times, I was confused about ordering but not anymore. Now, when the servers wheel their old-fashioned trolleys stacked with bamboo steamers, I know exactly what to pick (and sometimes I just pick whatever catches my fancy): duck meat dim sum, sui mai, xiao long baos, salted egg baos, prawn hargao… I wonder if I’ll ever get to taste it all, this endless repertoire of dumplings, and I am in the old city again, this time in the bustle of Thean Chun, bent over a bowl of Kai Se Hor Fun, noodle soup topped with shredded chicken and prawns, slurping again. They say it’s Ipoh’s special spring water that adds a unique flavour to its food, to its beansprouts, the fattest and juiciest there is in all of Malaysia! And once I have drained every bit of chicken and broth, and successfully held back an urge to lick the bowl clean, I order a chilled caramel custard and let slivers of it melt on my tongue. Tourists spill in and out of Kong Heng Square where hipster cafés serve Melbourne-style brews and European fare.

Nearby is Kedai Kopi Nam Chun, where I almost always show up greedy for dry curry noodles. The spices, the heat, that unforgettable aroma of lemongrass, how it anoints my tongue, the back of my throat with pleasure! Or, I settle in a corner of the Paris Restoran and mop up a plate of Hakka Mee while nibbling on Yong Tau Fau. Sometimes I order them in soup, sometimes fried but they are always perfect, the skeins crispy between my teeth. Or, at Loke Wooi Kee, where a bowl of delicate Hor Hee, a fish balls and fish cake noodle soup, quenches my hunger.  

Once in a while, craving the taste of home, I stumble into Ananda Bhavan and order chai. The familiar fragrance of ginger and cardamom warms my heart. I break a piece of thosai or an idli, dunk it in spicy tamarind-flavoured sambar or coconut chutney, and eat slowly. Sometimes a stray Hindi word floats into my ear and I turn my head to find its source. It’s like travelling in Tamil Nadu again, those mornings in Thanjavur, eating fluffy idlis with sambar laced generously with asafoetida served by a middle-aged woman wearing a nose pin and gajra of jasmine flowers. Another cup of chai before my day starts. Like breakfasts in Kolkata. Cha, more cha.

Best Places for Breakfast in Ipoh

• Kedai Makanan Nam Heong and Kedai Kopi Sin Yoon Loong for white coffee, kaya toast, and dan zhi.
• Nam Heong also serves a good Curry Mee! If you are in a hurry, order some pastries and puffs from Sin Yoon Loong or Kedai Kopi Sin Yuan Foong next door to go.
• Lim Ko Pi offers a similar kopitiam fare but in an air-conditioned setting.
• Restoran Thean Chun for the Kai Se Hor Fun and caramel custard.
• Kedai Kopi Nam Chun for their dry curry mee.
• Paris Restoran for the Hakka mee and Yong Tau Fau.
• Loke Wooi Kee for Hor Hee.
• Ananda Bhavan for thosai.
• Hong Kee Confectionery for egg tarts.
• Foh San and Chef Fatt for dim sum and Chinese-style dumplings.

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