In a Japanase mood

Chin was in a Japanase food mood so was I. Finally I thought I could to use my free Sake Sushi vouchers but ironically I guessed I had misplaced them :(. Still couldn't find them till today. As usual Chin being the more initiative person, frequently doing read up on new places and getting food recommendations from food blog, she did her usual "homework" research :) ( thanks pal! ) Naomi (our dragon boat/gym friend) suggested a few places in Pulau Tikus as she is a big fan of Japanse food. Furusato Japanase Restaurant was one of her recommendation. We decided to give it a try since as it was said to be affordable too. We ordered a plate of a plate of sashimi moriwase, soft shell crab sushi, agedashi tofu and yaki soba. We ordered a bottle of sake too. (I couldn't recall if I ever had any sake before..perhaps once but I couldn't recall how the drink taste like). I enjoyed the sashimi and yaki soba for that night. Didn't like the tofu. Guess it was over fried. I tried a bit of the soft shell crab , tasted quite nice. Didn't dare to try much as my stomach quite often to have problem to digest glutinous rice or any form of rice. I enjoyed the dinner that night. I would definitely go back to the restaurant to have another meal of japanase food.

Furusato Japanase Restaurant
Location:413 Jalan Burmah, Pulau Tikus, 10350 Penang
Tel: 04 - 226 2577

A cuppa sake...

From L to R (1st Row) : Yaki Soba, Agedashi Tofu
From L to R ( 2nd Row):Soft Shell Crab, Sashimi Moriwase

-Lynn-

Emilia's Wedding

I got invited to Emilia's wedding by Pek See. She was wondering if anyone else she knew was going and she wanted me to go with her. I did want to go because I haven't seen Emilia since we left CGL in '97 and it would be a great chance to catch up with everyone else. But I also very "pain sheh" lar... didn't get invited but showed up anyways. Pek See was trying to reassure me it was okay. A couple of days later I got a Friendster message from Emilia inviting me. So I felt good about going then.



It was cool as I got to see the hilarious Li Tse (who was voted funniest senior). She always cracks me up. I got to see Pat again. Lay Ean, Latifah and Pamela who I also have not seen for ages. It was also good to see familiar faces like Fiona, Guat May, Karen, Suans, Hei-Li, Nora and Wahida there, not to mention my best friend (since 9 ), Emily.

The lovely ladies with the beautiful bride in blue

The night was great. One of those wedding where I actually know every single person at my table and the table beside me!

Here are some pictures. As they say, pictures paint a thousand words.

I think the PFS guys at the table beside us were amused

My best friend, Em and me

CGL class of '97

-Chin-

Sunday Activities

Its Sunday!Another day of long weekend run! Woke up late again!I couldn't remember switching off my alarm. *bummer* Woke up at 5.20am and was suppose to meet the rest at 6am. DARN! Managed to make it there quite on time ( perhaps late 5 minutes) The running group was larger today. There were 7 of us - Kenneth, Chin, Remesh, Tsen, KH Ooi and *WOPPS* forgot the other guy name and of course myself [duh]. Wei Chern did not join us today as he was not feeling well.

Our running route : Youth Park - Clock Tower- Youth Park [into Jesselton housing estate]
Distance : Roughly around 16km

Detailed Map Here

Guess today wasn't my day. During the last 3km as I was running into Jesselton housing estate, I tripped over the pavement. Whamp! Roll! Thud! Ouch...Had a small cut on my knee and a few bruises on my arm, butt and shin! I was frustated!:( Anyway I felt bad as well to make Chin stopped and walk back with me. Kinda limping back [whine! whine! ] - Thanks Chin! We were supposed to attend a running clinic after the run organized by the KL Marathon Organizer and register ourselves for upcoming run, but to our disappointment, the running clinic didn't exist and they just set up a small booth [not even a booth..just a sitting bench under a tree near the Youth Park field! ] Remesh, Kenneth, Chin and I registered for the half marathon while Tsen & Wei Chern signed up for full. Not too sure about the 2 new guys. If not mistaken one of them did sign up for full too. Headed over to Subaidah for breakfast with all of the runners including Wei Chern. I got to eat my chapati with sardin gravy. [sorry no pics...left my phone in the car]. Chin and I headed for our dragon boat practice after breakfast.

Breakfast at Taman Free School market

Went over Penang for breakfast this morning with Chin. Been craving for "ban chang kueh"[chinese pancake] since 3 days ago. Was unsuccessful to eat them on Thursday. *grumble* The uncle which I like his ban chang kueh has a stall at the Taman Free School market too, so decided to try my luck. Saw his stall as I approached the eating stalls. YIPPEE! Chin at first ordered char koay teow. Somehow due to her sitting terrority ( we met a friend from dragon boat and he invited Chin to sit with him and his mom)...the char koay teow dude told her he couldn't bring it there because he had a quarrel with the people within that terriroty..how pathetic ! Typical Malaysian huh!!??! Chin end up eating "char koay kak" which is still her favourite :)

L to R: Char Koay Kak, Ban Chang Kuih ( Pancake)

Friday Night Out

Chin, Emily and myself were heading for a mixed media performance called Storm in a Box at 8pm at Sea Front, opposite St. Xaviers Institute. The play was a mixture of dance installation, drama and music. Before heading over for the play, 3 of us decided to head over to Chulia Street for dinner. All 3 of us had wan tan mee at my favourite stall. Somehow the noodles today was slighlty different then the normal noodles texture I always had from the aunty. *sniff* Was wondering if they changed their noodles vendor. *sigh* Anyway the sauce was still good.. so it wasn't that bad after all. I still enjoyed it. For dessert, Chin bought a piece of carrot cake & lemon cake from Rainforest ( the bakery is just across the street from the wan tan mee stall ). We shared the cake among ourselves. We didn't like the lemon cake - the filling was actually decent enough for my liking but the crust was too soft. The carrot cake on the other hand was good. Yummy.... (Hey Chin..Thanks for getting the cake for us ). After our dinner, Emily drove all of us to the play venue. ( Thanks Em! ). I was impress with the idea of their props setting and the stuffs they used for the sound effects ( minus the point where they used black plastic bags and it flew into the sea...GULP~tad bit disturbed by it...BLARGH) It was indeed unique, but the play was a bit too messy for my liking. Anyway the play overall was not too bad. Good attempt I would say. [besides I got to enjoy the sea breeze :)]

L to R: Carrot Cake, Lemon Cake, Wan Tan Mee

After the play, we headed over to 32 At the Mansion [first time for me there ...call me a Penangite...*shy*]. It's a colonial building by the sea. I would have choose to sit at the patio if the weather was good that night. Each of us ordered a drink. We ordered banana & peach crumble and a piece of coffee cake [err or was it an almond coffee cake :P ] which was on their cake of the day menu. Both desserts were actually quite good. I love both of them! YUMMMYYYYYYYY... Em and Chin both love the desserts too.

Banana & Peach Crumble

Almond Coffee Cake

Friday Lunch - My Favourite Chicken Chop Place

After a disastrous lunch on Friday last week ( still haven't got over the unsatisfying maggie goreng I had *bluek*) I wanted to make sure I get a good lunch today. Kenneth, Kevin, Chin, Joan ( Kenneth's friend) and I went to the food court located at Esplanade, Fort Cornwallis. All of us ordered the yummy & delicious Hainanese chicken chop. Besides being good, its value for money too. A plate of chicken chop its only RM6. The stall is very generous for their tar tar sauce too. This is the only stall ( so far) which I eat their tar tar sauce. Its so tempting that I couldn't resist not to dip my chicken or fries into the tar tar sauce. The owner of the stall is at times tad bit grumpy. Anyway...don't worry the chicken chop always turn out nice.

-Ribbit-

King's Bay Restaurant, Bayan Bay, Penang

Today is me mum's birthday. Her birthday is very easy to remember 123... January 23rd.

The six of us (parents, grandpa, aunt, bro and me) went to King's Bay restaurant for dinner. We had curry pork ribs, some tofu with sea cucumbers, eggplant with anchovie slivers, stir fried choy sum, baked red grouper in claypot and fried chicken with onion rings. My favourite dish was surprisingly the fried chicken with onions. The deep fried onion rings complemented the deep fried chicken perfectly. The baked red grouper in claypot was a bit like steamed fish, except that this was cooked with claypot. DUH! The eggplants were disappointing (Lynn, if you were here you would definitely, definitely be disappointed).

Tofu with sea cucumber

Eggplant with slivered anchovies

Curry pork ribs

Deep fried chicken and onions

Baked red grouper in claypot

The happy family (with my not-so-happy brother)

Total cost of the dinner was about RM99.80. Nice number for Chinese :). However, out of that cost, about RM15 came from tea, rice, peanuts and towels. In my opinion, that is the most wasteful part of Chinese dinner. If it has been me, I would have rejected the peanuts and towels. But my dad said, it is okay. So never mind. If my parents want that so be it.

To be honest, I preferred the quality of food from Double Good. It is comparable in price to Double Good as well. Given the choice, I would choose Double Good in future if my parents want to eat decent and affordable Chinese rice and dishes.

-Chin-

Maggie Goreng Hunting Saga continues...

The maggie goreng hunting saga continues. This time we decided to try the maggie goreng at Key's over in Seberang Jaya. Key's is famous for its "koay teow goreng basah" . We tried the "koay teow goreng basah" few weeks back and I like it considering I seldom eat malay koay teow goreng ( I swear I could count how many times I had try Malay koay teow goreng before) . I thought how bad the maggie goreng turned out to be, it won't be too bad, we ordered a plate of maggie goreng to share. During our first visit, their service was pretty fast, somehow this time around it took quite a while before they served the food to us. I guess they forgot our order, because the family who came later and sat beside our table got their food first. Not too long after the next table was served, we got our order. First glance on the noodle ....hmmph...I could tell it didn't meet someone's maggie goreng criteria : RULE #1 A good plate of maggie goreng should contain the sachet of flavouring inlcluded with the noodles. *wink* Decided to try it out before I gave my full comment to the noodles. Reached out my fork into the noodles.....CHOMP![Taste..Taste]Didn't quite like it. Couldn't taste the normal noodle flavoring. The noodles seems to be cooked with more soy sauce making it too sweet. Anyway its better than the maggie goreng I had the other day - the maggie goreng with over used pepper! BLARGH

Key's Maggie Goreng -RM3.00 for a plate...tad bit pricey

Sunday Again....

Its Sunday again! Arrgh....I wish its just Saturday. Woke up at 4.20am *eyes rollin'* YES freaking 4.20am where party goers are just on their way to the mamak stalls for supper or about to head home and plop themselves on the comfy bed while I'm trying to force myself to wake up for weekend run... ) Left home at 5am and head over Penang Island to fetch Chin. Drove up to Batu Ferringhi to meet our running friends- Tsen & Wei Chern. We arrived pretty early. Took the opportunity to take some nap. I guess I nearly dozed off. *yawn*. Started our run at 6.10am

Route : Batu Ferringhi -Teluk Bahang Dam back to starting point.
Total Distance : Approximately 18km
Time Taken : Around 1hr 40 mins

Running Route plus elevation
Full Mapping: Click Here

As usual after running, Wei Chern, Tsen , Chin and myself went for breakfast. We were suppose to go to a coffee house which Tsen recommended at the Hillside but it wasn't open today so we ended up in another shop. ( couldn't remember the name ). Chin ordered the Tosai and Chapati, while Tsen ordered Idly and Chapati, while Wei Chern and myself ordered half boiled eggs !I was actually expecting toast bread, but too bad I guess they thought I only need the egss. *sniff*Didn't enjoy the food entirely....the chapati was tad bit dry and too much flour, thosai was just normal. I still prefer the chapati in Subaidah.

L:Chapati - too much flour ; R:Egg Tosai; C: The shophouse garden

We had a late lunch . Since its already 2pm we decided to take the opportunity to Air Itam to have mee goreng. YUM....YUM! This time I'm SATISFIED ! BURP... I had about 1.5 hours before dragon boat practise to rest my well fed tummy *rub*

Ambra juice with plum

Shall hit the sack now...I'm tired

-Lynn-

Wen Fei's big day

As Wen Fei said, this was going to be a weekend of eating.

Lovely ladies at the "lao tia" night (the only other person besides Wen Fei in the middle that I know is Ching Ling who is dressed in pink)

It started on Friday night, which was the "lao tia" night at her parents' place. Buffet from Hai Lee.

Wen Fei and me, together with her two co-workers

Saturday morning was the "collect the bride" ceremony and chi muis session. I chose to not be chi muis this day. Followed by the church ceremony at the Chinese Methodist Church at Madras Lane. It was very solemn and very short and sweet. The only problem was that it was a Chinese church so the ceremony, prayers, hymms, Bible reading and pretty much everything else. Even the Bible was completely in Mandarin! I was to be honest quite LOST. A couple of time Li Li had to reach over and point to the line we were supposed to be singing. At one point when the assistant pastor was about to read the Book of Genesis from the Bible, I frantically rummaged through the pages to find the Book of Genesis. What on earth do you call the Book of Genesis in Mandarin? At this point, Li Li told me, "Chin Chin give up." And I did.

Chia Voon, me, Wen Fei and Li Li (the Oregon girls) at dinner

Dinner at night was at the E&O hotel (fancy schmancy...). It started with a cocktail in which they actually had red wine served together with some cutsey pastries like mini cream puffs, bit-sized chocolate cupcakes and tartlets. Dinner was served really slowly. There was a lot of pauses in between courses. The deep fried baby squid reminded me of Ester's wedding last June. Sadly, they were as hard as they were the previous year. No improvement. There was some weird orange coloured soup which was supposed to be a pumpkin sharkfins. Well, it has been my personal crusade for the past three years to fight the consumption of sharkfins due to the unmerciful killing of sharks for that. STOP THE MURDER! SAVE THE SHARKS! I shall now go hug a tree... I love the "Pei Pa Duck" course. And pretty much didn't care much for the others. The wine was young and very tannic.

Unsatisfying FRIDAY lunch :(

Chin quests for maggi goreng continues. Since we had 2 hours lunch break, we decided to try out the maggi goreng in town. She found out about this mamak stall through someone's blog

(http://gnowznew.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-kinda-like-mee-goreng.html) while she was hunting for her best maggi goreng in Penang recommendation. It suppose to be VERY NICE. We were not sure what time does the stall opens, so we decided just to try out luck. The stall was just a small stall at the corner of a car park located along Anson Road. Took us about few minutes to locate the stall when we drove into the car park as we enter the entrance there were another stall selling "Nasi Melayu". I was eager to try out the maggi goreng. I guess Chin was more eager to try it out after reading it so much on the blog *grin*. We ordered and get ourself seated. Waited about 25 minutes...GOSHHH....FINALLLY...( drum rolls ) our maggi goreng was served. Look at the noodles - FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT - seems to be soaked in too much sauce. Picked up my fork dive for the noodles - Major DISAPPOINTMENT - does appear to be noodles I was expecting to taste * double sigh* - Too spicy, too much sauce killed the flavored of the maggi not forgetting a whole splattered of pepper on top of my egg....( If I was still a chilly/spicy eater I guess I might had like it ) Chin didn't like the noodles either. My throat and stomach was burning after that...I BANNED this place...Well actually I guess the noodles wasn't bad but just that my taste for it was different. This stall was actually featured in New Straits Times in 2007. I guess its good to have it featured.... BURP

Lynn

The quest for the best Maggi mee goreng in Penang

I am on a quest for the best Maggi goreng in Penang. I became a HUGE fan of Maggi mee goreng after my cousin brought me to a stall in Serdang, near my university about five to six years ago. Unfortunately, that superb stall closed down not too long after. Since then each time I go to a new mamak stall, I try the Maggi mee goreng in search for one that could come close to being like that superb plate.

My criteria for Maggi mee goreng is that they must use the perencah Maggi that comes with the pack of instant noodles. I know some people don't care for that and some find it awful. But I love it that way!

Right now the absolute best, in my opinion is a smaller (which I like, no huge after-party crowds), more discreet stall at the corner of Jalan Burma and Jalan Transfer.

On Monday night, Lynn and I decided to try a new place just further down Jalan Transfer nearer to the Jalan Sri Bahari turn. This stall opens from morning to night. Hard working mamak! The stall did look a bit sketchy at first because the tables were place in a badly lit alley beside some buildings. It also looked very sleepy. I was a tad bit hesitant but when the plate of Maggi mee goreng arrived, I was pleasantly surprised! It might actually rival my favourite, so far. Sadly, Lynn's roti bakar was not as good as our regular place.

By the way, the waiter at this stall is damn blur! He attempted to bring just about everything served to our table... if it was free food, he can keep it coming!

Simple but yummy plate of Maggi mee goreng

Sadly the not-so yummy roti bakar

-Chin-

Photography credits: Lynn

Gasp! What have I done?!?

Today I signed up for another marathon. GASP! Lynn, I blame you! It is all your fault! And Kevin too! ARGH! I want to retire from running already. Enough.

Together with Kenneth and Lynn, I signed up for the Sundown Marathon in Singapore. We signed up early to get the early bird price of S$50. Not bad, since I did pay S$75 for the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon. Surprise, surprise was that Kevin beat us, and was the first to sign up. By the way, Kevin is da man. He ran Singapore Marathon without any training! Can you beat that? Now that's what I call willpower, my friend.

In any case I have been chasing my elusive 4:30 marathon. Sundown would be my third marathon after Portland Marathon on Oct 4th, 2006 and Singapore Marathon on Dec 2nd, 2007. I am hoping a night run would be better for me as I suffered greatly from heat and thristy-ness during Singapore Marathon.

Sundown Marathon takes place on May 31st this year! Run strong!

Argh! Now I have to start training again.

Sunday Adventures

Darn! As usual being careless, I accidentally closed the tab when I was about to complete blogging..and here I am trying to remember and retyping them again...*sigh*

Haven't been blogging close to half a year. Used to own a blogging site at http://www.xanga.com/lynnguan. Last posted my entry on August 22 2007. Since Chin decided to start a blog in 2008 as part of her TO-DO LIST in 2008, decided to combine a blog with her so that if I'm too lazy to blog, hopefully there will be still posting from her (right Chin? *grin*)

Had an early start of the day today. As usual, on Sunday we will normally try to do our long run with our running group. Nearly overslept till I got a wake up call at 5.10am. Left home at 5.25am. Was supposed to pick Chin up at 5.30am and meet with the rest of our running friends (Tsen, Wei Chern and Ramesh) in Youth Park Car Park at 6am. Managed to swing by Chin's house at 5.40am and reach on time at Youth Park. Thought we will be late but to our suprise, we were the earliest! We did a 17km run today (Route: Youth Park-Copthorne Hotel - End of Gurney - Youth Park) - See screen shot of route below

Mapped using Route Planner from RunnersWorld Training Log

Chin had a good run today, not so much for me. As usual I was struggling towards the end heading back to Youth Park and got stopped by a couple in a car trying to find their way to KDU College (not too sure if I gave a good direction to the couple- I hope so! :)). Thank god they didn't end up doing 25km. Since the run ended early, Chin and I decided to have breakfast with Wei Chern and Tsen near a 'kopitiam' (coffee house)at Tanjung Bungah market before heading off for dragon boat practice at 9.00am. Since next week I will be out of town, decided to attend todays session. I like the training session today though my shoulder and arms are falling apart now! Guess I LOVE pain! Training session ends around 12pm. By the time we finish bathing it was already 12.30pm, Chin called Naomi to confirm our lunch plan. Met up with Naomi and Pierric at New World Park at 1pm. We went to The Boulevard for lunch. All of us had the set lunch and ordered a bottle of French Wine - Chateau de Seguin 2004. I ordered Grilled Sea Bass with Tomato Vinaigrette as my main, Pierric and Chin had Duck Confit with potato gratin top with hazelnut Vinaigrette and red wine , while Naomi ordered the Grilled Chicken (I couldn't really remember the full name of the dishes besides duck confit). The mushroom soup wasn't that bad. Quite like it..but if only they were tad bit creamy and a little more mushroom. Chin offered me a small piece of her duck confit, didn't like the texture of the meat and tad bit salty for my liking. Chin did mention the same about the saltiness. She like the grilled sea bass. By the time we finished our lunch, it was close to 3pm. Dropped Chin's home and headed back.Weather was killing! HOT HOT HOT! arrgghhh

[Top to Bottom] Sea Bass, Salad, Wine, Soup, Duck Confit

Lynn

Laksa Tanjung Bungah

I had dragonboat photoshoot and practise at 3.30pm that day followed by a college reunion photoshoot and dinner at 5pm. The college reunion photoshoot was to take place at the beach across from the Penang cultural center on the way to Teluk Bahang. So I decided to attend the dragonboat photoshoot but had to skip dragonboat training. As I was driving and almost arriving at my destination, I got a call from Suans who then proceeds to tell me that it had to be postponed to 5.45pm because Malcolm the photographer couldn't make it until then. ARGH!

I could have actually made dragonboat practise actually! ARGH!

So anyway, since I was very hungry I decided to try out the Laksa Tanjung Bungah I read about in some else's blog. It might have been a bad decision because I had to backtrack almost back to the dragonboat training area. Nevertheless I had time so...

The spot is on the right as you are driving up to Batu Ferringhi area. The first beachside/roadside Malay food stalls after Mar Vista. The one unique thing I read about the Laksa Tanjung Bungah is that it has a hard boiled egg. But when my plate of laksa arrived there is was no hard boiled egg. so I peeled one of my own off a communal plate. The laksa was really quite good. More sweet and spicy than sour, unlike the Chinese ones. The price was reasonable but unfortunately the portion was really small. Very little noodles and almost no veggies. Cost RM2.00 but add another RM0.50 for the hard boiled egg.

Laksa Tanjung Bungah

The sign you see by the roadside

The view from the stall, pretty nice

-Chin-

Gunung Jerai, January 6th

Took a day hike trip with Lynn's hiking group, O2P. Kenneth, Zhi Feng and I tagged along. It was a long hike up to Gunung Jerai, I was told before the trip. I had pre-hike jitters since I am not particularly a strong hiker. I also know that some hikers take hikes at a punishing pace. I am a slow and steady hiker.

Group photo before the hike

The morning started bad. Due to last minute packing the night before, I sorta overslept and rush through getting ready. Arrived at Lynn's house on the dot at 6am. Thankfully, I still beat Kenneth getting there :p. Breakfast was at some dim sum place in Bagan. With so-so dim sum. Believe it or not, Hong Kong aside, the best place I have had dim sum outside of SEA is Vancouver, BC in Canada!



I was very nervous. I have never hiked with this group before. I know Lynn is the super hiker. So she would be chugging up the hill. Kenneth and Feng were also above average hikers and are fit.



Pre-hike warning was that the mountain was infested with leeches. Blek! I had nightmares with those for 5 days in Tahan. But this time I came prepared with waterproof pants and KL bought us leech socks. Cool!



Uncle Yong and Ah Tut led the hike. Even at the start of the hike I can see tons of leeches trying to may their way up my leech socks. Ack! I stomped at them, I yanked them away, Kenneth burnt them. The hiking trail was rolling hills. With a few very steep sections. All in all the pace was good. My load was only about 6kgs, definitely no where near Lynn's 14kg pack. Stopped for lunch at the false peak. Stopped for lunch at the false peak. It took us about 6 hours to get to the peak. Stopped by a super small waterfall to wash up. I didn't like the waterfall as it was surrounded by rocks and there was no place to stand or plunk my ass.



The best thing about this hike... no hiking down! We met with our van at the resort located near the peak.


Something interesting happened on the hike. Someone hiking ahead of Lynn and me must have disturbed a wasps nest. Because those vicious things came right at us! Very aggressive. I got stung on my finger and ear. Lynn got one on her palm. Feng got four stings! On his face, arms and body. Kenneth got one on the back of his head. It was really painful! I actually had the stinger stuck to both my stings.

Ipoh Daytrip, January 5th 2008

This is going to be a packed weekend. Kenneth, Lynn and decided, pretty last minute, to do an Ipoh daytrip to visit my beloved friend, Nai Shin who is back from Singapore. Then I agreed to go to Gunung Jerai, Kedah with a hiking group that Kenneth and Lynn know on Sunday and then I have a potluck party with the Oregon girls, Yan Nee, CV, Li Li and Jie Hui. Whew!

Nai Shin is my friend from MMU of six years. We have this great friendship in which we almost never keep in touch but whenever we meet up, things are just like yesterday. It is as if we had never been apart. I love these sort of friends.

It was also packaged to be a great food trip so that I can visit all those food places that Nai Shin used to bring me too. And what has now become my favourite Ipoh food haunts every time I am in town.

We started our drive from Penang at 6am ++ as your truly majorly overslept making us late. Kenneth had to opt out because the poor dude had to work. Arrived at Ipoh at about 8.00am where with superb directions from Nai Shin (I got lost twice!) I managed to pick her up and our food adventures began!

We started the day with dim sum at Kampung Simee in Ipoh. Nai Shin brought me there five years back. I was a tad bit disappointed. Followed by what was claimed as the best egg tarts in Ipoh. The "Choy Kee" egg tarts hidden inside the Simee market. Thanks to Nai Shin who resourcefully ask some Ah Pek by the street.

We then proceeded on to old Ipoh town for my favourite Ipoh curry mee at the Xin Quan Fang coffee shop.

Xin Quan Fang curry mee

Then Ipoh old town white coffee and toast bread at Sin Yong Loong. We decided to skip Nam Heong, home to the Old Town White Coffee brand since we went there the last Ipoh trip.

Nai Shin and me

White coffee and toast bread

The toast is really, really thin and crispy. With kaya and sadly, as Nai Shin grouses, margerine instead of butter. The kaya was a tad bit too sweet.

We then took a tour to all the "tongs" since Lynn has never been to any before. "Tongs" are pretty much just temples inside a cave.

Lynn and I decided to take a pretty challenging and sometimes scary walk up to the top of the cave. It was very steep and at one point complete pitch dark. The floor was also made of wood and not very stable. We did inch our way gingerly across quite a bit.

We ended the trip at Indulgence (http://www.indulgencerestaurant.com/) for lunch. I first read about Indulgence four years ago. It caught my attention that time because the owner was a Cambridge educated mathematician turned self taught chef. Something I aspire to be! It used to occupied two side-by-side shophouses in Taman Canning. Now it has moved to a luxurious bungalow along Jalan Raja DiHilir. Sadly, the food prices are very steep, a bit too steep, in my opinion for Ipoh standards. I mean RM26 for dessert? Really? I can get a main meal for RM26 in Penang. Call me a stingy Penangite... whatever. Wanna stay at their hotel? Be prepared to fork out RM620 for a suite and RM420 for a standard.

Atoi, a Thai duck salad with cilantro, radiocchio, honey cashews served very imaginatively in a young coconut shell with coconut juice in shot glasses sprinkled with chilli flakes

Poached trout with sundried tomatoes

Pasta with scallops and beef bacon tossed with crab roe

The most satisfying thing I had that afternoon. Which was the dessert, mocha chocolate pudding with berry sauce. Simply delicious!