I returned to Malaysia not long after our Ipoh trip, this time back to Kuala Lumpur. I’ve visited KL just a year ago too, but a group of friends were planning to visit again, so here I am. I wasn’t worried about returning too soon - KL’s one of those cities where there are so many more established and new eateries to explore, there was slender chance that the places we were going to would overlap.

We also went to Heun Kee Claypot Chicken Rice (first picture, above), a well-regarded claypot shop next to a bustling highway entrance. The 黄酒马来鸡 Claypot Chicken Soup with Chinese wine came to the table still deep in a rolling boil straight from the heat of the burning charcoal. Each sip was deeply aromatic and complex with a generous pour of wine.

We also tried a couple of fine-dining restaurants around town. One of our friends suggested Bar Kar, a restaurant overlooking KL City Centre. Their countertop seats ring their the open-kitchen fire pit.

They have a few memorable starters: the bone marrow (pictured) was excellent. Another dish starring tiger prawn was particularly fine too.

There's a lot of rave reviews on their brioche bread (uni bread, pictured; truffle bread, not), which were fine. They were also really, really pricey.

The Claypot Wagyu was so good, we ordered another round.

And then there was Dewakan.

Table at Dewakan's kitchen, overlooking the Petronas Twin Tower at sunset

What can I say about this restaurant that more accomplished writers hadn’t?

Dining here had been an experience for sure. I’ve never came to a restaurant where patrons needed a glossary to explain the ingredients that they used.

Local greens with breadfruit crisp

This was more than a meal. It’s an interactive museum experience where diners not only learn about the local edible flora, many of which are no longer commonly used, and how Dewakan had worked with producers to cultivate them for commercial use.

Each course starred ingredients that I’ve never heard of. You have the Javanese Longpepper, which isn’t as peppery as regular peppercorns, but contains whiffs of cinnamon. Kulim smelt like garlic and truffles. The pulp of the Dabai fruits held herbal notes and of avocado and chocolate, which when grounded up, behaved like cacao paste. All these and more. The chef brought us around the kitchen and pointed out these indigenous ingredients to us. We smelled the nuts as he broke them apart, tasted the flesh of some fruits when it was feasible, and sniffed into the urns fermenting a variety of ingredients.

The Two Michelin stars weren’t for nothing: the craftsmanship was exquisite. One soup featured sturgeon meat that was cut into perfect dices and mangosteen flesh shaped in smooth spheres. One course of dessert featured mulberry smoothly wrapped in cempedek flesh. If you’ve ever had cempedek before, you’ll know how sticky they can be to work with.

Check out the perfectly even julienned bits atop the cempedek confectionery

Keranji, a local fruit variety that reminded us of tamarind, was the filling of a crunchy butterfly statue pastry.

The flesh of the Perah fruit was churned into an ice cream, and together with a piece of candied kindang (mango plum) encased in a soft shell of tropical chestnut.

Dewakan is the brainchild of chef Darren Teoh, a molecular gastronomy lecturer at KDU who had first set up the restaurant on the school campus. Despite the location, it was so well-received that its next stop was on the 48th floor of a city center’s skyscrapper overlooking the Petronas Twin Towers.

It’s a talented crew running this restaurant, and it’s even more stunning to learn that the oldest cook working here is 32 years old. Their spotlight on indigenous ingredients (most of which I’ve never heard of) is wonderful, as is their list documenting the staff's favourite local haunts.

Rice tempeh dumplings, tapai ubi sauce

Do I like the restaurant? I do, but I wanted to really like the restaurant, if you get what I mean. We left with more questions about the indigenous ingredients than answers. Do all these ingredients usually have this texture and taste profile? That’s unlikely. But because these ingredients are so foreign and most diners wouldn’t have known how these ingredients are normally cooked, it’s hard to appreciate the creativity and work the team must’ve put in to craft these nuts and fruits into a fine-dining experience. I think that the Dewakan experience would have been much more interesting if they had served a sample of a traditional dish made with that ingredient, alongside their modern interpretation.

Was it worth it? It’s a hard question. Like most two-starred Michelin, the price was pretty high. How high was high? Our total bill at Bar Kar, with six mains, five appetisers and alcohol, was about the price of one seat at Dewakan. It’s hard to put a price tag on craftsmanship, but the formidable price makes a return to Dewakan daunting. 

We were ambitious when planning for this trip, with plans to check out the latest shops, the hottest restaurants, and some of the entries in Asia 50 Best Bars. But when us four overworked adults finally arrived for our long-awaited vacation, we needed - and it became - a a much more relaxing sort of trip (We pretty much agreed that had we checked out the bar scene, we would've fallen asleep at the table.) Instead, we bummed around for a bit, went for massages, ate and slept plenty, and spent the evenings catching up with one another. 

So as bizarre as it may sound, my happiest dining experience was at The Butcher’s Table. It’s a casual air-conditioned restaurant. Perhaps it was a little of our own fault for packing our itinerary with the crazy-popular restaurants of KL, but here, we found the peace that we sought. There was space from everybody: space from the other customers with no crowding, space from our servers who were attentive without hovering. It was a blissful dining experience. The food of course, was excellent. There’s plenty of excellent meats, all wonderfully prepared. There’s all the water and serviette that you need, without needing to pay RM30 for each 750ml bottle of still water. There’s beer and also wine glasses available for guests who BYO. We stayed and chatted and ate and drank until closing. After everywhere else that we’d been to on this trip, it was a breath of fresh air. Terrific food, beer, and the atmosphere to sit and relax. It’s the hospitality sector and they nailed it. 

How's everybody doing? 

I've had some success with a couple of low-effort desserts recently. I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about them, but I guess I've told people that up-keeping this blog's kinda my hobby, and I'm running out of things to post. I’m working on one about a recent trip to KL but that’s taking a while to write and my queued posts are dwindling. So, you know...

Guess anything goes!

We made milk pudding over one weekend that tasted like those fancy $6 apiece puddings that we got from Kyoto. The good news - or bad news, depending on whether you had bought these puddings before - is that it probably costs about $0.06 to make. There's no special skill or equipment required either. It's really, really simple to make. It’s so simple, a baby could do it. 

Possibly. 

Don't quote me. 

Japanese Milk Pudding Recipe

Makes 6 servings

Original recipe from Kirbie's Cravings

Had I mention how easy it is to make this? The most difficult part was finding what vessels to serve the milk pudding in. We kept and used the wee lil' bottles that we got from Kyoto, but shallow baking dishes for crème brûlée or regular ramekins or even teacups would work. 

Ingredients

500 ml whole milk

50 ml heavy cream

3 tbsp granulated white sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

2.5 tsp unflavored gelatin powder

Steps

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, combine milk, cream, sugar and vanilla. Add gelatin and combine.

2. Set the saucepan over low heat and gently warm up the mixture. Stir constantly as you do. Remove from heat once gelatin and sugar have dissolved. Do not let the milk mixture boil. 

3.  Pour the mixture into individual bowls, or into those tiny bottles that you've brought back with you all the way from Kyoto, while telling anybody who'll listen how "it is a good idea to have brought these back, see?" 

4. Cover with cling wrap and place in the refrigerator. Chill overnight, or for at least six hours until the pudding has set.  

Storage: They keep well for a few days. They can be made in advance for a gathering to take some the stress off hosting a dinner.  

A few hours further up north from Kuala Lumpur is Ipoh. We took a short getaway with several friends, some of whom were from Ipoh. We were lucky to have them show us around and introduce their favourite haunts. It was my first time visiting Ipoh, and I was excited to finally come to a city that I’ve heard so much about.

We fitted our car amongst the other cars on the grass, then headed into the eatery. Once there, we did what everybody else do: you stake your claim on an available table, queue up to pick your choice of yong tau foo from the trays on the tables, and then pay at the front of the queue.

You can pick whatever you like, and I don’t think you can make a bad choice from any of them. A particular memorable one for me was the deep fried turnip, which I hadn't had before. All of their soup bases were pretty great (we tried them all!). The plain soup was good enough to let the YTF shine. The curry one was very thick and rich, almost punitively so (it’s best split amongst several people). The assam laksa surprised me, because I liked it. (It remains to date the single bowl of assam laksa that I’ve enjoyed). The faint touch of sourness provided balance, and the mild spiciness provided that oomph with all the fried YTF. I was dunking all of my YTF into the assam laksa soup, and drank up the soup afterwards.

The other stalls here were similarly legendary. We had two plates of rojak - one regular, and one with cuttlefish and Kang Kong (water spinach). The rojak sauce was the thickest and most flavourful version I’ve had - after we finished the dish, we sat eating spoonfuls of what remained of that sauce. 

We also got a plate of Chee Cheong Fun (steamed rice noodle rolls) from another stall, which was served in the traditional Ipoh-style with a savoury mushroom sauce. The steam rice rolls were incredibly soft and tender; I guess the stall owner got to be a master to thrive alongside with the other stalls. We drank the local favourites here: red bean slushies (don’t knock it until you tried it!) and a fruit juice made from the bua long long fruit. It’s worth a special trip to return to Ipoh just to eat from this place again.

Nearby is Dong Tai Kopitiam Pasir Pinji, where we went for breakfast one day. The fried Radish Cake Slices were particularly outstanding. The Kaya Toast was good as promised, with crispy toasted bread sandwiching a slab of still-cold butter and a dab of kaya. The thick slices of sugar-butter toast were similarly good, as was the photogenic Eggs on Toast.

If that seemed like a hefty amount of food to eat, you know nothing of traveling in Malaysia, nor of us. We scheduled about 7 eateries to visit each day - we’re fun like that! The main attraction in Ipoh (for us) is clearly for its cuisine. The sightseeing attractions are just something to occupy our hours before the next meal, to while some time away and let our appetite recover.

Picture by WK

Picture by WK

We visited attractions such as old tin quarries and a historical river dredge. Ipoh prospered during the tin boom of the 1880s, which transformed the town from a small village into a bustling city. Tin was in high demand for soldering and for canning food in those days, which led huge trading surpluses and an influx of wealth to the Perak region; for example, the first car that was imported into Malaysia was bought and registered here. But over time, the tin industry collapsed as other metals became commercially viable for industry use. The canning industry moved towards materials such as aluminum (which was preferred for being lighter and more corrosive-resistant). The manufacture of electrical circuits, which previously used an alloy of tin-lead for soldering, also replaced said alloy with silver due to the health concerns of using lead.

Picture by WK

We took a boat out on Tasik Cermin, which was translated as “mirror lake”. It was itself an abandoned tin quarry which had been filled with water and repurposed as a lake. Kin Loong Valley Chang Jiang White Coffee is a popular coffee shop nearby serving rich cups of local kopi. There is an upper level walkway with a view of the cafe nestled between the mountain peaks.

If you’ve seen Coach’s leather bags and ever wondered to yourself how a scoop of Coach ice cream would taste like, well, you’re in luck here. Over at the nearby Silverlakes Village Outlet, Coach also runs a cafe next to their outlet shop. They have pretty interesting flavours, and the Peanut Butter and Jelly was worth a try. 

Ipoh’s also renowned for having Buddhist temples build into the limestone mountains, such as the Sam Poh Tong Temple 三寶洞 and the nearby Nam Thean Tong Temple. Like the water fountains of Italy where visitors throw a coin in and make a wish, there too is a local legend about the ponds in one of these temples. Land a coin into the pots located in the pond and good fortune beckons. Like a friend described, it’s like a first-generation arcade of the 1990s.

And again, I'm not sure that this could be emphasised enough, these temples are carved out of a mountain.

We went to quite a few places for snacks to bridge the long hours between lunch and dinner. Bowls of sweetened beancurd are a popular dessert in Southeast Asia, so I’m no stranger to them. But here in Ipoh, I’ve had some of the best bowls of beancurd of my life. 

We sat on plastic stools set alongside the yellow walls of Woong Kee Beancurd and ate some of the most well-made beancurd out of retro porcelain bowls. They were warm, which would normally have been anathema in the southeast Asian heat, but I don’t think they sell cold beancurd, and I wouldn’t have eaten a bowl of beancurd any other way anyways. There’s a few flavours available for the beancurd syrup, we tried the ginger and the osmanthus option, and both were pretty great. 

Another place with great beancurd is Kedai Makanan & Minuman Ding Feng across the historical Concubine Lane. This is a sit-down, air-conditioned cafe, and I was recommended to have their terrific Teochew-style beancurd “teow cheu tao fu fa” that came with a brown sugar topping and a warning not to stir. The brown sugar lends a slight crunch to each bite. Delicious.

A stop that brought a smile to my face was Pomepop, where we visited on our friend’s recommendations. It’s a bustling fruit store, but to describe them as a mere fruit stall is reductive. They specialise in pomelos, and the highlight of the store is their pomelo drink stand. In the afternoons when the sun beats heavily upon us, each sip was a wonderful reprieve from the heat. My favourite was the Lime Pomelo Ice blended, though the other Honey Pomelo ice blended was plenty delicious too.

We specifically requested for one sour pomelo so we can eat it in the Ipoh way - by dipping each cluster of pomelo sacs in soy sauce (it’s a game changer!). I couldn’t wrap my head around how this combination made a sour pomelo so addictive. It’s a combination that shouldn’t work but somehow did. It wasn’t pomelo season when we visited in July, but these pomelos were still plenty juicy. I left the store happy as a clam, clutching two sweet pomelos, a bag of ripened guava, and one yellow Buddha’s Hand (I’ll figure out what to do with it when I get home). They’re currently expanding the storefront to build a cafe next door, and I can’t imagine anything but success given how delicious their pomelo drinks are. Remember, when this store becomes TikTok-famous, you heard it here first!

As night fell, we made our way to the night market at Pasar Malam Taman Pertama. It’s a sprawling street market with food and fashion accessories are sold in equal amounts. Everybody bought a couple of food items and we soon had enough for a feast for supper. 

It’s durian season now, and three boxes of terrific Mao Shan Wang durians go for RM100. My other favourite in the night market was the fried cempedak, a cousin of jackfruit that’s a bit sweeter and stickier. The crisp fried exterior encases the sweet pulp of each fruit. The seed also softens up after frying and becomes edible. Interesting.

We spent a memorable evening having drinks at Tiga. It’s a speakeasy with its entrance in a small alley. The storefront was a bland sign proclaiming the business to be a wholesaler of sorts, and only the lit lamps over the door at these non-working hours suggested something different. It’s a much larger establishment than the narrow entrance suggested inside, with plenty of seating space.

A pretty nondescript storefront. You’ll have to trust Google maps that you're in the right place.

The other night market is over at Ipoh River Front People's Park, perhaps about 10 minutes' walk from Tiga. It's a little quieter, and mainly sells second-hand stuff. 

Another standout meal that we had was a herbal salted chicken from Aun Kheng Lim Salted Chicken. Deep incisions were made into the chicken, and stuffed with slices of dang gui to flavour the meat. It was tender and flavourful. One of our friends with family living in the area also went out of his way to ensure we also had chickens from Poh Lee Fried Chicken and Restoran Wonderful Honey Chicken, which were wonderfully fried, and baked respectively.

We had a pretty good lunch at Restoran Nasi Ayam Pak Kong Chicken Rice Store, though the crowd favourite for us was their roasted char siew.  

Being in Malaysia, there was also no shortage of zi char to choose from. We ate at Hoong Toh, famous for their crispy fried wanton and their Gui Hwa noodles. The noodles aren’t actually osmanthus-flavoured as the name suggested, the name just alludes to how the shredded cabbage over the noodles appears similar to an osmanthus flower. Despite the misleading name, the noodles were wonderfully aromatic with wok hei. Restoran Tuck Kee is another local favourite. I couldn’t help but notice their huge fat bean sprouts - these were by far the thickest and juiciest bean spouts I’ve had. Listen to me waxing on and on about bean sprouts. Am I growing old? Lordy.

Taking the overnight bus from Singapore into Ipoh was a new experience for many of us. We tried it for the novelty of the experience. The seats were more comfortable than I expected. They’re clean and quite large. Each row on the bus accommodates three seats. The seats recline horizontally to about 30 degrees, and have an extending calf rest that inclines outwards. I hear more premium options include chairs with massaging functions.

Ipoh is an ideal destination for trying the overnight bus: the journey is eight hours away, which theoretically means that you can board the 10pm bus, sleep on the bus and arrive at Ipoh at 6am the next morning right in time for breakfast at a dim sum restaurant (these places open at the crack of dawn). Taking an overnight bus to other locations may be less feasible. You wouldn’t want, for example, to take 6-hour bus to Kuala Lumpur and have to leave or arrive at an awkward hour, or go some place further up north and spend part of the next day still on the bus.

For example, we had a grand dim sum breakfast at the crack of dawn at Chooi Yue Dim Sum Ipoh 翠月楼点心。