Pre-CNY Ipoh Trip: Tong Sui Gai

As usual, Bf and I went up to Ipoh during this CNY season. But it was slightly different this time. Normally, we visit popo during the second or third day of CNY and stay for a few days. But this time, we brought her down to KL before CNY and stayed only for a day due to work and study commitments.

Ipoh is a great town. It's famous for just any kind of chinese food you can think of. 'Ba Gua' (dried meat), kuey teow soup, chicken rice, 'rat mee' soup, curry mee, tong sui and most of all DIM SUM! (I'm feeling so hungry writing this)

The road to Ipoh takes about 2 hours (110km/j on average) and the good thing was: we didn't meet the jam! (mwahahaha!) It was a smooth journey but a hot one. (My right arm is darker than my left -___-")

When we arrived, it was time for lunch. We picked up popo, sent my cousin Joan to school and went for lunch in Old Town. Initially, we wanted to go for Hakka Mee (argh, I so miss Hakka Mee!) but much to our despair, the shop, who celebrated CNY earlier than anybody else (humph), was closed. Since we were hungry beyond description, we landed on some unknown shop for fish mee soup. It was still good.

That night, we were craving for 'tong sui' and a friend of Bf recommended the legendary -- 'Tong Sui Gai'. It's a stretch of road with close to 50 stalls, supposingly selling only 'tong sui' but we found out it's just like the SS2 'Wai Sik Gai'. Aaaannnnywaaaay, we picked a stall and ordered some dessert.

This is 'Tong Sui Gai'

This is the stall we ordered our 'tong sui'

This stall insist on using number 18 even though their stall is supposed to be number 20

I must say, their version of dessert is different from what we have in KL. 'Bubur Chacha' has multi-coloured jelly and very sparingly few pieces of sweet potatoes and yam (I don't even remember if they have it). 'Ai Yu Bing' becomes a florescent yellow 'ice kacang' like dessert with only blended ice and jelly. They have something we rarely see in KL which is the 'Bung Dai Woon'. I tried it a few years ago and vaguely remember it as a green-grass-tasting-drink. I think I would very much prefer the KL versions (no offense).

The Ipoh style 'Ai Yu Bing'

Bubur Chacha with coloured jelly

I think this is called 'Ban Kueh', I like!

Yes, cam whoring while devouring my bowl of 'Bubur Chacha'

Cleanliness is often an issue in Chinese stall beside the roads but finding an ant, long dead and frozen in my Bubur Chacha jelly brings it to a higher level I've never experienced before.

Frozen Ant! Somebody call the pest control quick!

Let's play with the carcass

Eat the Ant! (Extra protein is good for health)

Yum~

ps: I didn't eat the ant.