My weekend in Taiping is incomplete without a good supper. To find the best place for supper, the locals brought me to this wooden food court called Siang Malam (Day Night).

Siang Malam is popular for its stalls serving good and cheap local food. It is located beside Taiping town KFC on Jalan Kota.

By night time, the place is crowded with locals patronising the stalls. It is not a fancy place but the food is worth the visit.

On top of the popular nasi lemak bungkus (wrapped nasi lemak) and char koay teow, Siang Malam is also popular with its chee cheong fun.

Their version chee cheong fun is flooded with sweet sauce and chili sauce. It is generously sprinkled with fried shallots and sesame seed. This huge plate of chee cheong only cost RM 2.00 (US$ 0.70) per plate. Should we need to say more?

Siang Malam Address:

Jalan Kota, Taiping (beside KFC Taiping Town)

View Siang Malam Taiping Perak in a larger map

We often heard about the famous food in Ipoh. However, very few people are talking about the famous food in Taiping.

Taiping is a laidback town where rain is almost a daily affair. Located near the town is scenic Taiping Lake Garden. We will blog and recommend on a few good food places in Taiping this week.

One of them is the peanut bun which is loved by the locals. It is available at the Ipoh Bakery which is located at 144-146, Jalan Taming Sari at the town centre.

Set in the local pre-war shop lots, the Ipoh Bakery can be easily located in the town.

The peanut bun of six is selling at RM 2.70. The soft and oven fresh bun is stuffed with generous amount of minced peanuts and hints of sugar. In minutes, I finished the buns.

Ipoh Bakery’s peanut bun in Taiping is highly recommended for peanut lovers. They do sell other varieties of buns, breads and cakes.

Ipoh Bakery Hot Breads and Cakes Address and Contact:

144-146, Jalan Taming Sari

34000, Taiping Perak

Tel: 8073354

It is considered as one of the oldest lake in Malaysia. Thus, it is also considered as one of the most romantic and beautiful lakes in the country.

The Taiping Lake Garden is the first public garden established during British era. The garden is located near Maxwell Hill or Larut Hill, the famous Taiping Zoo and the town center.

Originally a mining site, it was converted to a public garden in 1880. Its beauty earned admiration of many which includes Cuthbert Woodville Harrison who wrote about it in 1911.

The streets are shaded by rows of the angsena tree, which at irregular intervals bursts forth into a riot of blossoms, even more yellow than those of the laburnum. These it rains down in golden snow upon the streets, providing a carpet fit for a Sultan, for yellow is the royal colour in the East. With its golden snow, the angsena spreads abroad an almost overpowering scent, even more sweet than the smell of the pinang blossom. Most of the towns in Malaya have planted this Pterocarpus indicus as shade tree, but in Taiping it has grown to a greater height than elsewhere.

—Cuthbert Woodville Harrison, An Illustrated Guide to the Federated Malay States (1911)

With the backdrop of Maxwell / Larut Hill, Taiping is a very laidback town. Hence, Taiping is also considered as a wet town as it has the most rainfall in average in a year in the country. Shower rains are frequent in Taiping and I do wonder how the residents in Taiping dry their clothes.

Every morning and evening, residents will exercise or jog around the lake garden. During weekends, the lake garden is a favourite spot for family activities. Thus, many would enjoy the famous Taiping Zoo near Lake Garden. Now the Taiping Zoo also offers Night Safari experience.

Personally, I have been to Taiping Lake Garden various times and it never stopped me from driving around the lake. I will try to visit the Taiping Zoo for the Night Safari experience. I have stayed Flemington Hotel which is located at the lake side a few years ago where every morning I was treated with the scenic lake view. After all the memorable experience I have with Taiping Lake Garden, I understand now the term “From Taiping with Love”. It is love, full of love indeed.

Taiping is located on the north of Ipoh and easily accessible via PLUS highway. Taiping is also a food haven and the city is heavily influenced with pre-war and British built buildings.

Taiping had a new hotel to their addition in 2009, the Flemington Hotel. Located opposite the popular Taiping Lake, Flemington Hotel was the official hotel for the 2009 4×4 Larut Hill International Challenge.

The Flemington Hotel has one of the best view of the Taiping lake in Taiping.

The room itself is spacious, with LCD TV and modern looking carpet. There’s also a small chair with a small round coffee table by the large glass window. Not forgetting there’s a work table with a nice leather chair. The room itself was clean and there wasn’t any stain on the carpet or anywhere in the room.

The toilet is designed with a modern touch without a bathtub. Though the space is limited, but it is well utilized.

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First of all, I would like to thank Oris Watches for the sponsoring myself, Rachel Ting and Adeline Ng to compete at the Larut Hill 2009 4×4 Challenge. This is the 3rd year of the race and we are the only ladies team for this year’s event. I knew from Wilson that Oris Watches had been sponsoring the 4×4 race 2 years consecutively. However we never got the chance to be part of it except that Wilson was there to record the event. So when he asked me if I would like to take part in this year race, without hesitation I say “YES!!”.

To prepare ourselves, training is crucial. Last Sunday, we were introduced to our racing car, Suzuki Vitara 4×4 1.6l Manual (what a beauty) and the team manager, Stiven Sim (pic), a seasoned 4×4 specialist. He took us and a few drivers to Slim River’s jungle where he gave us a taste of what 4×4 driving is all about.

After an hour of driving, we arrived at the breathtaking forest of Slim River.

I droved all the way from KL to Slim River, the car didn’t have air condition, and the exhaust pipe was crazily loud, reminding me of our pink color Bas Mini that I used to take. Before we make our way into the jungle, we were joined by other 4×4 enthusiasts from Ipoh.

Already not too far from the start of the track, I was stuck in a muddy situation. Struggled, struggled…

Thanks to Stiven’s quick response, he came down and gave us instructions of overcoming this situations. Most importantly, he told us not to panic and adjust our manouvering and we manage to pull ourselves through.

Off we go after excaping ourselves from the irritating mud.

We made our first stop next to Slim River (what a enchanting sight).

Many might not know, we Malaysians should be proud of the nature we have here. The view was refreshing. Instantly feel like jumping into the river and swim.

Stiven Sim, briefing the group on a big obstacle ahead of us. He says to everyone, “Do not step on the break as you are crossing, just press the excellarator and move ahead.”

Boy oh boy..breath in breath out..

Stiven cross the stream first, we were second. Half way through, you can feel the current is hitting and all we were doing was yelling to ourselves “GO GO GO, DON’T STOP!.

hewgh…what a relief and a sense of achievement.

We were so glad we were able to get through the stream (as you can see!) High Five! Good job! clap clap…

Unfortunately, there was a couple driving Daihatsu Feroza 4×4 that didn’t make it. Worse still, the clutch of his car got burn due to inproper controlling during his odeal crossing. Stiven had to tow the couple’s car out from the stream. After discussing, the couple agree to leave their car in a shade and hop onto another driver’s car, and so we continue our journey.

The next obstacle was this high slope of mud trail. It didn’t look very high and difficult from this picture, but TRUST ME, is HARD!!

After crossing the stream, I swithced with Adeline and it was Adeline’s turn to drive. Stiven here is giving Adeline instruction on how to drive up the difficult slope.

As usual Stiven drove up first, sort of leaving us the trail to follow. When Adeline tried for the 1st attempt, it was hard, the car was swerving left and right, before you knew it, we got stuck. The only way is to go down and try again.

Stiven says we didn’t maintain our RPM, he says must make sure we were hitting on the low gear, hit the excellarator all the way and manouver the sterring wheel. Adeline tried again, and….

After the 3rd failed attempt, Adeline switch with me, it was very tiring to be repeating this 3 times! I too didn’t make it, I did what was asked to do, but I guess beginner’s luck run out.

Finally, technician Ah Wai came to our rescue and told us to hang on and don’t reverse down.

And Ah Wai hooked our car to Stiven’s and we got pulled up.

See! We were so close to reaching the top!! argh..

Stiven was very thoughful and a good motivator. He immediately pointed out our mistake and told us not to give up.

As we drove further in, we passed through the Orang Asli villages, which was quite a reasonable community of them . The state government built quite a number of new houses for them (not in picture). Kudos to the state government!

It was raining when we got to the camp site. Stiven and Ah Wai manage to set the tent quickly and soon followed by lunch.

Adeline is preparing “sunny side up” for the the everyone, there were choices of food like nasi lemak (with Adeline’s special prepared eggs), steamed sausages and maggi noodle prepare by Janice (pic). It brought me back to the days when I went for Outward Bound camp.

One of the couple brought their portable mini bike with them, knowing I am very KIASU, I quickly hop onto the bike and start to play around with it.

It was fun riding it, is just like the real motobike except that you can’t have another pillion rider.

See how heavy was Wilson, I think he was using his leg to paddle than was actually riding it. TIME TO LOOSE THOSE POUNDS LIKE I ALWAYS TOLD U!!

Wilson riding on the mini bike. Gosh, with him on the bike, the bike appears to be even smaller. =P

Adeline posing with the bike.

Me and Wilson with the car for the Larut Hill 4×4 Challenge.

Me and Adeline.

Girl Power!

More pictures!

Thanks to Oris Watches and 4x4Malaysia.com.my, we had a first great taste of 4×4 driving and overall it was truly an amazing experience I cannot describe but to say “YOU GOT TO TRY THIS!”

Posted and Written by Rachel Ting

I was in Sitiawan again for work a few months ago. Since my client knew about my blog, they brought me to different restaurants. This was a lunch, a stone away from the Lumut port.

We started with la la with cucumber soup at RM 10.

Then the usual fried oyster omelette at RM 12. Sitiawan’s version used more eggs than starch, different than the ones we have here in KL. Both have their own individual taste, I loved both.

Potato Leaf with garlic was next at RM 12. Slightly wet, but the vege was fresh. This was decent.

Dry butter beancurd was a first one to me at RM 12. Normally, we had dry butter prawns, fish or mantis prawns, but for butter beancurd it was something unique. I loved this one, though it was slightly oily.

Thai style fish was priced at RM 42. Deeply flavoured in thai sauce, the fish was never lack of freshness. Sauce was thick and wasn’t that spicy. I loved this.

(April ’09) – I’m going to be very busy in the upcoming this few weeks with work. I try to blog regularly like usual.

This year alone, I went to Sitiawan 3 times for work. I’ went to a few restaurants there which I blogged about it few months back. Yet, I missed a few which includes this lovely lunch at Hailam Village Seafood.

The location of this restaurant is on the junction of Sitiawan and Lumut Port, map is below.

We ordered the fried calamari. Crispy and not too soft. Fried foods hardly goes wrong right? This was decent.

The mixed vegetables was next. Nothing amazing about it, this was average.

Special cooked beancurd came with a generous amount of sauce. Personally, I kinda like this one.

It has been a while since I had a steamed promphet. The well steamed fish and topped with fried garlic and sliced ginger goes very well with sauce. This was good. That’s why the dish came with 2 fish.

There were Venison! Well, we ordered the black pepper venison. This was gooood! Meat was tender and the black pepper sauce blended well with the meat.

Lastly, we had the salted egg mantis prawn. Deep fried and coated with salted egg, this was good (without thinking the calories of it). Crispy on the outside, the meat was still tender.

To have a heavy lunch like this will result a lazy afternoon. The entire day after the meal became a lazy affair.

I would say they served decent food in general. The restaurant was packed during lunch time and it was an evidence for their popularity in the area. The bill was quickly paid off by my clients. I was told the price was very reasonable.

Address:

Map:

Conveniently, we went to Kedai Kopi Woh Heng located just opposite of the road of Foh San.

We ordered the dry curry noodle as recommended by the tour guide. The noodle came late and the servings were inconsistent. One bowl came with mint leaves while one came without. Another one bowl missed the entire dry curry paste. Moreover, the dry curry noodle was ordinary. Nothing to shout about. We were a bit disappointed.

However, the white coffee was good. I guess that was the consolation we had. Thick and rich in flavour, the white coffee was the best thing we had for the morning trip to Ipoh.

We reached Ipoh around 9 am and we started to look for the restaurant without any maps or address. By 9.30 am we reached the restaurant by asking around and a friendly motorist who guided us there.

When we reached there we got a rude shock!

It was packed! Sandwiched until outside!

Basically there’s someone standing at every table waiting for their turn. Estimated time to get a seat, say at least 1 1/2 hour?

We gave up! No Foh San dim sum this time around. But one thing for sure, I’ll be BACK!

Maybe better luck next time….

(March 09) – On the fourth day, we went to Lumut town for lunch. Since we tried Rockafella, we decided to try on the famous Capri Restaurant.

Lumut town is actually quite small. Locating Capri restaurant is never been easier. Its just a few turns from the Lumut jetty.

Its a cozy restaurant. There was quite a big crowd during lunch time when we were there. We also saw a few ship captains enjoying their lunch there.

The pizza came first. The Quattro Stagioni Pizza. It comes in 4 different types of flavours. The thin crusted pizza consists of beef salami, olive, mushroom and capsicum. The pizza was pretty good. Much better than usual pizza outlets, that’s for sure. This is recommendable.

Chicken bratwurst was next. It was pretty good even though they used chicken instead of beef or pork. The mushroom sauce was a little bit “stingy” though.

Bratwurst was a new word to me so I “wikipedia” it.

A bratwurst is a sausage composed of pork, beef, or veal. The name is German, derived from Old High German brätwurst, from brät-, which is finely chopped meat and -wurst, or sausage.Bratwurst are usually grilled and sometimes cooked in broth or beer.- Wikipedia

Chicken lasagna was next. Layered and topped with cream and cheese. Lasagna is always one of my favourite dish. I always craved about it. Even though it looks simple, but getting a nice lasagna is always hard. Here, the lasagna might not look that good, but the taste was not bad.

My client ordered the ravioli. To be frank, I seldom had ravioli in my life. I tried to cook it once when I was in Australia. It didn’t turn out the way it suppose to be. It was a totally blunder.

Anyways, we were really spoiled by the ravioli here. Goodness, me the thick creamy sauce with herbs was really addictive. It goes really well with the ravioli.

Ravioli is a type of filled pasta composed of a filling sealed between two layers of thin pasta dough. The word ravioli is reminiscent of the Italian verb ravvolgere (“to wrap”), though the two words are not etymologically connected.-Wikipedia

The apple crumble was promised to be nice by the lovely waitress. She wasn’t lying. The apple crumble was hot while topped with the cold vanilla ice cream. The combination made a great dessert. This was really good.

The New York Cheesecake. It was a creamy cheesecake on a cookie crust topped with the whipped cream. This combination of high calorie content was another great recommendation.

The cheese cake was good….

The big fat lunch ended with the Movenpick Swiss Chocolate ice cream. The taste was heavenly. Smooth but thick in chocolate taste. Its was amazing. This premium ice cream is always recommendable.

The lunch feast billed up to RM 18x.xx for 4 persons. The service there was good. For the food, in general they were pretty good. Its kind of hard to believe there’s a nice restaurant like this in Lumut.

This place is a must go if you are in Lumut.

The Amazing Capri Restaurant Contact and Address:

4174, Jalan Sultan Idris Shah

32200 Lumut, Perak

Tel: +605-6833112

*Disclaimer: Personal food tasting and preferences might varies depending on individuals.