ICONIC CHEFS - Ipoh, Malaysia - Classic Malaysian Food Dishes and Amazing Seafood with Ipoh Chefs

Beautiful. They just keep bringing us more food. Thank you so much. The people here in Ipoh are crazy about their food. We've been lucky enough to meet Jason and Kane, whom many consider to be hubs of the local food scene here. They also own their own hawker stall here at Kopiton Soon Hua and they have invited us over to try some classic noodle dishes. Let's eat. Jason, how long have you been doing this? This is the seven years. Seven years? Yeah, since 2015. Kane, where did you learn how to cook? Singapore. You learned how to cook in Singapore? Did you go to school or how did you learn? Yeah, I just followed some chef around. Oh, you learned from other chefs? Yeah. Amazing, that's the best way to learn. The first dish we're going to prepare for you is Asam Laksa. So we put some bean sprouts, it's an Ipoh signature. And then this is the silky noodles, it's called laksa. Just get a bunch of it and then dunk it in hot water. This is the fish which I prepared earlier for the Asam Laksa. And then I'm going to mix it with the broth. This is the soup and the noodles go in. And I pass it to Kane. So for the Asam Laksa, the condiments we use are some shredded cucumbers and pineapples and fresh onion. And this is our local mint leaf. And this is fresh laksa leaf and the ginger flower. And we will put one fried pinket, we call popok choy. For the last one, we will put this one. Prawn paste. Where did you get these recipes? It's all from my mum. From your mother? From my late mum, yeah. And where did your mother get them, do you know? It's like inheritance from her. Generations back? Generations passed down, yeah. So the second dish is going to be the prawn mee. So we've got water spinach, kangkong, a little bit of taugeh, local bean sprouts. Dunk into the water first and then we have the yellow noodles. We will put half of hard-boiled eggs and our malicious signature, char siu. And fish cake. Lastly, we will put some poached prawn. Then we will put the soup. The soup is like this. We will put the soup. For the last part, we will put some fried onions, shallots and our homemade sambal. So you've spent some time in Singapore. What do you think makes the food in Ipoh unique? What is special about the food in Ipoh specifically? The Ipoh food area is basically much more local. If you look at Malaysia, the whole peninsula, if you go more southern, the taste buds are going to be more sweet. Once you move up to the north, it becomes more salty, more savoury, more flavourful, more umami. And then after that, when you move further north, it will be much more tangy. Where the Thai influence comes in. So you've got spicy, tangy, all the herbs. So it's a herbalicious kind of thing in the northern part. For the curry, firstly, I will put in the bean sprouts and then followed by the noodles. And then after that, I will blanch it in hot water. And then after that, I will put it into the bowl and I will pass it to Ken. And Ken will put on the condiments such as... We will put our signature char siu, roasted pork, siu yuk, and some prawns, long beans. And our homemade sambal too. That's all. There's so much food here in front of us. Okay. This prawn noodles. Here. This broth, you can tell they put so much work into because it's just so densely prawn flavoured. And you can see the pot there. They've got tons of prawn shell, the prawn heads, which really are what you need for a prawn broth. It's so good. Oh, wow. This is good. Thank you. It's right on. You're already moving on to the next one? I want to try them all. I'm just going one at a time here. Yeah, you're going to finish that one. I'm not going to be able to try it. This one is awesome, also. There's pineapples in there. Pineapple? Yeah, there's shredded pineapple. Look at that. Cucumbers, red onions, Chinese mint. And then there's fried bean skin, as well. I'm going to try some of that. I am just not an awful lot of chopsticks. Oh, no. Okay, so that laksa has a sourness and acidity to it because of the pineapple and everything that they have in here. And also, these noodles, these white noodles, are so smooth here in Ipoh. Jason was just saying that it's got to do with the minerality of the water. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Okay, let me try one. This is the... The prawn noodles. Prawn noodles. I am so horrible with a set of chopsticks. I can't do it. I can't pick up noodles with chopsticks. So, I can save myself from looking like an ass for too long here. You got a fork? He gave up. Oh. Right? That broth. The broth on there. Oh, yeah. Yes. It's got a nice heat to it. Overloaded with the prawn flavor to it. That is awesome. Oh, yeah. That's good. That broth is amazing. Come on. Are you serious right now? That is crazy. It's fish cake. Mm-hmm. Which you're not a fan of. I love it. Mm-hmm. Not a fan of fish cake. I think it's awesome. And the asam wakala. This... That is so good. This shrimp paste that you put in there. Is that fermented? Yes. Yes, that's what gets that sourness. That beautiful sourness. Amazing. I love it. This is awesome. Unbelievable. That is so good. That shrimp. This is awesome. Is out of this world. That is crazy. All right. I'm going to go for one of the other ones now. Asam wakala. I like this too. Jesus. Yeah, that fermented shrimp paste gives sourness and then all the veggies. It's like so fresh. Yeah, that's... It's shocking that the quality of food that you will find here at these little coffee shops, right? Yeah. It's a small little unassuming noodle stall, but like these are like, you can see how much effort and quality is put into the ingredients. And to the making of this. It's unbelievable. We completely lucked out meeting Jason and Cain here. This is unbelievable. We've only been in Ipoh for a couple of days. Yeah. I end up being able to hook up with these two here. This is crazy. Ooh. Yeah, it just brings like a fresh acidity to it, right? A little bit, yeah. A little tangy fruitiness to go along with it. I'm going back to this prawn noodles because the broth is unbelievable. You see why Jason and Cain have the reputation that they have here in Ipoh? This is unbelievable. It's obvious that they know their food and it's obvious that they care about what's in it, but it gets put in there. Yeah, they put a lot of effort and a lot of love into the foods that they make. And this is crazy. Oh yeah. That does it. That's pretty amazing. That is unbelievable. Jason has recommended a bunch of stalls here within the whole center that they have here and they're just starting to bring us food. I don't know what to do here. I have no idea how we're going to be able to eat all this. But this is a toast with half-boiled egg, so a little bit of soy sauce and some white pepper on top of it. I'm not sure if there's kaya in here or not. Doesn't appear to be. It just looks like a piece of toast, but let's go. Here we go. These half-boiled eggs are interesting because they don't do these in North America. You either do soft-boiled or you do poached, right? A half-boiled egg would freak North Americans out. Right, because they're like, ooh, salmonella. But yeah, they don't have that here really. Yeah, so they make it similar like you would a soft-boiled egg in the sense that they boil the entire egg. They just undercook it a lot more than what you would do for a soft-boiled egg. And they're just like runny whites as well as runny yellows. It's delicious. And then they serve it with seaweed and they associate eggs with savory breakfast, right? But this is a classic here. Oh, that's good. Beautiful. So the nice fellow behind us who we saw like acrobatically flipping the roti around has brought us this very impressive looking thing. This is called roti tissue and you can see why because it's thin. Like a tissue, right? And then you just break it apart. That crunch on it. Watch out. That's like dessert. Is that like drizzled with butter or something? I don't know. It's got like an oiliness to it, right? You can see that when they're making it they put a lot of some kind of grease on it. Oh, yeah, that looks good. And it's sweet. There's apparently condensed milk in there. Are you kidding me? And you can wear it like a hat if you so choose. I wasn't expecting it to be dessert-y but sweet and delicious. We saw across the way there where we got our chums from, our coffees, that we also got the kaya toast with half-boiled egg. I was brought over this now, which I was told is a Hong Kong version of kaya toast. So it's coconut jam, a big pad of butter in there. I don't know if you can see that or not. And it's on almost like a caramelized bun. Oh, it looks good. Our bun is like puffy but crunchy on the top. Yeah, this kopitiam is awesome. Just finishing off here at Kopitiam Soon Wah and Jason and Kane have invited us out tomorrow morning to see a castle and to try some more great eats here in Ipoh. We'll see you then. Jason and Kane live in this gorgeous home in Ipoh filled with beautiful family heirlooms and antique furnishings. Stepping into their place feels like stepping back in time to a beautiful traditional local home. First stop of the day, breakfast at Kadai Kopitiam. Okay, so the first stop here is, Kane and Jason have brought us right down the road from their house to try a breakfast. What exactly are we eating here? We're eating wonton mee and then we have ban mee. So this is the fried wonton and this is the shrimp and the pork wonton. I love it. Right on. And then we have the thick version and the thin version. What's this one called? Ban mee. So basically it's a Hakka dish. It's like a noodle pasta soup. It's a Hakka dish? Yeah, it's Hakka. Before ban mee, ban mee name was made commercialized, right? They called it bo ma chi. It sounds like to me you're saying ban mee. Ban mee, yeah. I just think of Vietnam when I think of ban mee. Vietnamese sandwiches. Yeah. That's what I think of when you say ban mee. They sound exactly the same. What should we start with? Do you have a recommendation? You should start with this thing. This is the ban mee? This is the ban mee, yes. And this was? Wonton mee. Wonton mee? Yeah. You just use the wonton? That's the mee, that's the wonton. Yes. Correct. This is the fried wonton. The fried wonton. The crispy ones. Are you supposed to just eat those like a snack? You're supposed to eat that like that. Just like that. It's a little slippery. Oh, that's good. This is a sago. Sago is called jin ha ma. It's like a type of bean. It's a bean? Where you bite it and it will become crunchy. Oh, that's really good. Jin ha ma, they call it. A kind of bean? Ban quang. It's like a yam bean, they call it. Oh, okay. Oh, that's good. I'm gonna actually try the ban mee here. Which confuses me a little bit because I still have the yam bean. The Vietnamese ban mee. So traditionally the broth is boiling. Now they are making the broth using anchovies. Just small little tiny fish. And then after that with yam bean and soy bean. You boil it overnight and after that you strain the soup, the broth. And then the following day you just use it to cook the noodles. You boil it overnight? Usually 8 to 10 hours. You get the ultimate flavor. You taste a little bit of the saltiness and the umami from the anchovies? Yeah. That is good. You like that? Oh yeah. What always amazes me when I come to places like this is how in God's name do you eat so much? When we go out and I see people sit down to eat and it will be a spread like this and it's all gone. And it just blows my mind how somebody can eat so much at one sitting. I tell you what, you just got a bigger body but smaller stomach. And we are different, we got two stomachs. You have a spare one. This is the yam bean? Yeah. I like the starchy crunchiness to it, it's really good. Yam bean, they mix it with fish paste and potato starch. And potato starch. Okay, that's good. I'm getting there. That's good. So all this is not diet food? It's not. This is diet food. It doesn't taste like diet food, no. This is diet food. Vegetables. This is diet food. We still have lady's finger and chilli. Lady's finger and stuffed chilli. Lady's fingers, we call that okra. Can we actually call lady's fingers like a cookie? Lady's fingers, yeah. It's a cookie that you make tiramisu. You want to dip that in there? Yeah. Okay. We'll find out. That's fish paste? Yeah, fish paste. It's a piece of okra stuffed with fish paste. No, no, that's a chilli honey. This is a chilli? Mm-hmm. You say chilli, you get his attention. He likes sweet and spicy. This is kind of like a special. That's it. This is, you call it pork veins. Pork veins bowl. Veins. I already ate one of them. I was actually wondering what the flavor of that was. Pork veins. You're going to freak her out, she won't eat it now. Usually we have the beef. You have to drive. No, these are very good. How do we get just the pork veins out? It's easy, you just slaughter the pig and pull the vein out. Pull the whole vein right out. Once he's dead, it's easier. But you never want to venture into the slaughterhouse, it's terrible. Alright, I want to say the pork vein won for her. What are the other two that are in here? These are the fish ball and this is the cuttlefish ball. I'll go for that because she's not a fan of cuttlefish either. It freaks her out. I don't like the cuttlefish. It's got a chewy kind of bubblegum kind of texture. That doesn't sound like it's for me. It is good though. Oh yeah, it's really good. You have to try the pork veins. Okay, I'll try it but I don't want to eat the whole thing at once. I share with you. Okay, I just want to have like a bite. I'm going to take a little piece of it. What an awesome breakfast though. There, I'm sharing with you, okay? That's my half. You took the smallest piece you could possibly get there. I'm expanding my horizons. Let me try it. You're doing good. It is tasty. I know the idea might have freaked you out a little bit. I didn't know what it was when I put it in my mouth. Stop talking about the idea. I'm enjoying it. I don't know, the flavor reminds me of something. Ginger. There is ginger in there, yeah. It's a bit gingery, porky. Definitely gingery and porky. After breakfast, whatever we need. We're heading to Kelly's Castle. Kelly's Castle? Awesome, let's go. It's one of the so-called haunted abandoned mansions. Nice. I'm looking forward to that. After exploring Kelly's Castle, Jason and Cain took us about an hour south of Ipoh to one of their favorite spots. My goodness. So this is the famous dish here. It's called steamed pork. That looks so good. Oh my gosh. And this is stir-fried ginger with clams. Ginger with clams. Ginger clams with green onion? Yeah. And these are steamed? Steamed, yeah. Steamed with egg whites. With egg whites? Yeah, and Chinese wine. And this one here? This is homemade tofu. Homemade tofu with stir-fried minced pork and shrimps. Another clam? Another one. One more. Those are the crispy cuttlefish. Crispy cuttlefish? Yeah. On top of that? On top of that. These are so delicious. It's like so gingery and fresh tasting. You can put some chili in. Some chili. Oh, that's awesome. Now let's have the prawns. Yeah, those look amazing. Thank you. They're the local freshwater prawns. Did you see the size of that prawn? They said it's a medium size. This is a medium size. Yeah. This isn't even a big one. We got like a really massive one. It's like it filled up the whole plate. Take the head off and just suck. All the juice. That is amazing. Put it up. That is the meat. Oh, in his little head. Look at that gorgeous prawn. Okay, so what am I going for here? Those are the roe. The eggs. Oh, there's eggs in there? Well, that's all over. Okay. That all came out. And the brain. That's okay. I'm okay. I'm okay with that. And you dipped in the chili. It's beautiful. Super fresh. They're beautiful. They're absolutely beautiful. These are the same guys that are over in the tank over there. Just pulling them out if you order them. You want some of this? All right. Thank you. He said this is homemade tofu. Yeah, it's homemade tofu. Yeah, you can see it has like a different texture. Nice. It's creamy. It's creamy? Oh, yeah, it's got a nice jiggle to it as well. That is the creamiest tofu I've ever had. It's almost like a custard. It's... It is. It's like an egg custard, right? Oh, that's amazing. I was not expecting that at all. And each restaurant has their own secret recipe for doing this. For making their tofu? So you go to different restaurants and they serve different kinds of tofu. They call it 招牌豆腐. They call it? 招牌豆腐. 招牌, what does that mean? 招牌 means signature. Oh. Signature tofu. Okay, last one. Oh, my goodness. That is a 招牌牛排. Look how pretty. That's crazy. I can't get over how much I like this tofu. It's creamy. Savory. That is awesome. So, coming up here every weekend, how many different restaurants would you say you've tried? All of them. Am I right? Yes. They had to make sure they had it right. And how long did it take you to work your way through them all? About two months. Yeah? Yeah. It's not that many, it's just because we're off on every Sunday, right? So, we only get to try one every weekend. So, there's about 14 of them. Unbelievable. That sounds like fun though. Yeah, it sounds like a fun thing to do. That's what we used to do when we were off on our off day. Oh, look at that. A big chunk of crab meat. We got quite mad at once because we tried to book here for dinner and in Chinese name, right, they all sound the same to me. So, we called up the restaurant and asked, is this Yau Kee? And then the fellow picked up the phone and said, yes, it's Yau Kee. So, we ended up in the other stall which is not so nice. Tell me again the name for the vegetable? Paku Pakis. In Cantonese, we call it Ka Koo Choy. Ka Koo Choy. Yes. Either you cook it with sambal, sambal is like a spicy shrimp paste or you cook it Leung Poon. Leung Poon is kind of like a salad. Like a salad. I might move to this village just so I can eat this. Every day. This salad reminds me of a lot of the stuff we tried in Thailand. It's about the same taste profile. Pan-fried, spicy, a lot of fish sauce. You did all that hard work just for me? Oh, wow. Oh, it's so good. How juicy it is. This is god. It's unbelievable. Oh my god. As a chef, so far, this is the best. Oh, wow. That is so good. I think I ate a big chili in there and I have my little mouth tingle. Bring something sweet. You scared me. That is how you finish off a big meal. Alright, Kane and Jason just dropped us off back here at our Airbnb. Those two guys, they are amazing. If you guys come to Ipoh, be sure to try and make a stop at to check out their stall and everybody else's there in the center. And don't forget to like and subscribe because there will be more amazing eating with locals here in Ipoh coming right up. Bye.