A Letter and a Point in the Right direction – Jalan Ipoh Curry Laksa

From time to time , Cumi & Ciki get wonderful emails from readers – some are encouraging and funny, some tell us about their favourite food trails, restaurants, some even give us a point in the direction of where bloggers have failed to eat but remain their ‘special’ place for this or that dish.

One such email read as follows:

Well, thank you KP for jolting my memory. We decided to follow this trail because I had a suspicion that the place you were referring to was a place affectionately named “Kai Tau” (chicken coop) which I use to frequent almost 10 over years ago when I was working in Damansara Heights. Jalan Ipoh was just a stones throw and me, and the secretaries would venture into Jalan Ipoh once a week for our Curry laksa fix. I had long forgotten about this place.. till you, KP jogged my memory!

So, thank you for your letter, and we hope you enjoy this post!

Ming Sing – located next to HSBC on the infamously busy Jalan Ipoh.

This place was affectionately named “Kai Tau” – i.e. Chicken Coop by my colleagues because it was incredibly cramped and yet packed to the rafters, every work day, during lunch time. Executive ladies in power-suits, men in ties etc, would all sit and wait in uncomfortable temperatures just for a bowl of this ‘power’ curry laksa.

After many years, and thanks to an email from a reader, I am back in that familiar environment. Thank God its a weekend and not half as packed as normal. Cumi decides to try the wantan charsiew mee. This was just so-so. The wantan soup however had a great flavour.

Ah, The piece de resistance! Thick and rich, you need to eat this fast before the noodles soak up the entire bowl of soup and solidifies. After all these years, the flavour of the curry laska is still good and I end up drinking the sauce. Of course there is MSG and I will pay the price later for my folly, but for now, it is all good;) I would have preferred more liao and bigger cockles in my laksa but I guess I’ve been spoilt by other establishments such as this here and here. All in all, still a delicious bowl of curry laksa.

Cumi saw these and decided they would make great Valentine’s day flowers, rather than the conventional boring roses. Incidentally I don’t like roses. All these years, Cumi has sent me either sunflowers (so big and happy!) or Gerberas (so delicate yet vibrant).. lovely.. I guess I am getting Lemongrass this year..  and I really don’t mind;) LOL

We did ask KP (our reader who sent the email) if Ming Sing was near the Tong Sui man, and he was not sure because Tong Sui is not on his list of favourite things.

We did find the tong sui man however, and he still looks the same after all these years! Keeping active and working hard really slows down the aging process I tell ya. I think he still remembered me. His stall is just around the corner from Ming Sing, in a side lane, along the HSBC bank.

Here we are, poking around in his stash of Tong Sui..

He’s so obliging – he let us take photos and all. Of course we ate a whole load of tongsui and tapau-ed  (take-away) a few packets. Also we tapau-ed my favourite Zhong/Zong.

Zhong (or zong) is a traditional Chinese food, made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. You can see them hanging above the old uncle’s head. They are cooked by steaming or boiling but mainly steaming. I like the ones that are sweet and have a sugary center. Those are smaller in size than the savoury Zhong and make excellent snacks for tea!

Anyway, we had a great lunch and want to thank  KP for his letter and also all our readers for all their mail. If you keep writing us (via the CONTACT tab in main menu) we will try our best to find these restaurants should you send us on a food adventure.. we might not be able to visit all the places but we will try our best if we have the time!