My wife and I, like to go for short car-drive trips on weekends or public holidays.
This is our 2days/1night drive/stay to Perak.
We started the drive after work on Saturday afternoon (quite heavy traffic) with a bye-bye city gesture.
After an hour's drive, we stopped by Sungkai (a small town, famous for it's hot spring resort at Sg Klah) @ Restoran Choy Kee for some refreshments and a plate of Hokkien style fried sliced Haruan fish (snakehead fish) rice vermicelli noodles with crunchy Choy Sam.
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| Fried sliced Haruan fish with rice vermicelli-Rm7/ |
With a contented stomach after the meal, we continued our drive on the old trunk road to Teluk Intan via a left turn at a traffic light junction just before Bidor town.
A quite scenic road with mining ponds, kampung houses, fruits orchard and a Chinese new village with an English name-Kampung Coldstream, swiflets houses, oil palm plantation.........etc
About half an hour later, the Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan was in full sight.
We dropped by Maylex House (our niece accessories shop) with a hand painted Hello Kitty logo besides her shop,( located beside a Shell station), to buy a pair of dark sun glass and then to pick up Yoke, my SIL.
Yoke's house is quite a landmark, a huge beige colored double storey wooden house located next to the famous Liew Kee's Chee Cheong Fun stall@Jalan Hill.
After loading Yoke's small luggage bag in the car, my wife complains about the hot weather- a good excuse for some ice cool ABC and fruits rojak at a stall located next to Anson Hotel.
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| Fruit Rojak-assorted fruits like cucumber, unripe mango, ambarella,yam bean, guava, pineapple all in bite sizes-topped with blanched kangkong, beansprout, grounded peanut, ungent black shrimp paste, crispy and crackling dough fritters and prawn crackers-good appetizer !-Rm4/ |
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| The best thirst quencher on a hot afternoon-ABC-grass jelly, red sago pearl, pandan flavored noodle, red kidney beans, corn, milk, gula Melaka and finely shaved ice-heavenly!-Rm3/ |
Our next stop on the old trunk road was Chui Chap-Langkap-Tapah Road-Tapah and with Sil Yoke in the car-the journey was filled with jokes and laughter - with her latest updates of close relative's happenings !
From here, the landscape on both sides of the roadare brown flat harvested muddy padi fields with flocks of white storks feeding on small fishes all over the fields.
At Langkap, we stopped at Kedai Makanan dan Minum Tong Fong to buy some pork pao and their famous red bean paste pao rolls for supper.
Along Tapah Road is a modern steel structured KTM rail station, two rows of old shop houses and a huge Prisons Cmplex.
When we reached Tapah town, at the road bridge we could see that the water level of the Tapah River was low - meaning ? ?? we could take a dip in the cool running water and do some digging and sieving for river lala (clams) and siput (balaitong).
After a fruitful, cool and wet time, we went to another of my SIL,Tai Yee's house, , where I took a rest and a full 20 minutes massage on an electric powered massage chair, while my wife played Gin Rummy with them.
We ended the day with a dinner at Restoran Tonny located about 100m from the Tapah Polis station with two of my favorite dishes i.e.1: stir fried wild frogs with onion and ginger and 2: Kong Poh sliced Padi field's eel with lots of dried red Bombay chillies, onion and spring onion.
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After dinner, we adjourned to another relative house to meet up for more chit chat and Gin Rummy.
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| Food court @Kampar. |
Next morning, we woke up early to drive up north to Kampar (20 minutes drive).
Where we went to Kedai Makanan and Minuman Kawan Baru for our breakfast as it is nearby the market and food court, where the ladies intend to buy pastries and lor mai fun (cooked glutinous rice with toasted peanut, BBQ pork and curry sauce) just outside the food court.
The first thing that caught our eyes was rows of roast duck and it was so early in the morning.
We ordered a half portion duck (Rm18/) that came with red chillies sauce and sweet bean paste sauce-verdict not bad, crisp skin, meaty and not gamey at all.
The soup noodle and Char Kway Teow were average at Rm3.50/bowl/plate (no complains ! ) and the flat white rice noodle was smooth and different from what we get in KL.
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| Roast Duck-meaty and succulent-red chillies sauce/sweet preserved bean sauce-Rm18/ |
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| Char Kway Teow-sambal on the side and half a calamansi (for it's juice) |
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| Fish paste noodle. |
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| Kai See Hor Fun with smooth white flat rice noodle. |
Next we drive up to Bandar Baru Kampar to visit another relative where we spent a few hours before we left for home.
We stopped by Restoran Choy Kee@Sungkai for a late lunch before heading back to the city.
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| Fried rice vermicelli-dry style with shrimp, onion, fish cake and choy sam. |
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| Stir fried Paku choy with sambal belacan. |
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| Steamed Patin King with soy sauce/peanut oil-topped with julienne carrot, spring onion and cilantro-sweet tasting, smooth and meaty texture-Rm60/ |
