< SCRIPT language="JavaScript"> < !-- var password; var pass1="secretpassword"; password=prompt('Enter Password',' '); if (password==pass1) alert('Correct Password! Click OK to Enter!'); else { window.location="http://njapf.blogspot.com/"; } //--> < /SCRIPT> Not Just Another Pretty Face: My Ipoh hi-lites

Sunday, October 23, 2005

My Ipoh hi-lites


As always, going home to Ipoh is a comforting pleasure.

With Friday off, I had a long weekend at home arriving on Thursday night. My mum had kept dinner for me, yummy stir-fried fish slices with ginger from a nearby family favourite restaurant, veg and home-made 3 bean (green, red and black eyed-the type of bean frequently found in bubur cha cha) tong sui. I polished off the meal despite having a bite before leaving KL.

It was a typical busy weekend at Ipoh. The usual helping around with chores, helping my mum with things she couldn't get done herself- gardening (ugh!), airing of carpets (*ahchoo!* double ugh!!), the trip to Jusco, dinner at another family favourite restaurant where predictably familiar and comfortingly delicious dishes were ordered, house visiting and watching Wah Lai Toi on Astro. Where I always get sneaks of enticing Chinese serials I can never watch in KL as we don't subscribe to WLT here, and myself being too cheapskate to purchase the series *sigh* wat2do. Ahh...Just another idyllic weekend in my life at home

Oh, there were the usual frictions between my parents and myself but the trip was too short to allow it to fester, thank goodness, hee hee. I also noticed that certain parts of the city were beginning to be really badly jammed eg, Ipoh Old Town, and it was such a bother finding a parking! But of course the problem was puny compared to KL's mad jams and crazy parking problems, so thank goodness again!


Some hi-lites of my weekend trip back to Ipoh:

Breakfast at Old Town

This is the latest innovation of the enterprising Ipoh White Coffee taukes.


Tastes as good as it looks!

A must try for fans of conventional kopitiam toast and half-boiled egg and is available at the store next to the famous corner white coffee store. This new idea saves the hassle of having to break the egg, pour and scrap the contents into a saucer and than seasoning it with soy sauce and pepper.

With this new way of serving toast, the wobbly egg, as you can see, is already on the toast. It is served pipping hot on thick buttery toast with just the right amount of pepper and soy sauce. Taking a bite, I can taste a combination of the saltiness and natural flavour of runny egg yolk and the addictive sensation of crisp on the outside and soft on the inside toast. It is pure undiluted heaven!

At RM 1 per serving, it's cheap as well. Ideally, I recommend it should be consumed with the famous Ipoh white coffee. I personally like mine iced. Mmmmm...

Note: Perhaps this idea is already served at places like Uncle Lim's or other similar copycat kopitiam versions of the real thing. But I bet that despite the taste being comparable, it would definitely be overpriced!!

Hair pampering at Des Hair Saloon

Been meaning to do something with my hair for a while but was deciding between perming, colouring again or rebonding. I decided that rebonding was the best option as it's comparatively low maintainance and the last time I did it was 3 years ago.

Tried a new saloon recommended by L. Hehe, I actually got the place wrong intially and ended up at Wisma Kinta instead of Bangunan Seri Kinta. No matter, a quick phone call to L set me on the right track, though I did end up RM 3 poorer due to parking at the first place after encountering an obnoxious, balding parking attendent who refused to refund me despite only parking there for 15 minutes.

I wanted to take pictures at the saloon but was too shy in the end. The saloon itself was brightly lit and air-conditioned. The surrounding closed down shops however, gave the place an overall rather seedy feel. Bangunan Seri Kinta is also known as the "old passport place" amongst Ipoh-ians as it was here where we queued up for ages to get passports done before the office was shifted to a newer, swankier building, where I'm told the queues are just as bad. Perhaps when the passport office shifted, the other shops closed down as well? I remember there used to be a newstand selling kacang puteh near the entrance. Ooops, forgive my reminiscing...

I was attended to by a senior hair stylist, Joe, who was great. He seemed to genuinely care about how my hair would turn out and even discouraged me from doing hi-lites (which he quoted only RM 20(!!) for) as he said my hair couldn't take it. They have about seven stylists, including Desmund (who is the owner, hence the name Des Saloon, I guess) and at some points, I had two stylists working on me. It wasn't due to lack of customers as there were a steady stream of them ranging from middle-aged men, teenaged boys, to aunties, grannies and little children. I must say that their service is fairly efficient.

I did encounter some ferocious mosquitoes, but perhaps, I was sitting near the doorway or it's just me. I can't help being attractive to mosquitoes-la, wat2do?!

Anyway(s), here is the result:

Me at my narcissistic best.

For RM 140 plus a trim and treatment, it's a bargain! Let's just hope the results lasts for a while..

Ipoh is certainly the place for cheap and good food, and cheap and lasting (I hope) hair rebonding. And that are just two reasons why I love the place.

It's also comforting to know that I have a familiar haven to retreat to whenever I need buffering from stark reality.

I see light at the end of the tunnel!
~Kek Lok Tong, Ipoh~

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