Restaurant Kok Thai @ Kinta City

I am catching up with my January posts in February.  Humbug. And since it is CNY, TIME TO DO A CHINESE FOOD POST! 

Well, this is a home town post though, I have been to Kok thai several times, but have not really taken a camera there before. On most occassions i have been there, either it was an unhappy event that we needed to eat food there or it was i forgot to bring my camera. But this time around i brought it and it was a happy event. My paternal grandma's b'day :). I have come to significantly value my grandparent even more what with the lost of my maternal grandma in December.  I can count myself lucky to have grandparents because I know alot of kids my age actually never knew their grandparents or were not close to grandparents. I was lucky in a sense both paternal and maternal grandparents had a turn to take care of me when my parents were in sabbatical in U.S. [ they left me behind.................. :( ]

Every year, since Grandpa died, we make it a point that all of us that can come back, will come back for grandma's b'day. Normally we have a simple lunch or dinner at a restaurant. My uncle from Australia made it back for the event as well so it was good to catch up with my uncle. Who unfortunately decided to glue himself to the TV because of Australian Open * grin *.  While he watched, i was pretty much taken by the Rolex ads. In the end, I wanted a rolex watch for no reason. I didn't get it anyway. Too pricey.

Kok Thai is quite an old establishment in Ipoh. Situated opposite of Jaya Jusco, it serves pretty good food at reasonable places. But parking sucks. Again. *sigh*. Ok, yes Uli, Ipoh has parking problems as well. Especially if you have a wedding dinner around here .. gosh the whole road will booked up! Ok it is not as bad as pantai seafood, you can still park behind and walk to the front.


Since this is lunch, the menu is not as heavy as our normal choices for dinner. Grandma loves fish, so it will always appear in our events :).

We started off with soup and this is my first time trying this Buddha jumping the wall soup. ( Is this right? ) I must say i thought it was a dish not a soup. I must say i felt this was one .. rather fishy soup. It is full of abalone, fish maw ( or lips. Or fish body parts ) scallops ( this i like ), mushroom and chicken. It was rather oily though, and i felt the smell was bit of a put off. But after a few sips, it was tasting alright. I guess i need to acclimatize to the fish smell. However, check out the oil below. Exxon Mobil would have been really proud.



Greens are always important. We had Yin Choi fried with garlic. I detect a strong use of chinese wine here because it tastes really good :) But notice the oil layers again. I thought the veggie dish could be slightly bigger as we had no rice really for our lunch.


Mom thought it was gross i need to point out eyeballs to people. :) Yeah, well, your daughter is pretty gross at times. This above, is just minor grossness. We normally steamed fish so my grandma can eat this. She likes fish but hates veggie because it makes her chew pretty long. (Sometimes she looks like quite a bovine, chewing away there for some time if the veggie is old )  Quite nice though this dish. Look at the cheeks of the fish. Full of meat!  Speaking of eyeballs, one of my cousins had a grandma that loved eating fish eyeballs. What is so fun with eating something so small??  The fish was fresh and quickly polished up and ended up looking more like something out of Fringe.

The eye ball by this time has mysteriously disappeared. My,what sharp teeth the fish has.

No birthday is complete without noodles. So we ordered sang meen. I loike. :) But again a bit oily. And before i can say "TAKE PHOTO" ... the waitress whisked the plate off to be split up arghhhhhhh.. i thought we are not suppose to "split the noodles during birthdays"??

Everyone's favorite fowl was next. Duck. Roast duck to be exact. I hope i have this for new year again :).  Can you guys see the duck head here with the beak partially off?  Nice and tender duck this one with little game smell.


Kok Thai is also famous for introducing rather strange dishes to the menu to spice up their menu. And this time, they did it with a vegetable. This is... Palm tree. Like in Oil palm tree? The center bit? All chopped up and fried with prawns. Has an immensely sweet ( but not sickeningly sweet ) taste and felt as if i was eating asparagus. In fact the texture and taste is a bit similar. The dish was quite fragrant as well. And the cat family approves this dish. Probably i don't see my mom buying this veggie to eat daily but something to try in restaurants next time when i am there. I don't see the KL restaurants trying this. Sometimes, it amazes me what people can cook up next.

There was free tau foo fah dessert but it was .. meh. Not so great to shout about. There are better ones.

I hope grandma had a good time. She looked pleased to see everyone ( not sure if she could remember all of us ) :D. Grandma, happy b'day and hope you have many more to come.

The locale:

Restaurant Kok Thai

56-64, Lebuh Medan Ipoh, 

Bandar Baru Medan, 

31400, Ipoh, Perak