Ipoh Dim Sum - Ming Court Hong Kong Tim Sum (明阁香港点心)

When i asked a fellow colleague who hailed from Ipoh on what i can do at the fourth largest city in Malaysia, he claimed that there's nothing better than to eat!

And eat we did except i could have ingested a lot more if it was purely a Gang of Four overseas outing. My dad is a strong believer of "we eat to live" whereas the Gang's unspoken motto is skewed towards the philosophy of "we live to eat".

Whatever the case, the first thing the parents and i did when we stepped out of the French Hotel was to seek out dim sum! We placed our bet on Ming Court Hong Kong Tim Sum, located along Jalan Leong Sin Nam which is known fondly as the dim sum street! 

Served in metal steamer bowls and plastic plates, this was hardly the authenticity we were looking for although the entire atmosphere at 7am was simply that of a Hong Kong teahouse often shown on dramas / movies.

Food wise in general was pretty good but i did have a slight complaint; the lack of thin and soft steamed rice-flour skins often found in Singapore's dim sum. 

I was honestly expecting a lot more especially with all the rave reviews found online from fellow Singaporeans who could not get enough of food in Ipoh. Maybe i have ordered the wrong things as i often did even in Singapore!

Initially, i found the lor mai kai to have an excessively strong alcoholic taste as a result of Chinese wine being liberally used to soak the rice. The chicken meat was another matter altogether; incredibly tender and emitted a deliciousness helped with a subtle alcohol fragrance! Ignore the rice and whack the meat!

Spring roll was crunchy without being overly oily and i plainly could not resist the sweetness of fresh chives! To think that i absolutely resisted having them in my mouth just a few years ago.

Alex would have rejected this chee cheong fun right away as it was the classic plain type that didn't come with his favourite prawns filling. For me, i was more keen in looking at the bigger picture which included enjoying the addictive shallots and the pleasant taste of light soya sauce concoction. 

There were buns on every table! Trying all types of buns would be a double whammy on my weight and i decided to check with the waiter his personal recommendation for buns. Char siew bun was his answer! 

Three words - i like it! The caramelised meat was shredded, resulting in a more wholesome texture when eaten as a whole with the denser yet soft dough and the taste was also not cloyingly sweet like some places. Yum yum!

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Location

32 – 36, Jalan Leong Sin Nam,

Ipoh, Perak State, Malaysia

Map

As above (with red border). This food map was provided by French Hotel and i relied on it heavily to get to the recommended establishments for meals. Navigation was actually very straightforward and the hotel staff frequently used traffic lights as a marker to direct blur tourists like me.

Price

Including drinks, i think i paid about RM 46 (less than S$20) for the three of us.

Prices were really good and as you can see above, the most expensive dim sum was only about RM 5 which might have been the cheapest equivalent in most, if not all Singapore's dim sum places. 

Additional Information

Dining area did appear small when you enter even though there was a much larger premise connected to the side. Service was quite fast; just relax and wait for the servers to push their carts to you.