01 Food tours
Original food tours, curated with our local tastemakers to showcase the neighbourhood kitchens, markets and family-run eateries that define Ipoh.
Paloh Plates
Ipoh
Eat Ipoh at lunchtime — hor fun, beansprout chicken and salt-baked chicken in paper.
Kinta Kitchens
Ipoh
Explore Ipoh's refined Cantonese kitchen — hor fun, beansprout chicken and white coffee.
02 Meet the tastemakers
The local food experts who help us research, refine and lead every A Chef's Tour.
Hor fun in silky white broth, beansprout chicken, Ipoh white coffee, salt baked chicken in paper. Ipoh cooks Cantonese Malaysian at its most refined.
04 The pantry
- Bean sprouts, plump and crisp thanks to the local water
- Kampong chicken, free-range birds for salt-baked chicken
- Ipoh white coffee, palm-margarine roasted for the caramelised brew
- Fresh ginger, sliced into the chicken poaching liquid
- Rice noodles, silky hor fun from the town's noodle makers
05 In the kitchen
- Poaching chicken gently for silken-skin bean sprout chicken
- Wrapping salt-baked chicken in paper before burying in hot salt
- Roasting Ipoh white coffee beans in palm margarine
- Steeping hor fun noodles in clear prawn stock
- Baking Ipoh's egg custard tarts with a flaky Chinese pastry
06 Eat this first
- Bean sprout chicken, silken poached chicken with plump sprouts and hor fun
- Salt-baked chicken, whole chicken buried in hot salt for tender flesh
- Ipoh white coffee, sweet condensed-milk coffee from the town's kopitiams
- Hor fun, silky rice noodles in prawn stock with poached prawns
- Tau fu fah, silken tofu pudding with palm-sugar syrup
What happens inside a hammam kitchen
A morning with the cooks who feed the neighbourhood before dawn. Charcoal, dough, the smell of a bakery working its second oven.
09 Recipes
A collection of authentic recipes we couldn't leave behind.
Egg noodles and rice vermicelli in a deep, orange prawn-shell broth topped with poached prawns, hard-boiled egg, water spinach and fried shallots. Penang's most-loved noodle soup.
A folded pancake stuffed with crushed peanuts, sugar, sweetcorn and a slick of butter. Malaysia's night-market half-moon, cooked to order in a heavy pan.
Slices of crackling-skin roast pork belly served on a bed of steamed rice with dark soy and a scoop of pickled greens. Penang's coffee-shop lunchtime plate.
Soft white steamed buns filled with slow-braised char siu pork, chicken curry or red bean. Malaysia's dim-sum-and-kopitiam staple.
Triangular pastries filled with spiced potato and peas, deep-fried until crackling. Malaysia's mamak-stall snack, always with mint chutney.
Silky rice noodle rolls in a dark sweet-shrimp sauce with a scatter of toasted sesame seeds. Penang's morning-market breakfast, cousin to Hong Kong's cheung fun.
10 Field Notes
Quick field notes to help you get accustomed to Ipoh.
Weather
Tropical — warm and humid year-round (24–33°C), with heavier rain October to December. Cool nights in the surrounding limestone hills.
Currency
The Malaysian ringgit (MYR); cash for hawker stalls and kopitiams; cards in restaurants and malls. e-wallets like Touch 'n Go are widely used.
Language
Malay is the national language; Cantonese and Mandarin are common; English is widely spoken.
Etiquette
Modest dress at temples and mosques — a sarong is often loaned at the mosque entrance. Bargain gently at the markets; use your right hand at meals.
Getting around
The old town is walkable; Grab covers the wider city. The city is spread out — trains link to Kuala Lumpur in about two hours.
Prayer
A pluralist mix — Muslim mosques, Chinese Buddhist and Taoist temples, Hindu temples, and Christian churches all share the old town. Fridays quiet the Muslim areas; Sundays fill the churches.