Petit Mary Pattisserie, Taman Teh Teng Seng, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Address:
 83, Jalan Langsat, Taman Teh Teng Seng, 31400 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Daily, 9am - 8pm.

Time Visited:
11:13am, Wednesday (Public Holiday)

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Mary Breakfast (set)

Public holiday. Wesak day to be exact. Not working much on this day, I decided to take a spontaneous trip down to Ipoh on this day. 2 of my colleagues asked why didn't I say earlier? Else they would've joined me. LOL. Yeah, right. Like that 2 family men has time to accompany this lone soul down to Ipoh. I shall ask you guys the next time around but then again, if it's just a local trip, it's most likely short notice so you guys won't be able to go too. LOL.

After dilly dallying a bit in the morning, I finally departed from Klang Valley towards my hometown in Ipoh. Once arrived at the cafe, it was just almost lunchtime which was perfect for me. From the outside of this cafe, it says nothing that it's a cafe. The giveaway was more of it's looks and an open sign hanging by the gate. This place looks like some part of a palace, Englishmen style. As I walked in, I'm pretty sure I was in the right place with a person greeting me by the door. The guy explained to me that ordering of food takes place downstairs while the seating is upstairs. This place is a Mandarin-centric place where people talk and order mostly in Mandarin. A little queer for me because I'm so used to Ipoh being a place where they just mainly speak Cantonese. Since I didn't make any stops on my way here, I decided to head upstairs to the toilet first before descending back down the stairs to take a look at the menu. This place seems a little cramp downstairs which I guess it's why they don't have seatings downstairs. However, I'm just wondering what happens if you're coming with older folks who has bad knees? Guess they would have to slowly make their way up the stairs. There's a Breakfast set menu which reads available from 9am - 12pm and that comes with coffee or tea and since I've been on a long journey all the way here, I thought of giving the Mary Breakfast a try instead of just the croissant which was what I was thinking of ordering at the beginning.

I made my way up the stairs and chose a table to sit down at. Being a cafe that doesn't have any signboard but is a house of it's own, it looks pretty popular. By the time I was halfway through my breakfast, it had already turned into a full house of customers. This place just didn't do much alteration from it's original house design. You still see the layout like a house where there's just the front of the house and the back of the house as places to sit and eat. One thing I always see the staff struggling with is that they have to find where the patron who has ordered is sitting. You see, once you've ordered, you're given a number and you're to display that on your table so they know the food belongs to you. But without a camera to monitor the upstairs on where you had sat down, the waiter will always go to the front of the house all the way to see if there's a number around before heading back to the back of the house to continue finding the number. But I guess it's merely a minor inconvenience. In this cafe, there's also a fake fireplace to spruce up the ambiance which I hardly see these things around. I remember seeing one at one of the hotels in Europe.

Anyway, the Mary Breakfast came and I was surprised by the number of items they gave to me. The guy put the plate of breakfast on my table and then the coffee, and as he was about to turn and leave, he said this belongs to you too, right? And put a basket of bread with butter down. I was surprised. This is definitely way worth eating if you want bang for your buck because with that amount of food given, you're definitely gonna be full finishing the whole thing. I can imagine some girls saying unable to finish the whole thing. LOL. So what I think all in for just RM18, that's considered cheap in my books. Taste-wise, well, it's just your regular tasting breakfast. Nothing superb nor out of the ordinary for it. As you can see in the picture, besides the 2 croissants and coffee, the breakfast platter consists of baked beans, a sausage, hash brown, ham (I think it's turkey ham), some salad on the side and scrambled eggs. I just wish the salad and it's dressing were separated because it did interfere with the taste of the eggs. It gets soaked in it's sauce and didn't really go well with it. But eating the whole thing got me quite full and as I mentioned before, it's very well worth your money. I wonder if cafes around Ipoh is all this cheap in price. The coffee leans towards more of Italian coffee where it's bitter through and through and so I needed to sweeten up it's taste by adding the provided sugar sachets. Though I don't normally drink coffee with sugar, I just couldn't with this and needed the sugar.

After awhile of resting I departed from here to my next destination nearby.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM18. Just RM18 all in. This includes the 6% GST. A very much worth breakfast set for that price. Highly recommend if you're looking for something cheap that's a cafe.

Final Verdict:
6/10. Well, price-wise I would say is excellent but taste-wise will need to be better if you want it to be memorable for it's taste as well. Ambiance, not bad. Homely.

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TWT Cafe, Bandar Baru Medan Ipoh, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Address:
30, Jalan Medan Ipoh 1D, Bandar Baru Medan Ipoh, 31400 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Closed on Tuesdays
Other Days 12pm - 10pm

Time Visited:
12:30pm, on a Public Holiday Wednesday

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Chocolate Lava with Vanilla Gelato and Peppermint Tea

Straight off the bat from a hefty meal at Petit Mary Pattisserie, I don't think I would be able to eat another round so soon. Should've planned for some other things to do in between meals. LOL. But anyway, I headed to TWT Cafe straightaway. Although there were others I was planning on going in the beginning, seeing that it's a public holiday and most of it were closed, this was my next of choice after seeing the others closed.

TWT Cafe is just very near to Petit Mary Pattisserie, just 5 minutes drive away. Hell, in fact all the things that I ate at Ipoh on that day were so near to one another with just 5 minutes drive away. TWT stands for Tea Warmer Treats apparently. I decided upon dessert instead of another main course meal since the breakfast of Petit Mary Pattisserie was quite filling. So I ordered the Chocolate Lava with Vanilla Gelato. I was warned that it will take about 10-15 minutes to prepare so I would had to wait. I chuckled and gave them an okay sign. When I was there, there's not a customer in sight. I was the only customer there. Later on, there were trickles of customers that went in with the first one after me also just going for dessert while the rest were there to have their lunch on this fine public holiday.

True to their word, it did take about 10-15 minutes when I was shown this nicely plated dessert that looks very dark in it's color. Beside it was the contrasting yellow tinge of vanilla gelato. A poke on the lava cake revealed a spillage of chocolate sauce that didn't stop flowing and harden as it cooled till a very much later period. The gelato sits atop cornflakes while the plating shows more chocolate sauces upon it. This dessert to me is awfully sweet. Way too sweet for my taste. For those who have a sweet tooth, they may enjoy it. The chocolate part with the pastry part was sweet beyond means and the gelato didn't help much as it's also sweet on it's own though at a much milder level compared to the chocolate sauce. It was so sweet that it permeates upon the cornflakes as well and the only way that I manage to lower down the sweetness meter is to drink some tea with it. It accompanies fine with the tea. Taste-wise is okay. It's just that it's so darn sweet and not enough balance in the whole dish. I guess you're suppose to eat it and take a sip of your tea. LOL.

After the dessert here, I went to walkaround the area. The area here is filled with so many eateries. Whatever tickles your fancy, you'll sure find it around here. Kopitiam? There's some here. Fancy some posh foreign food? There's some Japanese restaurant and it looks like they tried to open some Korean restaurants here too but look like it's out of business. Cafe food aplenty as well. All in all, every type of food that covers I believe all of the general population. LOL.

Total Wallet Damage:
Strange. I think I lost the receipt. But dessert stands at RM15.50 according to the menu while the peppermint tea costs RM7.50.

Final Verdict:
6/10. Well, for a place that calls itself Tea Warmer Treats, I expected the dessert to be more appealing but generally, it's not bad lah.

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Restoran & Kafe New Weng Fatt, Taman Ipoh Selatan, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Address:
1, Lebuh Raya Taman Ipoh, Taman Ipoh Selatan, 31400 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Probably Daily, 7am - 11pm

Time Visited:
1:45pm, Wednesday, Public Holiday

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Roasted Pork & Chicken Rice

It was a public holiday and I just randomly went to Ipoh for a changed of scenery. My 2 colleagues told me why didn't I inform them earlier or they would've joined me. Pfft. As if that 2 family men has time. Best they spend it with their family than a person who's awaiting death.

After trying a couple of places, I wanted to go for one final round before I head on back to the Klang Valley area. So I randomly picked and Restoran & Kafe New Weng Fatt came out as the choice. So I head on down there and see what do they have there. Since it's a public holiday, they seemed to be very quiet unlike another kopitiam I saw earlier nearer to Aeon which has a lot of stalls opened there too. But this just seems quite dead with only 3 stalls I saw that was opened for business. The 2 noodle stalls staff were just sitting at a table and chatting away with each other while the chicken rice stall manned by fairly young chaps were just sitting there doing nothing.

By the way, when I lamented one day to my 2 colleagues on how difficult it was to find Chinese kopitiam at certain places in Klang Valley, they brought to attention certain criterias which I find what they say to be very, very true. In order for a place to have a Chinese kopitiam, the place has to be predominantly Chinese AND not an upscale township. I find that very true. That's why Subang 2 area was difficult for me to find a Chinese kopitiam because there's just none there and it's considered a more upscale township. Sungai Besi seems to suffer the same fate though. As for Shah Alam, that's predominantly Malay area so if they were to open up a non-halal establishment that sells pork, they would need special license and since the Chinese community is far lesser than the Malays and also factoring in the cheapness of kopitiams, it would be very hard to profit if they were to open up one there.  I know places like Cheras and Kepong has plenty.

Anyway, Ipoh is not short of it but I see a boom in cafes. Back when I was still an Ipohite, if any cafe were to open up there, they would surely die off very soon due to Ipoh people mainly go for cheap food back then. Now that all the younger generations had come up, Ipoh can now have this boom in cafe and it's food. So anyway, this place is a kopitiam. I decided to try out the chicken rice with it's roasted pork. To my surprise when I asked how much it was, they told me it was RM4.80! I haven't had one that's so cheap since.....I don't even remember having one that cheap. Unless you include non-Chinese food, then there's the Anuar's Fish Head Curry rice and that is an even cheaper price of RM4 for a plate of rice, unlimited vegetables, a free drink and a piece of fried chicken. But although this plate of Roasted Pork and Chicken Rice may be really cheap, the taste just isn't that good. The roasted pork feels a little too gamy for me and it's way too salty while the chicken is hard. But if you just wanna save money and fill your stomach, it's quite worth it. It can fill you up for sure. But for me, I'm stuffed beyond means because I already ate something before this and went for dessert. LOL.

I guess there's more stalls that operates in there but since it's a public holiday, I guess most of it took a break. After that meal, my initial thoughts of going to one more place for dessert to try was cancelled because I was too full. Phew. That's when I started to head back home. Over at Kerling, I stopped by at the only Shell petrol station for miles and that place already sold out of RON95 but this queer staff at the counter asked me what petrol I wanted. If you've already ran out of one type, why are you asking me and giving me a choice where there's none to begin with? LOL. Funny people.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM4.80. Roasted pork and Chicken Rice. Cheapest I've ever had as long as I can remember. Is Ipoh town food really that cheap?

Final Verdict:
5/10. Well, for that really cheap price, the food isn't that nice to eat but it's something to fill your stomach which helping your wallet lots.

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