The place where I grew up is called Ipoh, it's a small city at the northern part of peninsular Malaysia, belongs to the state of Perak. There's a lot of story goes with the name itself, let alone the history of how Chinese, Indians and the Malays come together. I'm just going to skip ahead a few chapter and tell you I grew up in the heavily Indian influenced environment.
Row is the name of the restaurant. If you're going to search for the restaurant in Google Maps, you're gonna have to search for "Restoran Row". Pardon the restaurant review of 3.8 ⭐ and below are my honest review:
- Restaurant environment ⭐
- Staff attentiveness ⭐ ⭐
- Food quality ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
- Price ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
- Accessibility ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Let's do the math, 17 o 25 is 3.4 ⭐ wait 😂😂😂 my review gives even lesser stars. Statistically I think it makes total sense.
I knew this place for donkey years. This was one of those place that my dad usually took me for a quick bite when my mom look other ways. My dad has his fair bit of heart condition, so he's actually has a strict curfew on his diet, whatever he's trying to eat, my mom will make a comment about anything and everything 🤣
Home minister got herself a plate of fried flat rice noodle. In Ipoh the Cantonese town, we call it Hor Fun, other than that the rest of the south east Asia call this flat noodle Kueh Teow. Technically, we referring to he same noodle, it's just different accent. One of the hardest part to fry a perfect flat noodle is, since it's flat, it can easily stick. To unstick it, the trick is to add oil in between. Now we know adding oil would make food way more slimmy and tasted one kind. Any good Hor Fun chef know, cranking up the stove to the max, high heat stir fry the Hor Fun so we don't need too much oil to unstick it.
I've got myself a set of Puri (or Poree depending on which part of India pronounce it). The flour they mixed is a little different than the one we had in Kuala Lumpur. It's plain, but it doesn't taste like nothing. It's brings the rice fragrant to life. Couple with the Dhal (pea puree) brothe, this dish totally brings me back to 40 years ago. It felt just like yesterday when my dad was still here bringing me to this place for chapati and curry chicken.
Both of us ordered a Teh Tarik (pulled milk tea, one way to froth the tea with bubbles so it tasted more creamy and less hot) to complete our old time old taste Indian breakfast. The bill was rather epic, I haven't been hearing anything less than 10 for many years now, let alone breakfast for two. We settled the breakfast for 8.70(probably less than $2).
Some of the bad feedback relate to the environment. The place is clean, but you don't expect air conditioning for $2 breakfast for 2. The staff are actually foreigner. So, gotta be patient. Not every Tamil, Dixon, and Harianto are Malaysian born Indian. They are doing their best to serve me and serve you, don't need to give them the nasty stare down. The lady boss is preparing your roti cenai patiently, one piece by one piece, may be that's how they maintain high standard food. If you're in a hurry, come early next time. Many of the Google review mentioned they always told customer there's a 30 minutes wait, that's called manage expectation 🤣 we got our food by 20 minutes, I think I should call them miracle workers!
Restoran Row
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GpBnSoZcbHGhYbnZ7
Jalan Sungai Pari, Buntong, 30100 Ipoh, Perak
