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Igniting Ipoh A fresh batch of boutique hotels, cafés and restaurants is making Ipoh’s Old Town feel brand new. BY MARCO FERRARESE. PHOTOGRAPHED BY KIT YENG CHAN >>
The start of Ipoh’s heritage trail is marked on the avenue facing the historical clock tower.
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Art by
Ernest Zacharevic celebrates Ipoh’s white coffee; night view of Town Hall; egg tarts at Kedai Makanan Nam Heong. OPPOSITE: B eansprout chicken at Restoran Ong Kee.
SLEEPY IPOH IS WAKING UP. The Malaysian city still has all the charm and elegance that wealth from its former life as a 1930s colonial tin-mining center once afforded, but until recently, it has been stuck in the past. Even the multicolored Chinese shophouses that line the charming lanes of Old Town seem to lean against each other, like they too have succumbed to the languid ebb and flow of time in the tropics, and nothing much seems to have changed in the way local shopkeepers tend to their century-old crafts. Much like the ore that put Ipoh on the map, the city had tarnished with age, but new flights from Singapore on Tiger (tigerair.com) and Malindo (malindoair.com) plus a spate of recently opened hotels and dining options have the dreamy destination spiffed up to a high shine.
HERITAGE HOTELS + Experience a modern take on true shophouse-living straight in Old Town’s pumping heart at the new boutique hotel Sekeping Kong Heng (75 Jln. Panglima; 60-5/241-8977; sekeping.com/ kongheng/home.html; doubles from RM220). The eight rooms, including two hanging glass boxes, are a luxe refit of a 1920s-era building that hosted the Cantonese opera troupe way back when. Visiting troupes performed regularly until the 1950s in the 1,500seat theater next door, which is now trendy bistro Plan B (605/249-8286; thebiggroup.co/planb; drinks for two from RM25). + Also in the center of Ipoh’s Old Town and nearby the Kinta River, another old Chinese shophouse is ready to host heritage-hunters
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in spacious and fabulously renovated rooms. Sarang Paloh (16 Jln. Sultan Iskandar; 60-5/ 241-3926; sarangpaloh.com; doubles from RM238) welcomes guests in a throwback lobby furnished with Chinese vintage housewares and inspiring batik paintings. A spiral staircase leads to the second floor that housed a bank in the 1920s but is now a collection of tastefully refurbished rooms. IPOH EATS + Start your day like a local with a cup of white coffee; the quintessential Old Town brew is made from coffee beans roasted with palm-oil margarine and served with condensed milk. Sip a cuppa alongside a hearty breakfast at Kedai Makanan Nam Heong (2 Jln. Bandar Timah; 60-16/553-8119), known for its spot-on brews and silky egg tarts, while you listen to hawkers’ ladles crack and woks sizzle on the streets outside. + Try to find a seat among the locals at mom and pop Restoran Ong Kee (48 Jln. Yau Tet Shin; 60-5/253-1562; meal for two from RM20) for some of the best tauge ayam, or beansprout chicken, in town. Here the classic Ipoh dish is boiled to perfection, sprinkled with fresh bean sprouts and soy sauce, and served with noodle soup or rice.
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