Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Good Food Hunting In Ipoh, Part 3

"The night wasn't over yet as we just had to get a bite of another delight that is only available at night and it was after all, our one and only last night in Ipoh that night!" - Last paragraph from Part 2

Now, this delight is one of the highlights of the Ipoh trip when all four of us unanimously agreed that it was a great delicious find! It's so good that I am going to just write this one item in Part 3 of my "Good Food Hunting In Ipoh". With a tip from Jason of Ipoh Mali Talak Sombong, we headed of to Pusat Makanan Man U at Jalan Raja Ekram for the last food stop of the night.
Man U

We came here to look for this stall...
Popiah Stall - The Wongs
Mr Wong and his two sons (occasionally) runs the popiah (fresh spring roll) stall. His two sons are such nice boys - they were so proud and happy to see me take pics of them, the stall and the food! :o) Mr Wong himself is also friendly and nice.


A paragraph from the wikipedia describes popiah as this : -

A popiah "skin" is a thin paper-like crepe or pancake made from wheat flour (rice flour is sometimes used) which is covered with a sweet sauce (often a bean sauce, a blended soy sauce or hoisin sauce or a shrimp paste sauce (hae-ko, POJ: hê-ko)), and optionally with hot chilli sauce before it is filled. The filling is mainly finely grated and steamed or stir-fried turnip, jicama (known locally as bangkuang), which has been cooked with a combination of other ingredients such as bean sprouts, French beans, and lettuce leaves, depending on the individual vendor, along with grated carrots, slices of Chinese sausage, thinly sliced fried tofu, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded omelette. Some hawkers, especially in non-halal settings, will add fried pork lard. As a fresh spring roll, the popiah skin itself is not fried.

Well, what's special about this stall is that Mr Wong does both the normal wheat flour skin and also an egg skin variety which Jason told me that it's a must for me to try it out.
Egg Skin for the Popiah (Spring Roll)
Egg skin for the fresh spring roll

I love popiah and enjoy rolling up a few of these during popiah parties, the hard part is the slicing, dicing, grating, shredding, julienne-ing the ingredients ;o) The normal popiah skin are easily available from the market. Well...the rest of the steps are easy after that.
First Step - Sweet Sauce
Slather on the sweet "hoisin" sauce/chilli sauce...
Loading the ingredients
Then place bits of the ingredients layer by layer
Egg Skin Popiah
Then just roll it up (tucking the sides in first) as neatly as you can. Mr Wong does a very good job at ensuring that enough ingredients goes into it to make it yummy roll but at the same time making sure that it's not overloaded else the popiah would literally fall apart when it's being rolled and/or cut. At RM1.70/USD0.50 a roll, this popiah packs a punch. Its aromatic egg skin and the mix of the flavourful ingredients was an ensemble that ended our night on a sweet note.


Popiah Stall at Man U Food Court (Pusat Makanan Man U)
Jalan Raja Ekram
Daily from 8 pm - 12 midnight
Call Mr Wong to check (just in case) - 016-5395969


To Be Continued...





22 comments:

worldwindows said...

Very well taken pics as usual. Makes me salivate. Ipoh hawker food has gone up another notch with this innovative 'skin' for popiah. My usual haunt for popiah is at Kong Heng in Old Town. Started going there since the 70's till the 90's!! Just wonder its still there?

Precious Pea said...

Looks good although i don't fancy popiah.

Anonymous said...

I bet Mr Wong will be very happy as you dedicate the whole post to him! But is it possible to print the page out and fit in just one A4 paper?

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the egg-skin popiahs! :D

J2Kfm said...

oh so this is the egg skin popiah Jason has told me about.
hehe ... I'm in Ipoh and I dunno. =P

but me=popiah lover! will drag him to this place if he comes back.

Hazza said...

That eggy popiah skin looked delicious! Can u get this in KL/PJ?

tigerfish said...

This is new-style popiah? I just ate my mom's popiah recently! The traditional type - wrapped with paper-thin wheat flour "crepe"!

Shell (貝殼) said...

the egg-skin popiah looks delicious^^
p/s : the boss wrote a wrong word which should be 蛋"egg" but not 旦

LianneK said...

good idea to have them with egg skin, which means that i can make them here too!

ai wei said...

oh popiah popiah~ but these ... only available in Ipoh...

wmw said...

worldwindows : You have been here before but have not left a comment till now? Thanks for dropping by :o). Yes, Kong Heng famous popiah is still around!

Precious P : Maybe you can improvise and use the skin to roll up crab meat instead? Hehehe...

Jason : I don't think that's possible. Each pic will probably take up a page itself :o). If you can't pass to him this week, another time then. Thanks.

Kenny : It's GOOOOOODDDDD! ;o)

j2kfm : Yes, please do go and send Mr Wong my regards!

hazza : So far I have not come across this is Klang Valley. Anyone out there knows if there is?

Tigerfish : Not new style, it's been around awhile, I guess we are just not aware.

Shell : It is delicious stuff. I'm a Chinese "banana", so I couldn't tell the difference.

Lianne : Hey there girl! Great to see you around. Yes, do make it and post!

ai wei : Ipoh not that near but not that far either ;o)

sc said...

the one that i did not find :(. i was at the foodcourt across the road and i was searching high and low for this popiah :(

Terri @ A Daily Obsession said...

it's strange how popiah looks simple but is hard to get right.do u agree? i've eaten many home-made n bought popiah but not many taste good, even if there's a dozen ingredients in them. the best best popiah i've tasted is made by a friend called susi n she has moved to HCMC. shucks.

Unknown said...

The popiah is making me really really really hungry!! :-)

Beachlover said...

your photo make me drooling:P

Anonymous said...

Wah almost a step by step recipe post! All that's missing is the ingredients. :-) Looks delish..will try it next time i'm there.

daphne said...

Egg skin poiah and DIY too- get your hands dirty and I'm sure it taste better.

wmw said...

sc: So near, yet so far :( Nevermind, another reason for you to go Ipoh again!

jackson : Me too...hungry when I look at the egg skin popiah, hehehe...

Terri : Yes, it's hard to get right cos there are so many ingredients I suppose, hahaha....but this Ipoh egg skin popiah gets top marks!

keropok man : Great to see you hear again. Though us food bloggers have better control over others, our tummies still rumble at times looking at food pics :o)

beachlover : You can make this at home?

Lyrical L : Ingredients not missing, just take your pick or use all that was listed in the wikipedia paragraph! :o)


Daphne : The ones I made usually have too much ingredients...hehe..."explode" on contact! LOL!

New Kid on the Blog said...

1st time seeing this popiah in Ipoh. Hmmm, should make a visit there one day...

wmw said...

NKOTB : Oh, you must go and try in you're ever in Ipoh!

Anonymous said...

Now this looks really awesome..!!

wmw said...

C-Rex : It's really good stuff, I'm missing it :o(