Ipoh is a food heaven and infamous for it's beansprout chicken, however there are also plenty of places where you can include in your trips to Ipoh other than street side coffee shops waiting for hours to eat beansprout chicken (been there done that). One of Ipoh's gem includes Assam House.
The restaurant was started by the late Madam Lee back in 1991. This restaurant plays around with the fusion of Chinese cuisine, Malaysian cuisine, Nyonya cuisine, Thai cuisine and other Asian cuisine. The fusion always turns out great and always leaves the taste buds happy.
So 16 years ago on 12/7, my brother was born, though annoying, he's still my brother.
So on his 16th birthday, he celebrated with us, his family, consisting of me, his awesome sister(me), our dad, aunt and uncle who came to visit us for holiday.
We had a birthday lunch at Assam House located in Medan Gopeng, Ipoh. One of the many branch they have but we opted for this one as the food tastes more like "grandma's cooking" as quoted by my aunt. The most important point is this branch is Halal so if you're Muslim and you're reading this, call to book you and your family a place now!
Our appetizer was a Siamese version of "lou sang" as it was Malay new year, I like how they fused the Chinese, Siamese and Malay culture. To my surprise, I thought since it was Siamese cuisine, I thought it would be spicy, but the taste was more to sweet and salty with a very good combination of juice from the veggies. It gives a really fresh yet crunchy feeling to the taste buds and the juice that bursts out from the veggies the moment you bite it is just perfect.
This restaurant is infamous for their Curry Fish head. Although I'm not a fan of eating fish heads, their curry was bursting with flavours and was hardly spicy. The taste was more to sour and salty rather than sour and spicy like how other curry fish heads taste like.
Another infamous dish includes their stink beans(petai). We ordered stink beans cooked with cuttlefish(sotong) and anchovies(ikan bilis) as my brother and I are allergic to prawns. The best way to eat stink beans is to have it served with prawns!
Next we had chicken wrapped in pandan leaves. The texture of the chicken was just right! Not overcooked and not raw. Smooth yet chewy. Yummy in the tummy. Because it was wrapped in pandan leaves it brought a sweet taste to the chicken but the sweet taste wasn't overwhelming enough to cover up the chicken's original taste. 5/5 for this dish! It is also boneless and easy to bite. Much recommended if you have elders among your presence.
We also had their signature bean curd which they dubbed as 'The Royal Bean curd' The gravy of the bean curd wasn't too thick or too watery, just nice and the veggies used were really fresh and crunchy. The bean curd itself was smooth and but I can't help but feel that their bean curd was fried a bit too long.
We ended the session with cendol complimentary of the restaurant manager. I wonder what sugar and coconut milk do they use because their cendol does not taste like any ordinary cendol you get when you try roadside cendols. Their cendol (the green thing) also freezes as you mix it which the ice which some may love and some may not. I love to bite on frozen cendol so I loved it. The red beans they used were slightly smashed and sweet but not too sweet.
Details:
ASSAM HOUSE RESTAURANT (HALAL)
2, Medan Gopeng 2,
Jalan Gopeng, 31350 Ipoh,
Perak, Malaysia.
Telephone : 605-313 2223
Business hours : 11.30am – 3.00pm, 6.00 – 10.00pm
