Honey4Boyz

'189' and Seng Kee are household names for handmade  'heong peah ' in Gunung Rapat, Ipoh. '189' has been around longer than Seng Kee, but both are old timers, building their business from their backyards. Seng Kee is one of the very few remaining shops making the traditional 'heong peah ' broiled with coconut husks. Most of the other shops, like '189', are using the modern electronic ovens to enable them to produce big quantity of the biscuits. '189' has recently moved out of the residential area to a nearby shoplot.    If you're not a die-hard fan of ' heong peah ', you'll probably not able to tell the difference of the two ways of production. We're so used to buying from the famous Ching Han Guan, handmade using the modern oven, in Ipoh New Town. Only recently, we stumbled upon Seng Kee's traditionally broiled biscuits. Piping hot 'heong peah ' from the traditional barrel oven broiled with c...

We didn't want to leave Perhentian Island! It's unanimous. We're talking about coming back again, hopefully next year. We've a short walkabout at the villages nearby Kuala Besut before we continued our journey on the East-West Highway. Kuala Besut used to be a thriving fishing village, but now it's more well-known as a transit point to the East Coast islands. 'Keropok lekor & losong' - the local delicacies you will see in every street and corner. You must eat it when it's hot, together with the local chilli sauce! A common backyard industry - fish crackers. Tis local snack is popular here, like what potato chips are to the Westerners. The villagers were very friendly and they're not in a hurry to finish off their work, always have time to entertain our curiosity and questions. Traditional boat-building in progress Using simple tools and machine, the locals made the boats by hands, with the knowledge passed down from gen...

Pit Stop at the Perak royal town, Kuala Kangsar. The 1st rubber tree in Malaysia was planted in this town. That's about all I knew about this place. Labu Sayong or water pitcher from Sayong village, known for its health value to help migraine, lower blood pressure etc due to the special properties inherent in the local clay. Before this, we didn't know much of labu sayong.  We didn't go to the village or plan this visit. Out of curiousity, we bumped into this unassuming workshop at No. 3, Kg Setia, Enggor, run by Mohd bin Harun.  Pakcik was very open and gave us a tour of his workshop and how he makes labu sayong. His warm, friendly welcoming people made a lasting impression on all of us - a trait that we've lost in the big cities. The traditional way of making labu sayong uses hands to mould the clay into the shape of a 'labu' (gourd-like vase) but this is too slow. Now, the clay mixture is poured into standard mould blocks. It's ...

During our recent trip to Penang, we spotted a soya sauce home-based factory in Nibong Tebal, about 40km from Penang. This was one of the few remaining soya sauce factories making the soya sauce in a traditional way.  The soya sauce factory was run by Mr Loh, the trade which was started by his father. Unfortunately, this is a dying and fast disappearing trade...  This factory produces the "Flower" brand soya sauce. But there's hardly any information of the brand in the internet. The Loh family does not distribute their products to the wholesalers but depend on their long-time and regular customers, who are familiar with their products, to purchase them directly from their factory. Besides soya sauce, they also produce chilli and tomato sauce, thick soya sauce and alkaline water for commercial use. Jin walking by vats of fermenting soya made in a traditional method in the large courtyard. The soya beans were fermented in large vats under the sun and covere...

Posting by Xian Jin My family and I went to a famous village that sells kacang putih in Buntong, Ipoh. Kacang putih is one of Malaysians' favourite snacks. We spoke to Gopinath, the 4th generation kacang putih vendor of CTS Enterprise. CTS stands for C masami T angavelu S ubrumaniam. These are the names of Gopinath forefathers.  The business started more than 80 years ago but they operated from the shop about 10 years ago. Before that, Gopinath family was peddling kacang putih on foot and by bicycles. Their village used to be called Teluk Kurin B. Now it is known as Kampung Kacang Putih because of the successful stories of all the kacang putih vendors in this area. There are 40-50 families in the kacang putih trade in this village. Kacang putih consists of different types of Indian savouries such as murukku, pakkoda, sivel, aulu, omma poddi, kadalai and legumes such as dhall, chick pea, peanuts as well as tapioca chips.  Gopinath great grandfather wa...

Ipoh's familiar specialty - Nga Choy Kai or the Taugeh (Bean Sprouts) Chicken. What else to accompany the poached chicken than the fresh, fat and crunchy Ipoh famous bean sprouts!! The bean sprouts are served blanched, with a dash of sesame oil, white pepper and soy sauce. Ipoh is a well-known food haven in Malaysia, and most will agree that Ipoh's bean sprout is the best in Malaysia. The premium-grade bean sprouts come from the Buntong New Village, which is also my husband's hometown. Growing bean sprout requires only water and more importantly, watering techniques. Madam Toon told us that there were at least 8 operators in Buntong. They were all family-owned businesses, and the three Toon brothers have been growing bean sprouts for more than 70 years.  Bean sprouts are grown from black mung beans imported from Myanmar. The beans need to be watered every 4 hours throughout the day for 5 days, no shortcut, otherwise they will be not be fat and juicy. At...