FREELITTLEBRAIN: Ipoh Yong tau foo - the Famous Hakka dish

Yong tau foo is also called stuffed bean curd and it’s delicious. More often than not, the tau foo is stuffed with fish, pork and a variety of soy products and vegetables paste.

For Yong tau foo to be sold as Halal to the Muslim by Muslim hawkers or in the shopping Mall food court there is some alteration in the recipes. The ingredient pork in the paste is replaced by Halal chicken meat and other ingredients also from Muslim Food Caterers.

Yong tau foo is a Hakka dish originated from China. Yong means to stuff with meat ingredient fillings in Hakka dialect. The relative poverty Hakka whom migrated to overseas bought together with them this simple delicious food but later became popular in oversea.

The famous Ipoh town lies at the heart of Kinta Valley, once the world’s richest tin mining area. It attracted the vibrant explorers especially Hakka, they bring along the Yong tau foo recipes which became the famous specialty in the former tin mining town rather than the usual Malaysian staples.

Most hawkers in Ipoh like other places, open in the early morning and shut after lunch, or as long as the stocks last. But this famous scrumptious Yong Tau Foo stall “Dai Shu Geok” or Restoran Choong Kee Pokok Besar in Pasir Pinji is open from 8.30am to 5.30 pm daily.

Beside the delicious Yong tau foo, clear soup noodle, curry mee and asam laksa, the outstanding item is the deep fried stuffed turnip or ‘Sar kot” that more local people are looking for than ever before. I think it’s the only item you can have here that you just can’t get elsewhere, even the food court just next to it which has taken over its previous location.

Undeniably, the crispy and tasteful Sar Kot that have unique flavors which is not available anywhere in any other place.