Chicken Cuisine Noodle House

In most coffee shops we find a main proprietor running the shop, selling coffee, tea and other beverages. He/she rents out space in his shop to various food stalls and the combination provide a good selection of makan makan. The coffee shop I feature today has the same set up, with one difference. All the stalls in this coffee shop belong to the shop boss. None of the stalls is rented out.

Chicken Cuisine Noodle House is an unique coffee shop, not only in name but also in its set up. It is owned by this gentleman and his wife, assisted by a large team of Burmese workers. His chatty and friendly wife who was rather camera shy and refused to be photographed, told me she did not even know how workers they had. The workers are everywhere. There is no differentiation of work as every food stall belong to the same boss. And I could see the workers were all very busy, hardworking and knew exactly what to do.

My wife and I frequent this place for breakfasts. It is quite a big coffee shop, occupying 3 shop lots on Jalan Pekedai U1/36 in the Hicom-Glenmarie Industrial Park of Shah Alam.

The variety of food they serve is amazing, considering that they are all prepared by the boss and his wife. Of course they have workers. But these foreign workers don't just churn out the food. They need to be taught and supervised.

They have the so-called "chup fun" (杂饭 or mixed rice) with a good selection of meats, vegetables and everything.

The ever popular chicken rice.

This is their nasi lemak stall, which also serve mee siam with delicious selection of chicken, prawn, squid, pork and other good stuffs.

Wanton noodles (雲吞麵) and Hakka noodles (客家麵). The Hakka noodles came with selection of meat balls in a soup.

Pork noodles, pan mee (板麺), yee mee (伊麺) mee suah (麺线)...

The curry mee here is really very good. The curry is rich but not too much santan (coconut milk).

I love their chee cheong fun (猪肠粉). Wrapped in it is a mixture of sengkuang (jicama) and dried shrimps. It is delicious. This chee cheong fun is a must-try if you ever get there.

Their yam cake (芋头糕) is equally good. It is soft and yummy.

Their char koay teow (炒粿條) is unfortunately not great.

There are a lot more in this diverse eating place. Not forgetting the beverages and desserts.

I was curious how they managed to prepare all these in time for breakfast business. The boss lady told me that she and her husband and all their workers start work each morning at 4.00am to prepare the foods. And then open for business for a good part of the day. With such long hours, the workers still seemed like a happy hardworking lot. I awed at this boss couple. Not only were they able to come out such a variety of food each day, they were also able to motivate their workers. Production and human managers from all over can certainly take a page from their books.

Original Old Town

Old Town White Coffee is a tremendously successful kopitiam franchise chain in Malaysia. It is now almost synonymous with MacDonald in outlets coverage and popularity. Per its website, as of July 2010, the chain has 166 outlets in Malaysia and Singapore. And I believe it is still growing.

This enormous success story has a very humble beginning. Old town obviously has an Ipoh origin for only in Ipoh do they have new and old towns (which Ipoh folks still fondly refer to), separated by the Kinta River.  While we were there recently, we stumbled on an almost dilapidated coffee shop which is the birth place of the famed OTWC chain.

The name of this coffee shop is Nam Heong (南香). It is located on at the end of a row of shops, at the junction of Jalan Bandar Timah and Persiaran Bandar Timah, in (but of course) old town Ipoh. 

We were initially unsure if this was actually the birth place of OTWC. We asked the lady boss and she very enthusiastically confirmed that OTWC indeed had its beginning in Nam Heong and that it was started by a nephew or some other relative of hers - I don't remember. We had found the genesis of this successful kopitiam chain.

Perhaps the guy with the former PM is the nephew or some-other-relative...

Unlike its 166 off-springs, you cannot afford to go slow-slow in this coffee joint. This is one place you want to quickly have your cuppa and makan, and then disappear. It is crowded, messy and noisy. The place is apparently so popular that you need to scramble for a table. The tables spill outside to the five-foot ways behind the shop.

Being the original white coffee place, I had to go for just that. And being a hot day, I ordered a cold one. It wasn't good. I had tasted a lot better white coffee in KL and PJ. I need not come to Ipoh for this.

Like all coffee shops, there were several food stalls selling various makan - char koay teow (炒粿條), curry mee (咖哩麵) , Ipoh sar hor fun (沙河粉), etc - the normal coffee shop stuff.

Outside the shop was a pancake stall. It was very popular. My wife had to wait quite awhile for her pancakes. But I guess it was a wait in vain for the pancakes were just ordinary. Nothing fantastic.

There was also a dim sum (点心) stall. We had some egg tart and a (Chinese) chicken pastry from the stall. Both were great. So good that we tar pau (打包) several boxes of them to take home.

The Ipoh sar hor fun (沙河粉) looked ordinary. I did not taste it so I am not able to say how it tasted like.

The char koay teow was quite good. Very aromatic. I liked it.

Finally, the bowl of pork porridge was also quite flavorful. It looked plain but the taste was good.

The original Old Town White Coffee, like its 166 off-springs, was no big deal.