When in Ipoh, find all the ori branches of the Ipoh food you have in PJ and be prepared to be wowed by how incomparable it is! In this case, I was very determined to try Ipoh Tuck Kee on its home ground.
The blanched octopus sat in a pool of fragrant soy sauce and garlic oil - there were some chewier bits but the delicious seasoning made it overall enjoyable.
Not available at the PJ branch (or maybe I've never noticed it) is the wat tan fish noodle. I thought it was a normal wat tan hor with fish as protein but it was actually noodles made of fish paste! My first taste was just the egg sauce at the tip of my chopstick and there was a burst of wok hei just from the tiny lick. The sauce is not overly starchy and has an eggy flavor. Good till the last drop.
Moonlight hor fun was of a different league from anything I've had before. Slippery smooth hor fun just slides down your throat with almost no chewing. The sauce had a smoky caramelized flavor with adequate wok hei and a slight sweetness. The chilli sauce meant to accompany it was tasty and I wanted to add more to the noodles but the noodles was just so good on its own.
There were deep fried namyu chicken wings at every other table so it had to be ordered. It had the thinnest but tastiest coating of nam yu and thin chicken skin perfectly blistered with a drumette that was surprisingly not dry.
The pork cuttlefish meatball was the least impressionable of everything ordered with its slightly soft texture. It's just okay, I prefer the ones at Onn Kee.
Service is also excellent here at Ipoh Tuck Kee 怡保德記 with a good system of ordering before being assigned a table. Given the speed that the neverending queue outside their shop clears, I considered it to be very well managed.
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Ipoh Tuck Kee Restaurant 德记炒粉专门店
61, Jalan Yau Tet Shin, Taman Jubilee,
30300 Ipoh
Opens daily, 1.00pm - 10.45pm