HALAL GREENTOWN DIM SUM CAFE

I found out about a halal dim sum cafe in Ipoh from a newspaper article and had been planning to check it out.  The opportunity arose when I came back to my hometown for the weekend.  The name of the business premise is Greentown Dim Sum Cafe.  From the expression of my face above, you can guess that it was hot when the picture was taken.  Indeed it was as the time was around noon when the sun was at its zenith.

Here is the front facade of the cafe.  The address is:

Green Town Dimsum Café
10, Persiaran Greentown 4, Pusat Perdagangan Greentown Ipoh, Perak, 30450, Malaysia

This Cafe is open from 7.30am daily and closes at 5pm from Sundays to Thursdays and at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

If I am not mistaken, this is the only halal Dim Sum restaurant in Ipoh. The cafe does not serve pork and all its dim sum are filled with prawns and chicken meat.

When I looked at the menu, there were about 30 varieties of Dim Sum to choose from. Besides the Dim Sum, there were also Chinese and Western dishes.
Different from the typical dim sum restaurants which have a variety of Dim Sum all cooked and ready for customers to select off trolleys and trays which are wheeled around, this place prepares your selections after you have made your order. The customers only needs to mark their orders on chits placed on each of the tables.

Here my mum is holding up a spoon of chicken and century egg porridge.  She said it was good and I agreed with her after I tried it.

Look at how smooth the porridge is.  This shows how well cooked it is.

Here is some of the dim sum that I ordered.

The prawn siew mai which is a house speciality.

Auntie Linda ordered the BBQ Chee Cheong Fun.  She said it was not to her taste.  As a matter of fact, she said it was tasteless.  However, to be fair to the chef, my Aunt has the flu and lost her appetite - so everything tasted bland to her.

I ordered the Lo Bak Koe 蘿蔔糕.  It was a bit too spicy for me.  I prefer the ones from the Dim Sum restaurants that I usually frequent.

The Lo Bak Ko 蘿蔔糕 (Radish Cake) at the Dim Sum Cafe is made from mashed daikon radish mixed with bits of dried shrimp that are steamed and then cut into slices and pan-fried with kucai, bean sprouts and eggs.

I ordered a glass of three layer tea.  It was up to the mark.

The 3 layer tea that I ordered.  What makes it different from 3 layer teas from other shops is pandan essence is added to give it that extra flavouring.

Aunt Linda's plate of BBQ Chicken Chee Cheong Fun

As my two golden girls were not feeling too well, they did not have much of an appetite. That was why I did not order the noodles, rice or western dishes. A quick glance at the menu told me that the place also offered kampung fried rice, special nasi lemak, milky cheese rice, Hakka Noodles, Assam Laksa, Wantan Mee, Chicken Chop, fish and chips and chicken pies. On weekdays, customers who order a rice or noodle dish will get complimentary pudding and fruit.
What did we think of the place? My mum and aunt said they are purists when it comes to Dim Sum. Both are of the opinion that nothing beats the original Dim Sum restaurants. They say that the dim sum there was too spicy for their taste. Though I think that the food there taste good, I do agree that they were a tad too spicy. What it has going for it is that the dim sum is halal which means that the Muslims can come savour the food without reservations.  

Finally, I too agree with Auntie Julie and Auntie Linda that the Dim Sum at places like Sakura and Fusan are still numero uno.

To read the write up about the Green Town Cafe in the Star newspaper, please visit: http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?sec=north&file=/2011/3/18/North/8286315