Sun Kong (新江酒家)

Food, of course!

About an hour’s drive from Ipoh (assuming traffic is smooth) is the little village of Sauk (pronounced as “sa-ook”). There are a few eateries there but knowing which one to choose matters.

May, a friend of my sister-in-law @laiyoongchin, introduced us to “Restoran Sun Kong” which is a casual eatery owned by her husband’s relative, Mr. Robert Chang whose family started it in 1930.
Due to rivers in the vicinity, they have access to a good supply of freshwater fish. However, this type of fish can have a “muddy taste” if they are not prepared and cooked properly. No such issues exist at “Restoran Sun Kong”. All three fishes we had, the “Tok Mo Lei”, “Sai Tor Yu” and “Hong Gat Lor” were cooked in different styles, and they tasted equally fresh, clean and delicious.
Also clean-tasting was the tender piece of pig’s stomach stirfried with pineapples, onions and cucumber in a tomato-based sauce. So in case you’re wondering, yes, they do non-fish dishes well too. More examples would be the marvelously moreish satay sauce cuttlefish and the braised pork belly with yam (both meat and root vegetable were so soft they melted in the mouth as fast as ice-cream!). Even the stirfried bittergourd with “kiam chye” was shiok. For the finale, a huge platter arranged with deepfried crunchy pig’s trotter, the fluffiest cottony-soft steamed buns, lettuce leaves and assorted condiments was brought out (price: RM 88). We had a lot of fun D.I.Y.-ing our own meat buns and Korean-style no-carb lettuce wraps from the spread.

FYI - the bill for the 12 of us came to RM 750 (about SGD 300).