The famed Hong Kong-style dim summery Foh San was closed the
day we wanted to eat there, so we went to Ming Court across the
way; some commentators maintain the places run neck and neck,
others sing the praises of one or the other, and there's a
third down the street that gets a few votes as well.

The place is busy - Internet reports of how you get a table
are completely accurate - when you arrive, all the tables are
full, and you wait for a place (or in our case a deuce) to
come open, and when a party leaves, you slide into their
just-vacated spots. Which is what we did.

The food is standard but of good quality and freshness, one
of the advantages of a place that is constantly busy.

Things that lili could eat -

steamed pork ribs with ginger, which were excellent, having
been cooked with abundant ginger, a splash of rice wine and
soy, and a black bean or two - the problem was that the ribs
had been hacked with a not-so-sharp cleaver, and there were
bone fragments in places they shouldn't have been, so that
put her off, and instead of eating the bulk of this dish,
she had only a piece or two, making her main meal out of

fried puffs with pork and douban jiang, which were frankly
delicious, the salty savory meat filling smoothed out nicely
by the rice dough crusts. She also liked the

fried sesame puffs with yellow bean (I usually see them with
red bean, which I marginally prefer), which she liked but
after half of one claimed fullness, so I ate the rest.

Things I eat but she wouldn't -

har gow (shrimp dumplings) and siu mai (pork dumplings with
ground shrimp) were of a good standard, the former stuffed with
three smallish shrimp each, the latter, well, maybe a notch
above Trader Joe's frozen, two notches because these were made
fresh within a few hours;

eggplant stuffed with unknown protein, pretty yummy, but I'd
hoped the unknown protein would be shrimp, which it wasn't; and

unknown protein by itself in 1-oz coin-shaped cakes; these turned
out to be ground fish, rather nicely seasoned.

Eight bucks for the two of us.

There's a tourist brochure called Ipoh Heritage Trail, which
takes you downtown to all the government and banking buildings,
which, truth be told, are good, sometimes impressive even,
examples of architecture during the Raj. Aside from the blazing
sun and oppressive humidity, you'd almost think you were in the
business district of an English city. I particularly wanted to
check out the Old Odeon, an abandoned theater, near which there
are supposed to be food stalls with amazing offerings at half
the price of KL. Well, what we had read about wasn't quite what
we found, a moldering old building with an alley a little bit
south of it with some tents that were somewhat neglected-looking
and, more importantly for lunchtime, closed. We resolved to
return at night to see if that situation would be reversed, but
we never did, not because of the fear of assault - it's supposed
to be a very safe city - but for the fear of potholes, of which
there are a substantial number.

The most appealing thing around was Old Town White Coffee, right
across the street from the tourist bureau (we stopped in there
for a few minutes to cool off and justify the existence of a
couple young attendants, who otherwise had nothing to do but
play with their phones); this is the Starbuck's of Malaysia,
and this is said to have been the first outlet, so coming here
is like going to the Starbuck's in Pike Place Market, with the
prices comparable (adjusting for local economics). I had a
white coffee, which came really white, with lots of condensed
milk in the Asian style. Later I found out that when you don't
want dairy, you order "kopi-O," O standing for ohne or something
I guess. lili got a hazelnut freezy; I believe that the US
equivalent is Frappuccino. Both were delicious. So what's white
coffee, really? It's normal green coffee beans that instead of
being roasted are fried in margarine - a peculiarly Malay practice -,
which results in a pleasantly greasy and slightly burnt-sugar aroma
and taste.