This is a pretty famous Ipoh Chicken Rice shop in Jalan Gasing. My parents took me to this place to eat quite frequently when I was a kid, according to the signboard the shop is as old as I am. They serve pretty good Ipoh chicken rice and when I ended up in the high school behind the shop I thought I would have more opportunities to eat there when I had to stay back at school to get some projects done.
That was until I actually had to eat there in my school uniform, I got ZERO RESPECT from the people there. They didn't want to take my order, they served me late, they treated me like dirt. Once I ordered chicken rice and meatball soup and the soup never came, I kept mentioning to the workers running around about the forgotten order but no one cared about the boy in the school uniform. Until the guy I was sharing the table with barked out at the workers vocally for me, this was when I learnt that in a busy coffee shop if you want service.. you yell, screw manners!
But the coupe de grace came when me and a few of my class mates went for lunch in the restaurant one day, there we where... hmmm I think there were 6 of us. It was lunch hour, so obviously there was a lot of the people there as well, we waited for a table just like the other people there, finally a nice big table opened up we sat down and the boss approach our table not to take our orders but he said (literal quote translation from chinese follows) "Can you little business not sit on the big table and make way for the large business?" Enraged my friends and I walked out of the shop and when to the one next to it.
This shop ALSO serves chicken rice, and it's pretty good too, and the shop has been here for as long as I can remember it. (Wonder if my friends still remember this incident?)
I NEVER went back to the Ipoh Chicken Rice Shop again. I NEVER ever brought it up to anyone when they asked me where they can find nice Chicken Rice in PJ, to me.. this shop DOESN'T BLOODY EXISTS!
That was until today when my in laws came down, and for lunch my wife said "Let's go to the Ipoh Chicken Rice in Jalan Gasing" I looked at her wondering I'm pretty sure I told her the story before. But never the less I finally set foot in the shop again after more than 12 bloody years. They expanded since that fateful day.. they used to be just 2 ground floor shop lots, now they have the 1st floor as well. And they use a PALM OS device with a WiFi docking slate to take their orders.
Other than that.. nothing much has changed. There's still a lot of people eating there. The chicken still taste the same, so do the meatballs. Their beansprouts have gotten worse, as someone who eats ipoh beansprouts every now and then I know what they taste like and what they served me there didn't taste like ipoh beansprouts, tasted more like a mixture of ipoh and local beansprouts. Their service still sucked, the chicken came first and we had to remind the workers for our rice, the tea came when we were almost done with our chicken, and my sour plum and lime drink was watered down immensely!
The oysters/la la came when we were almost done with our chicken. I know some of you might be saying "It's a busy shop.. you can't blame them for screwing up." Cause that's what my wife said to me when I mentioned that some things never changed. My response to that is that they've been running the business for about 30 years and they STILL haven't figured out how to get an order right and on time?