At the same site in Fair Park where the Spider fried, there was also this ice kacang stall ran by a couple who was always shouting at each other. No, they were not angry or anything, it was just their way of running the business, although on rare occassions when orders came out wrong, you do see some minor fireworks.

This ice kacang stall family also ran a stall at the Ipoh Bus Station during the day. Later on the business was relocated to Menglembu where I had the opportunity to visit one more time before losing track of them. Like most popular food stalls in Ipoh, this ice kacang stall had something unique in their flavour, and in this case, it was the coconut add-ons.

While on ice kacang, moving back many more years, I remember as a kid this stall along Cowan Street. It was located in a wooden shack and I remember having to climb a few small steps to a raised section behind a tree where most of the customers sat. My father used to order "hoong tau suet, mm oi hoong tau," or ice kacang without the red beans. When the order came, he would secretly bring out his own can of evaporated milk to further enrich the serving. Wah! that was good man!

There were also a few other good food stalls there, but the one I remember most besides the ice kacang stall was the Assam Laksa sold by an old Nonya lady. Her recipe set the standard for me for the rest of my life as far as Assam Laksa was concerned. The little wooden shack was torn down years ago, and on this location are the coffee shops you see nowadays.

Another ice kacang institution in Ipoh was Uncle Neoh's, which was located just outside the St. Peter's Anglican church in Fair Park. His innovation was the introduction of "sek lau," a tasty and chewy ball, in addition to crispy ground nuts (better known as peanuts in the rest of the world) to the ice kacang. I didn't like the ground nuts and would always remove them from my bowl, but I must be the only one doing that because everybody else in the usually packed stall didn't. One of Uncle Neoh's son now pilots a Boeing 747 in an international airline.

I have no idea who or where this One-eye Jack rojak is, but do I remember the "Luk-luk" stores! Luk-luk (literally "Boil-boil") was also known as "Tuk-tuk" because the morsels were all jabbed together on a skewer. While sick one day as a little kid, my mother told me that she would be taking me out for "Tuk-tuk," only to end up at a doctor's clinic for an injection. We did end up eating "Tuk-tuk" though, as consolation to a little boy with a sore bun.