When the proprietor Bryan Tai of this new restaurant wrote to us to invite us to come and taste his food, I was sure he had made a spelling mistake in the choice of a name. Surely Little Meet Fresh should be Little Meat Fresh? I thought.
To my surprise, there was no mistake to the spelling at all. Bryan wanted his restaurant to be a meeting place where fresh food is served. So there Ms Proofreader! *Little Fresh Meat (xiao xian rou) is an internet buzz word in China used to describe handsome young males. It is most commonly used for celebrities, particularly a rising star.
The menu is small (which is a good thing as it makes decisions so much easier) with most of the items based on soup. The soup stock is based on three fragrances: ikan bilis, pork bones and Chinese wine. Depending on what you order and the different combos, the resultant soup will taste different from bowl to bowl.
For starters, choose from fried fish cake, fried wonton, fried tsui gao (the bigger dumpling) or their homemade Acar (very good), each at RM5.60. For me, I had their Red Oil Dumpling, spicy, smooth-skinned with a well-balanced filling of pork, wood ear and given a crunch with added sengkuang. Other ways to have their tsui gao is fried or in clear soup.
Other starters are their Bursting Meatball, a springy pork ball with a surprise filling of flavoured minced pork inside. Six pieces for RM8.80. Be careful when you bite in though; when it’s hot you can burn yourself.
Then we turned our attention to the main bowls. Here you can choose from a choice of noodles from meehoon, flat rice noodles, yellow noodles to silver thread noodles and mi xian for which you pay an additional RM1.50. You can have yours with a spicy soup which is also homemade for an additional RM0.50. The choice of topping is tantalising. From minced pork with pork liver to liver and pig’s tripe (my favourite) combos, with added vegetables, these bowls are hearty meals. Varying in price from RM7.50 for the pork mixes to RM17.50 for their mixed seafood which includes two large prawns, grouper slices and homemade fish paste all of which tasted fresh.
Beef noodles, beef slice as shown at pic below
Beef slice
Tomato fish noodles with fish paste
Pork noodles with pork cake
Pork stomach
And you can add any of the other ingredients to your bowl of choice for an additional amount. This is one restaurant I will certainly return to again for a quick bite or a longer meal.
LITTLE MEET FRESH 17 Jalan Medan Ipoh 6, Taman Ipoh Timur, 31400 Ipoh. (same row as 1919 and two doors down from Sun Yeong Wai) Tel: 011 5338 2800 Bryan Tai: 018 6622 800 Open: 11am-8.30pm. Off every Tuesday.