The Museum — Restaurant in Perak

Look, there's something lost in translation.

The Chinese name for the Museum is ghost-style/demon-style restaurant, which suggests an otherworldly experience. With that in mind, they do stand out among the regular, run-of-the-mill Chinese restaurants for the decor and more importantly, the food.

The exterior looks like a glitzy 1950s movie theater, but with a prominent red and black facade. The interior is adorned with red walls, booth seats, an elevated wooden platform, a fireplace, shelves of (fake) hardcover books, and a bar area. The aesthetic choices are well, eclectic, but the sum of it, somehow works. Night after night they perform in front of packed houses. In fact, reservations are crucial to securing a table.

And what of the food? Yet again, eclectic, but effective. Everyone comes for their famous char siew (barbecue pork), and siew yuk (roast pork). The former is a smoky, tender, lightly-charred, salty-sweet, thick-cut slices of pork belly that melts in your mouth, a definite highlight and must-try. The latter is well-seasoned, thick cut pork belly cubes with crispy crunchy skin and presented erect. I dig that.

The other highlights are the shellfish. The lala clams (Venus clams) cooked with wine, and curry giant cockles are always recommended. Rich in flavour and super-sized, cooked til juicy and tender. Rarely do you encounter cockles of this size! For vegetables, the sambal paku-pakis (fiddlehead ferns) are a delightful plate of spice and texture. This should round off an excellent meal for a family of four. Yes they do have ordinary dishes like tomato eggs and sweet-sour pork, but you can have them anywhere else!

Prices are on the high side, but you get what you paid for. Come for the food, stay for the fun. The Museum delivers for lovers of pork...

The char siew is still one of the best (melt in your mouth fat, juicy, burnt just right), but still haven't found any of the other dishes to be exceptional and worth coming back repeatedly for.

Update 27/9/2023 Have not eaten here for a long, long time. The restaurant is still very popular - full house except for one very large table when I got there for lunch today. They made space and allowed me to sit at the bar counter since I came alone. I was eager to try their char siew again and also ordered their curry cockles which I never tried before (I love cockles). Had them with their garlic rice. The char siew was a let down - the end bits were HARD and over charred. The rest of the meat appeared to be bits from odds and ends, too lean, dry and hard. Out of the whole strip of char siew, only 1 piece of meat came close to what it tasted long ago. I enjoyed the curry cockles - they were not over cooked, they were just nice, the cockles were large in size, and curry basically goes well with just about anything. The curry gravy also went well with the garlic rice. The garlic rice was a tasty alternative to the plain white rice. Dunked everything down with a nice ice cold glass of orange juice. Still a decent place to have a decent meal. Notwithstanding the drop in quality of their star dish, the char siew, I am sure this restaurant will still be well patronised.

Update: 17 Oct 2024 Char siew was tasty, especially the outer parts that were caramalised and the melt-in-your mouth fat. However the inside meat was a bit powdery - not sure why, but that detracted from the dining experience. Dry curry mee was nice, the curry gravy was flavourful. I got some plain rice to suck up the curry gravy and eat the gravy covered...

I never knew this place existed until I googled for good food places in Ipoh. Seeing the high ratings quickly got me on the phone making a reservation. The restaurant gave me an impression of a circus with its red and yellow theme colour .

Two things I knew I wanted to order for certain before I arrived, were their highly raved Char Siew and steamed lala. The gloriously glazed Char Siew were thickly sliced and had a good fat to lean meat ratio. The luscious Char Siew was marinated in the right sauce and barbecued to perfection; rendering such tender and succulent meat that stood up to my high expectations. The steamed Lala was truly sublime, where my senses were instantly awaken as I took my first sip of the exceptionally fragrant broth that was saturated by the sweetness of the remarkably fresh and plump Lala. The aromatic stingray curry had a pleasant pungent flavour that wasn’t too heavy nor light, thick nor watery and had the perfect level of spiciness. It is my first time ordering steamed egg prawns and it turned out silky-licious despite its unassuming appearance. Even the vegetable was wonderfully cooked, yielding a soft yet crunchy texture.

Every dish at The Museum was perfectly cooked and boasted with immense freshness. I’ll definitely be back to try that and their other dishes after such an...