Sam Poh Restaurant is not halal. Nor is it suitable for parties and weddings. But for casual meals, it’s very popular among the local crowd!
What are some of their signature dishes? And how is their service?
Find out in this post!
Ambiance
Sam Poh Restaurant does not look appealing from the outside. From the front, it just looks like they only have open air seating and not many at that.
But there is a side door that leads to a small air conditioned section of the restaurant. This section is not visible from the street as there are no windows.
The interior of Sam Poh Restaurant is clean with simple décor. The furnishings are old fashioned and typical of a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia.
In any case, it is a bit chilly inside the air conditioned section. They have multiple air conditioning units as well as wall fans in the small room. This helps a lot once the restaurant is full though.
Speaking of which, it can be noisy inside Sam Poh Restaurant after 7pm. So if you want a quieter experience, have your dinner between 6 to 7pm.
Food
The food is the main reason to book a table here. We’ve tried one of their signature dishes – Thai-style crispy pork leg and it is amazing!
While the skin is crispy without being oily, the meat is dry and plain tasting. But if you dab on some of the dipping sauce, the taste is perfect. This dish comes with a side of Thai salad too.
Other dishes we have tried here are salted egg squid, sweet and sour mantis prawns, claypot tofu, and the stir-fried beans.
All of the dishes were well seasoned. Nothing was too oily, too sweet, or too salty. Plus, the texture of the fried beans was just right.
Pricing
You can choose different sizes for the dishes you order.
We mostly stuck to medium for our group of 7 pax. At the end of the meal, we were all stuffed. And what surprised us the most about the final bill was how reasonable it was!
Our guess was that the meal would cost RM300, but it was around RM240.
This is cheaper than other restaurants we’ve tried before in other areas of Ipoh. It is not that the portions are small either, they are not.
Service
A few of the staff at Sam Poh Restaurant are elders but they are still very alert at taking orders. We find that in general, the staff is polite and the service is efficient.
We don’t know what the service would be like on a busy day (e.g., reunion dinner). Because we had our dinner before 7pm and so, the food came quickly. We didn’t have to make a booking either as it was a weekday.
Despite this, it was full house after 7pm. So we do advise making bookings for popular hours (7 to 8pm) and on weekends and any public holidays.
- Address: 17, Persiaran Bandar Baru Tambun 16, Taman Desa Tambun Indah, 31400 Ipoh, Perak
- Contact: +6016-5516869
Conclusion
We will come back to Sam Poh Restaurant if we have friends and family to entertain from out of town.
The food is affordable and tasty, and the dining environment is clean and comfortable. If you’re thinking of coming here too, consider making a call to secure a table!
Another highly recommended Chinese restaurant to check out would be Sun Marpoh Restaurant!
