26 TRAVEL+LEISURE | APRIL / MAY 2020
Clockwise from top
left: Lumi’s
subliminal
messaging; Keith
Foong of Lumi
behind the bar;
Desmond Choon of
She Said Hidden
Lounge.GETTING THERE
Ipoh is a 2½-hour drive from KL, a
stopover on the way to George Town or
the Cameron Highlands. Known for its
hipster beans-ground-on-the-premises
cafés and tasty local hawker fare as well
as its charming coterie of laidback bars,
Ipoh is also accessible via two daily
flights from Singapore on Scoot
(flyscoot.com) and AirAsia (airasia.com).a seemingly incongruously cool cocktail
bar can be found. Sink into one of the
red-velvet chairs and order the Fish
House Punch that bartender Skyy
Wong mixes with rum, cognac, peach
tea, citrus and bitters. Slightly out of
the way, yet absolutely charming, this
little spot caters to locals, but out-of-
towners might also get into the bar’s
low-key vibe. It doesn’t get more
insider than this.THE COLOR OF NIGHT
Equally inventive are the guys at Lumi
(fb.com/lumicocktailbar; drinks from
R M30), a cocktail bar with flicks of
worldly sheen in a non-descript first-
floor walkup of a generic office block.
The bar’s velvety aqua-toned furniture
complements the impossibly sultry Mr.
Grey that bartender Keith Foong, a
swarthy Asian version of Jamie Dornan,
shakes up with gin, Earl Grey tea, milk
and yellow chartreuse. Lumi’s setting is
louchier than the other bars, and
channels the 50 Shades of Grey mood
with faithful discipline. Order the Black
Market, a soulful blend of rum,
Guinness, coffee and Dom Benedictine.
To cap the evening of liquid
debauchery, it’s easy enough to headfor a midnight snack at one of many
late-night food stalls in town. A plate of
spicy wok-fried noodles or a curry-
drenched roti canai will bring you back
to equilibrium in no time.HOT-POT LOUNGING
If one were to gauge a city’s hipness by
the quality of Oriental-themed bars it
boasts, then She Said Hidden Lounge
(fb.com/shesaidlounge; drinks from
R M30) would guarantee Ipoh’s place
near the top of the list. Owner
Desmond Choon makes full use of all
the usual Chinese tropes—calligraphy
notebooks as menus, ornate porcelain
tea mugs and red lanterns, lots of them.
Fixtures look as if they could have
come from the living room of a family
home, right down to the “good luck”
banners in Chinese script. In its
unexpected location on the first floor at
the back of a hot-pot restaurant—one
could be in Shanghai or Shenzhen—the
crowd here looks like they could
balance both East and West, Tinder and
Taobao, with easy nonchalance. The
drinks list clearly reflects this.
Take a slurp of the Concubine, a
sweetened silken pillow–soft tofu
dessert spiked with gin, and you’ll
come to understand that almost
anything goes in Ipoh. My six-year-old
self would be the first to agree.A
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