Down by the river…

Archie was complaining about the deluge of food posts but all of you can’t blame me really! It’s just that my daughter’s home for the holidays and I make it a point to take her out to eat all the things that she loves.

Over there, the place where she’s studying has a canteen but they don’t sell much there…when they’re open, that is. I really wonder how they can survive and stay in business! There are a few food stalls outside the gate, right across the road…but the swarm of flies!!! And they do not even cover the food!!! Gee! Where are the Health Department people? Things are definitely much better here in Sibu!

Anyway, to move away from the topic of food, I was driving past Sungai Merah this morning, so I decided to stop and take a few photographs for this post. This was where the earliest Chinese (Foochow) settlers led by Wong Nai Siong first set foot in the region.  The small riverine town got its name “Sungai Merah” from the river that flows through it. It is literally red in colour due to the withered leaves that fall from the trees upstream. It had been murky and muddy at one time but obviously, the authorities have done something to restore its original reddish-brownish hue…

Besides, they’ve also revamped the place by building a nice waterfront along the river banks with nice bridges of Chinese-influenced architecture. This would be an ideal place for taking photographs for remembrance as it is after all, a place of historical significance…and a good spot for evening strolls too…

For one thing, I wish they had restored and preserved the old wooden shophouses for posterity…but they’re all gone now and in their place stand new ones like these…

There is a small park built in memory of Wong Nai Siong so shutter bugs can snap a few more shots here…

…and should you be feeling hungry, don’t worry!!! There are coffee shops all over selling all kinds of delicacies you’ll defintely be spoilt for choice.

And if you’re interested, you can take a leisurely drive along the country roads through the lush green rainforests to the smaller towns neraby like Kanowit or Sarikei.  Huai Bin has just posted a good write-up on Sarikei, so you can just hop over to his blog to have a look.

Well, I will definitely go around the scenic spots and places of attractions here to take more photographs for my future posts, so do make sure you keep coming back so that you won’t miss out on any of them…Hahahahahahaha!!!!

Ocean deep…

It certainly seems that more and more western and fusion food joints are sprouting all over town…and last Sunday night, my family dropped in at one of them situated in the Mitsu Dimsum restaurant area (behind Rejang Medical Centre)…

Blue Reef’s the name but it isn’t actually an all-seafood restaurant.  Inside, it’s pretty dark and all blue mostly and I didn’t think much of the decor on the walls…

Be forewarned that the portions are extremely huge…and one plate is enough for 2-3 persons.  We had spaghetti carbonara…

 

It was nice and we liked the creamy sauce.  We also had Seafood Hokkein mee…but it did not seem like what I had in KL.  It was more like Foochow fried noodles using the much-bigger type of mee, not usually found here. But on the whole, it was ok…

It was quite cheap actually especially when you consider the size of each dish;if I remember correctly, the spaghetti dish was RM12 and the latter was RM8 only…or something around that price range.

And last night, we took Sophia out for dinner as she’ll be going back to Kuching today…and we went to Garden Hotel’s coffee house.  It seems Huai Bin was there the night earlier; funny how how paths don’t seem to cross! Both my missus and Sophia opted for the seafood platter…

It was nice, especially the garlic butter rice and at RM16.00, it would be unfair to compare it to that at Manhattan Fish Market where the seafood platter for two costs around RM45.00. My daughter had fish and chips…

It certainly seemed as if someone had taken a bite off the second piece of fish! LOL!!! I had posted a picture of this dish at the same place sometime ago…and I, for one, prefer it to what we get elsewhere because the fish is coated with breadcrumbs instead of batter which can be somewhat oily and soggy if there is no quality control and it’s only RM11.50 per plate (an increase of 50 sen since the last time I was here). But anyway, last night, I did not feel like having seafood so I went for the Mixed Grill instead…

With the lamb, beef, chicken, bacon…it was priced at RM17.00. Cheap or not? And it was very nice! Don’t worry! I trimmed off that layer of fat on the lamb before eating the leaner parts. LOL!!!

Gosh!!! I think that should be enough food posts for the time being… Now I’ll have to think of what other things I can post!!! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!