This old house…

Yes, this is the old house where Chricaca used to live and she mentioned in one of her comments that she fell out of the window while playing hide and seek with her sisters…

Incidentally, this post is not going to be about anything specific in particular. I will just make some back references to a few things that had cropped up in the earlier posts. For instance, Gundot mentioned that the Sungai Merah chai pau (vegetable bun) is very nice, so the very next day, I went to buy some…

Ok, Bongkersz, I know! You don’t have to tell me what they look like! It’s mostly skin…which is a good thing as the skin is very nice, unlike the yellowish and rubbery traditional pau skin that is typical of those local Sibu ones…

As for the inside, it is mostly cabbage and carrots, not as nice as the homemade ones I had the other day…and there is so very little of it. And since I was in the Sungai Merah vicinity, I decided to stop for a bowl of kuih chap…

This is the “special” and it costs RM5.50 (A normal bowl would cost RM4.00) but it was very nice. The gravy has this rich fragrance of spices such as cinnamon sticks and of course, I enjoyed the generous serving of pig’s innards. However, I was quite disappointed that there wasn’t any liver though! Anyway, moving on, we were also talking about nyonya kuihs in that post about chai paus, remember? Well, I had some more the other day…

Those pulut (glutinous rice) kuihs with gula melaka flavoured coconut on top are very nice…and you get three for RM1.20 (or was it four? Can’t remember whether I popped one into my mouth while taking the photograph. LOL!!!).  Yesterday Clare sent me an sms to gloat about the Wednesday-only popiah she had at Handsome Court at Nanas Road in Kuching. I know it is very nice as I had had it before…and all right, all right! You do not have to tell me how EXTRA BIG it was. This one that I had was from the SRB Chung Hua canteen and at one time, people were praising it to the skies. I thought it was just ok but I felt the filling did not have enough chilli and ground peanuts… 

I prefer the ones sold in the mornings at Chopsticks at Pedada Commercial Centre. Of course, none can compare with Handsome Court’s. Drool! Drool! Are you going to post about it, Clare? Then everyone can see how BIG it is! ROTFLMAO!!!

So that’s about it for this post – just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Well, how has your week been so far? Good, I hope…..

So far away…

Normally, I do not venture very far from where I stay…even before the hike in the oil prices, but once a month, I would need to go to my bank on the other side of town. Initially, the branch was at Rejang Park, very near my house but they closed it down and moved to Cityvine in the Upper Lanang area…and since I was there, I decided to roam around the vicinity. This Sing Kwong Building has been opened for well over a year now…

There is the departmental store downstairs and upstairs, you have the supermarket. You can use the travelators to go up and down…

There are a few shops in the main wing as well, like Bata…and in the attached wing, there is the SOS shoe shop, one Pensonic outlet, a computer shop and lots of food outlets like KFC and Pizza Hut…

and a Sushi Tie Kiosk…

as well as a bakery…

…and they even have free wifi at the entire place!

There’s a food court at the back and darn!!! Now I’ve to go back there again one of these days! They’ve got salted fish claypot chicken rice!!! I haven’t had that for a long time…and I wonder if it is any good. I was there past lunchtime and most of the stalls were not open.

I left the place and went over to the other side where Farley Supermarket and Departmental Store is. I dropped by a shop in that area sometime in May and I saw this Swiss cabin-size baggage that I really liked so much…

I enquired about the price and was told that it would cost RM100 plus. Well, I am not an impulsive shopper so I did not buy it there and then. Instead, I went and tried to pull some strings to get it at a lower price. Eventually, I was told that I could have it for RM80. But the shop being so far away, I never went back until today…and when I asked the proprietor how much he was willing to sell it to me for, I almost fainted when he said RM50. I had to confirm with him several times to make sure that he was not selling it to me at a loss because of “the strings attached”…and finally, I paid him the money and left…feeling so very happy with the unbelievable bargain!!! Swiss, no less!!! Got class mah! ROTFLMAO!!! 

Knocking on Heaven’s door…

This is so funny! It takes all kinds to make the world go round but be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die. Here’s the story I received via email; the name of the bank has been respectfully removed.

My aunt died this past January. The bank billed her for February and March for their monthly service charge on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00 and now, it was somewhere around $60.00. I placed the following phone call to the bank.

Me: I am calling to tell you that she died in January.
Bank: The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.
Me: Maybe you should turn it over to collections.
Bank: Since it is 2 months past due, it already has been.
Me: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?
Bank: Either report her account to the frauds division, or report her to the credit bureau or maybe both!
Me: Do you think God will be mad at her?
Bank: Excuse me?
Me: Did you just get what I was telling you – the part about her being dead?
Bank: Sir, you’ll have to speak to my supervisor!
(Supervisor gets on the phone)
Me: I’m calling to tell you she died in January.
Bank: The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.
Me: You mean you want to collect from her estate?
Bank: …..(stammer)…. Are you her lawyer?
Me: No, I’m her great-grand nephew.
Bank: Could you fax us a certificate of death?
Me: Sure.
(After they have got the fax)
Bank: Our system just isn’t setup for death.
Me: Oh!
Bank: I don’t know what more I can do to help.
Me: Well…if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her, I suppose. I don’t really think she will care.
Bank: Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.
Me: Would you like her new billing address?
Bank: That might help.
Me: Nilai Memorial Park Cemetery (North South Highway and plot number given)
Bank: Sir, that’s a cemetery!”
Me: Precisely! Smart fella! Now, perhaps you want to tell me what you do with dead people on your planet?

…And to think that you trust these people with your life savings!!! Perhaps it may be safer to keep it in that old MILO tin and hide in under your bed!…..Yes, Cibol? LOL!!!

Monday, Monday…

So how was your weekend?…..Mine wasn’t too good! Well, let me tell you why. When Gerrie had this rich, moist, tempting, alluring, enticing dark chocolate cake…

…I had to be happy with this homemade chai pau (vegetable bun)…

…and while Huai Bin and Clare feasted at Mitsu Tea House, I had to settle for the now-very-diluted beef soup noodles at the coffee shop across the road. Now can anything be more miserable than that? LOL!!! And that’s not all! To appease my craving for nyonya kuihs, I went and bought myself these…

The white ones were quite nice – crushed glutinous rice with gula melaka inside and coated with grated coconut. We call the long green ones kuih lenggang here – grated coconut with gula melaka wrapped in pandan-flavoured pancake-like skin. They were ok too…but good grief! How they’ve shrunk in size! I think they’re about as big as my middle finger now! As for the last type, what we call tinggi salad…but I think, they’re actually called seri muka , it was bad enough that it was not lemak but the texture was like rubber. Definitely not worth the calories! Oooo…how I miss those sold by the old lady at her stall outside the Green Road shops in Kuching! The ones that I’ve tried in Malacca or Penang come nowhere near hers! Slurpzzz!!!! 

Anyway, it’s Monday! I know a lot of people don’t like Mondays…so here’s something that I hope will cheer you up! Please be reminded that this is NOT a political post! I was quite tickled a few “movie promo posters” that an ex-student emailed to me and here’s one of them…..

Image source unknown

Well, I have a lot more…but I think I’ll save those for another day, if all of you will behave, that is! No need to get carried away! Just a comment to say whether it made you laugh or whether it brought a smile to your face will suffice!!! Then I’ll consider posting the rest…In the meantime, here’s wishing everybody a great week ahead!

Smells like teen spirit…

Nope, it certainly does not smell like teen spirit. As a matter of fact, many old people smell of it, old women in particular. A Kuching friend once called it the “Foochow perfume” (Now, don’t shoot me! I wasn’t the one who said it! LOL!!!)…

This is “Minyak Cap Kapak” or Axe Brand oil or what we call “hong eyew” (wind oil). It seems to be some kind of panacea; they use it for insect bites, headaches, stomachaches…and if you have heat stroke, some Amazon-like Foochow woman lady would come and pour a whole lot of it on your back shoulders and neck and pinch you black and blue. When I was still working, sometimes I would get bitten by a mosquito or something and all I needed to do was to ask around the office and without fail, there would be some lady who would fish a bottle out of her handbag…and let me use it.

Students would keep a small bottle handy in their pencil boxes to apply when their heads started to spin and some would even apply some on their eyes when they felt sleepy so they could stay awake. I did not mind this…but I could not stand the other type – green in colour with a strong horrible smell. Somehow, I do not seem to notice its presence that much these days. Maybe people do not use it anymore? I wonder if those of you who are younger are familiar with this “Minyak Cap Kapak”.

And since I’m recalling things from days gone by, you may remember the radiogram that I was talking about in an earlier post. Later in the late 70s, I bought one of these in Singapore…

This is a SHARP portable stereo hi-fi. Someone was saying the other day that stereophonic sound reproduction was the in-thing in those days. This set is quite heavy, despite the claim that it is portable…and it incorporates a radio tuner with an FM band, MW (medium wave, now known as AM) and short-wave bands…and a cassette recorder/player. In those days, we could record songs playing on the radio on blank cassette tapes, so to prevent that sort of music piracy, radio announcers/deejays had to “speak over the songs”.

I had just started teaching in a rural town then…and that set was used during school assemblies, talks, forums, meetings and even parties! One can tell from the size of the speakers that it was loud enough. So at parties, we would play the songs on cassette tapes, thus eradicating the problem of the stylus jumping grooves during the “chu tor liao lor!!!” (the house is falling down) phenomenon! For the uninitiated, these are cassette tapes…

…or at least, the cassette cases, and this is what a cassette tape looks like…

There is a very thin tape rolled up inside a plastic casing…and you should not fast-forward or rewind it too often as it would stretch the tape and spoil it. If it gets stuck in the rollers, you must get it free carefully because it may break easily…and that would be it! Bye, bye!!! If you keep it for too long, the brown coating may come off and stick to the playback head in the player and ruin the sound production. In a nutshell, it had a lot of problems…and eventually gave way to the compact disc (CD) as you know it today.

Well, that should be enough for this time. We’ll go for a walk down memory lane again some other time… 

Nothing lasts forever…

I received the following via email and I would like to share it with everybody…

Before marriage….

He: Yes. At last. It was so hard to wait.
She: Do you want me to leave?
He: No! Don’t even think about it.
She: Do you love me?
He: Of course! Over and over!
She: Have you ever cheated on me?
He: No! Why are you even asking?
She: Will you kiss me?
He: Every chance I get.
She: Will you hit me?
He: Are you crazy! I’m not that kind of person!
She: Can I trust you?
He: Yes.
She: Darling!

 

 

 

After marriage….

Simply read from bottom to top.

Around the same time, I also received this…

Some people say that a WIFE is a HARIMAU and a GIRLFRIEND is HARI HARI MAHU.

And some say that a wife is like a TV while a girlfriend is like a handphone (HP). At home, you watch TV but when you go out, you bring your HP. When you have no money, you sell your TV but when you have money, you change your HP. You enjoy TV sometimes but you play with your HP most of the time. Your TV is free for life but as for your HP, if you do not pay, the services will be terminated. The TV is big, bulky and most of the time old, but your HP is cute, slim, curvy and very portable at any time. The operational cost for TV is often acceptable but for your HP, it is high and often demanding, Most importantly, your TV has a remote control but not your HP and last but not least, the TV does not have virus, but your HP may have and once you get it, HABIS LAH! So it is better to choose the TV!

So, what do you all think? Any comments? LOL!!!

One more try…

Honestly, I think that those of you who hate bitter gourd should give it one more try. Other than the medicinal benefits of the vegetable, it can actually taste nice. My daughter never touched it until she tried the dish at Ruby. There, they fry it with salted egg…and the end result is fantastic. Crunchy, tasty…and not bitter at all! I think if I blindfold you, you will never be able to tell that it is bitter gourd.

Anyway, yesterday, I decided to cook some as I had a bitter gourd in the fridge. However, I did not have any salted egg in the house so I decided to use my own recipe instead – bitter gourd with cincaluk. Now, here are the ingredients…

Wash and cut the bitter gourd into halves, remove the seeds and slice it into thin pieces. Slice some chillies and pound a bit of ginger. Get ready a bit of cincaluk as well…and now you are ready to roll. Fry a bit of oil in the wok, put in the ginger and stir till it turns golden brown, add the cincaluk and then add a bit of water. Instead of msg, I added half a tablespoon of ikan bilis (anchovies) stock. Then, in go the chillies and the bittergourd and simmer until cooked. The dish is ready…

Cilaka! The lady told me that the bitter gourd would not be bitter, but thank goodness…the strong taste of the cincaluk was able to drown out the bitterness, so it actually tasted VERY nice!!! Yum! Yum! Now what about a protein dish for a balanced meal? Yesterday, being a Friday, I guess some of you would not be able to have this…

Ooo…I have loved luncheon meat since I was a kid – Ma Ling Brand in the orange and blue tin…but lately, that brand has become totally inedible!!! Still that didn’t stop me…and as the ones from other countries are a bit too expensive, I tried some of the other alternatives (despite all that they say about canned foods from China!). I find the Gulong Brand quite nice, not as nice as Ma Ling in the past…but less salty and not so much fat!

Anyway, if you are abstaining from meat, how about some sardines? Sometimes I would fry it with Bombay onions and add some more tomato sauce so it would taste nicer. Otherwise, you can do what I do! Open the can of sardines and put them in a plate…cut some shallots and chillies and put them on top of the fish, then cut some lime/kalamansi and squeeze the juice over everything! You will get a nice sourish spicy taste…and the lime will remove a bit of the canned sardine taste. Give it a try! I’m sure you’ll like it…

Well, the weekend’s here! Cooking anything special?…..Do have a pleasant weekend, everybody!

Father and son…

This is Udin Rojak, son of Kassim Rojak…

LOL!!! Actually, this is what we call “kay-leng-nga rojak” or Indian rojak in Sibu, which seems to me like gado-gado…but I’ve tasted something similar at the Indian shops along Penang Road in Penang. Indian rojak in Kuching seems somewhat different with its thick, sweet and reddish gravy. This one has the cucur (vegetable fritters), cucumber, bean sprouts…and there used to be boiled potatoes and hardboiled egg too.

This rojak in Sibu was initiated by a man named Kassim, father of REM (once a singer in the Malay music scene)…and it became so very popular that once I even saw a stall in Sarikei selling “Kassim Rojak“…but needless to say, it paled in comparison. Over the years, he had opened branches here, there and everywhere in Sibu and finally, I heard he opened one in Kuching at City Cafe (below City Hotel) along Abell Road…but I heard that he has moved, so maybe gundot or somebody knows the present location of his stall now???

I will not dwell upon the stories surrounding the relationship between the father and son but what I know is that the rift between the two has resulted in the son renaming his as Udin Rojak. The stall is at Kok Cheng coffee shop (Dunno what’s the name now!), opposite Star Cineplex here in Sibu. Now that little bit in the photograph cost RM4.00, believe it or not and there weren’t any potatoes nor eggs. Of course, the blame is on the rising prices of things but for that amount of money, I would sooner go to 3Q Fastfood Takeaway and have the Thai-style Mihun Special with sambal petai for only RM3.00.

Today, they had the same dish but with a choice between mihun and tung hoon…

Nice and far more satisfying, unless of course, if you belong to the elite group of a privileged few, you can indulge in sinfully-rich stuff like this…

Ooo…!!! Gerrie mentioned these in her comments in the previous post, and I think she said that it cost RM1.80 each and it certainly appears bigger in the photograph than what it actually is, so don’t believe everything you see!!! LOL!!! Home-made, not available in Sibu and RM1.80!!!…..I guess the rest of you can join me in singing this song. I’m sure you all know the tune to the Everly Brothers’ “All I have to do is dream” (Stella’s idol, Andy Gibb sang it with Victoria Principal, I think!!!) Okay, everybody ready, sing! “Drool! Drool! Drool!…All I have to do is droo…oo…oo…ool!!!” ROTFLMAO!!!

I knew you were waiting…

Truth be told, I did not know she was waiting for me but this afternoon, when I dropped by 3Q Fastfood Takeaway, the Q there was so excited to see me! She was so thrilled about the sudden surge in her business…and somebody told her that they had read about it here – at suituapui’s blog!!! Gee! The power of advertising! LOL!!!

Actually, I was coming down with a flu and I had to go to the EPF office to settle some “official matters”…so I was not in the mood to do any cooking. Thus, I decided to stop by to see what they had left over to buy for dinner. It was almost 3.00 p.m. so if there was anything good, it would have been sold out already. In the end, I asked for the rest of the long beans fried with minced meat and the pumpkin in sambal udang kering (dried prawns sambal)…

Then, I also wanted some of the meat cooked in cincaluk. Yummy!!!…

And I only had to pay RM10.00 for all that! I suspected she did not charge me for the veg…and that was not all. She wanted to give me a special treat and insisted that I waited for her Thai-style Mihun Special…

Now, what was that? There was mihun in some Thai-style sweet and sour sauce…and buah kenundung (a sour mango-like fruit), green apples, carrot, cucumber, cabbage all cut into thin strips plus fried ikan bilis (anchovies) and fried onions plus sambal buah petai.

I had it free, of course but according to the Q, she is selling that for RM3.00 but without the sambal buah petai, it is only RM2.50. Some of you may not like the pungent smell of the seeds…but I really really really love it! I think they have some medicinal value too, but you’ll just have to google for it yourself to find out. So what did it taste like?…..You would not want to miss it, I tell you! It was simply sinfully delicious!!! Don’t just take my word for it! Drop by today and get some to try for yourself! I’m sure you’ll love it too!!!

Pieces…

Thanks to rubberseeds, I’ve got something on food to post this week…or my reputation as a “flogger” would go down the drain. He sent me some photographs that he took at the Sunday Market at Jalan Pedada here…of “chai pia” (translation: vegetable cake).

Well, I’m not really into it…but my daughter loves them, especially those they fried on the pavement at the shop next to the Eon Bank, Rejang Park branch (that has since moved to Cityvine in Upper Lanang) until the directive came from the municipal council telling them they could not do so. Now they still sell them even though they do not fry them on the spot, but I don’t think they made those themselves because they’re not as nice anymore!

Anyway, all this while, I thought they’re called “chai kuih“…but then, those curry puff-shaped things with popiah kind of filling in translucent skin are also called “chai kuih“. Well, whatever they’re called, I prefer those similar ones with a prawn or two on top, but then, those would be called “hay pia” (Prawn cake). These, of course, are bigger and not so thick as the “hay pia” that people in Kuching can get at Peterson’s (Drool!!!) or Old Rex Tofu…

There were rumours going round that the people melt plastic bag or drinking straw in the oil so they will stay crispy, banana fritters included…but I think a local daily did a survey on this and the rumours seemed somewhat unfounded. Then they were saying that they buy the used cooking oil from Sugar Bun to fry the stuff. Well, there are always those kinds of things circulating…like there were people who claimed that the beef from Australia was actually kangaroo or they had human meat in those cans of VERY delicious luncheon meat from China. If you believe everything you hear, you’d probably starve yourself to death!

Anyway, back to what I was talking about, this is the photograph of the stall at the Sunday market…

Thanks for the photographs, rubberseeds. I know you sent me more, but I guess these are enough for the post. Anymore to spare? Hahahahaha!!! Anybody craving for some “chai pia” right now? Or are you a die-hard kampua person…

Have a nice day!!!