Nothing compares 2 u…

Well, as I have mentioned two posts ago, Stella is in town from the land Down Under…and after reading all my posts about the Ruby Restaurant here in Sibu, she could not wait to go and try the dishes that I have featured in a few of my earlier posts like this one, for instance…or this one or even this one. So there we were last Friday night with Stella’s sister from Brisbane, Pollie and her hubby and her eldest daughter and my missus – 7 of us altogether.

We had the unrivalled fried mee sua (Foochow string noodles)…

and the incomparable butter scotch prawns…

I was too lazy to bother about the shell (and it can get quite messy), so I ordered prawn balls for a change (with shell removed). I think it would be better if they did not deep fry the prawns first, but still it was very nice and everyone was singing its praises and trying to figure out what the secret recipe was. Then we also had this Teochew-style steamed tapah (freshwater fish) which I took an instant liking to…

…and we also had nice and tender venison fried with ginger…

…and midin (jungle fern) fried with belacan (prawn paste)…

…as well as cangkuk manis with eggs (but I did not take the photo as I had posted that before…and it’s in many other people’s blogs)…and tofu soup – Foochow style (I didn’t take the photo of this either as it was served in individual bowls). I must say that the soup was not how it should be; it was more like the usual sea cucumber soup which is something like sharks’ fins soup minus the fins and replaced with sea cucumber instead…and this time it was minus the sea cucumber and they put in tofu instead. But anyhow, it was nice; no regrets ordering it at all.

The bill for all that came up to RM129.70 (7 dishes for 7 people plus 4 bowls of rice AND drinks)…and I told the boss that I should charge him for the promotion I have done in my blog (and my friends in theirs) and I have had people calling me asking me for the restaurant’s location and telephone number and what not…and in the end, he collected RM120.00 only!

I happened to stumble upon some not very good reviews posted by another blogger but so far, all my blogger-friends and others that have gone there with me have no complaints and many have gone back there on their own (e.g. Clare, who went there the following night. You can click this link to go and see the superlicious photos in her post!). Ah well! I guess this is a case of “to each his own” and whatever it is, from my personal point of view, nothing compares to Ruby – still the nicest and the cheapest place in town to go to, that’s for sure!

Blue moon…

Gee! How time flies! The Mooncake Festival has come and gone for a week already…and I have yet to put up this post. Well, there were no blue ones, just purple and green ones…

These were on the table at the wedding reception I attended that night but I did not have any. I do not like this type with that kind of skin…nor do I fancy the ones they have these days using agar-agar (jelly). I would only go for the conventional baked mooncakes but I did say that I would not be buying any this year as they were extremely expensive. 

Now as Forrest Gump would say, “Life is a box of chocolates; you’ll never know what you’ll get!” And that day itself, when I entered my tuition class, I saw this on my table…

One of the students had bought me a tin of assorted flavours…but I insisted that he took it back, considering that it was so expensive. However, he refused…so what I did was I cut the mooncakes into slices and everyone in the class could have one as a gesture of celebration to observe the annual traditional festival.

…So I did keep my word after all! I did not buy any of those expensive mooncakes this year! Here! Have a slice…..

After all, the best things in life are free! LOL!!!