The hungry years (2)…

In 1979, I was  teaching in Kanowit – a small town 2 hours upriver by (express) boat or longer if it had to go zig-zag to pick up passengers from the river banks along the way…

Today, you can drive comfortably all the way to Kanowit using the Durin Bridge and get there in an hour or less.

I rented a small room above one of the shophouses as there were no housing estates, no house for rent at the time…so cooking was out of the question. For meals, I ate at one coffee shop/restaurant for RM60 a month…but usually, the menu-of-the-day was not really that appetising especially after I had been eating there for a number of months. Some days, I would just look at the food and go off somewhere else for kampua or Foochow fried noodles instead.

On certain days, however, the lady would cook lor too-kho (braised pork leg…and I could have too-kha pui (pork leg rice) which comprised a plate of rice with the pieces of braised pork leg on top and the gravy generously poured over all that.

Well, the other day, I spotted a stall at the Aloha Corner here selling that and without a second thought, I ordered it for my lunch. When it was served, I was quite disappointed…

…as it was served differently – the pork leg in a claypot and the rice in a small bowl (RM5.50). The sauce was somewhat not as thick or more diluted and the taste was not the same either…but though not nicer, it was pretty good…

I noticed that there were a lot of people having that as well, so I reckon in must be quite popular.

I wonder if there is any place here that sells too-kha pui the way I knew it to be…..