Spread it out…

It was raining heavily last Friday, so I was not able to go out for breakfast. I waited for the rain to stop but it did not look like it was going to abate anytime soon. I was not in the mood for instant noodles and I did not feel like frying the leftover rice from the past few days but since there was some bread in the house, I decided to make myself some tuna and cheese toast.

I just mixed some canned tuna with finely chopped garlic and shallots (We’d run out of Bombay onions and my missus had not  bought some to replenish the supply!) and bits of cheddar cheese (That was all we had in the fridge!)…and I spread it out over some slices of bread…

…before I sprinkled some more cheddar cheese on top…

…and put it into the oven to bake until the cheese had melted…

It turned out pretty good…and I had four slices altogether!

In fact, I was so full that I even skipped lunch that day and did not eat anything after that until I went out for tea at around 3.30 p.m. but that would be in the next post.

I was thinking that if I cut a slice into quarters, that would be quite ideal for finger foods at cocktail parties or buffet dinners. Perhaps I could add some tomatoes for added colour and flavour or use ham or bacon instead of tuna…or I can have all three so as to have a selection for people to choose from! I think I’ll just KIV that for the next time I’ll be having a party at my house….. Anybody wants to come? LOL!!!

Never, never, never…

If you want good yew char koi, you must never, never, never buy from a Malay stall or shop. They just do not know how to do it right…

These are four for RM1.00 and the only saving grace is that they give you some kind of gravy to eat them with. I don’t know what gravy that was – not like curry nor satay peanut sauce…but it tasted all right, not great…just o.k.

The yew char koi is short, very short…and solid dough! If you watch some Chinese fella doing it, theirs, prior to frying, would be extremely short – to the most three inches…and they would use some kind of flat thing like a blade to press (not cut) a line right down the middle. Then, in the process of frying, the dough would swell and rise to the occasion and end up at least a foot long. The line would make it easy for you to tear the thing into two long strips and eat. Inside, you will find a whole lot of empty spaces but that’s the way yew char koi should be and eating that with susu cap gantung…oops, I mean susu cap junjung (c0ndensed milk) or kaya (coconut jam) would be simply heavenly!

These french toast with sardine and onion sandwiched in between were far from satisfactory as well…

They’re 3 for RM1.00. In fact, if you want something similar that’s pretty nice with meat filling, you can get those from Big Thumb. I can’t remember how much they cost but the ones there are worlds better except that I do not think theirs are halal. Maybe I should drop by one of these days and buy some to post on them. I hear they have very nice egg tarts too nowadays.

Then, there are these that you can get for RM1.50 each…

– sardine and onion rolled inside a piece  of bread and wrapped on the outside with popiah (spring roll) skin and deep fried…

…or you can have a choice of chicken sausage instead at the same price…

But I did not enjoy them, I’m afraid. Comparatively, the sausage one is a bit nicer…but on the whole, they were so oily that after a bite, I felt my head spinning like a record!!!

So, one thing’s for sure, these are the things that I would never, never, never…ever buy again.

So small…

My brother bought me this from Singapore…

…that came in a quaint, little tin…

Takashimaya, no less!!!

I bet they’re pretty expensive! They’re called petite gaufres…or Kobe fugetsudo – in Japanese obviously. I googled to find out more and it seems that they are referred to as waffles.

I would think they’re more like wafers…or those paper thin things that we used to love as kids. They came in all kinds of colours – red, green…whatever, stored in a tin and we used to be able to buy them at fun fairs together with candy floss which was every child’s favourite way back then…and I remember that they were actually quite tasteless.

They were sealed-packed in threes and in a tin, there were only two packs, so that meant there were only six altogether…

To me, they actually looked like our love letters or kuih sepit/kapit…

…and each came in twos, with some sweet vanilla or strawberry cream sandwiched in between…

…but personally, I did not think they were any good at all even though my missus quite liked them. I think I would much sooner have our kuih sepit/kapit which would not only be nicer but also a lot cheaper. I do like the tin though…so I’ll just keep that and see what I can do with it.

Constant craving (2)…

My sister-in-law is a kiwi, no…not the bird, but a New Zealander – well, half actually, to be more exact, as her mother was, in fact, Japanese. She was here on a visit the other day and she picked up a book at the Popular Book Store branch at the Delta Mall here – Robert Raymer‘s “Tropical Affairs“.

She was enthralled by all the Malaysian culture depicted in that book and when I told her that I had his other book, “Lovers and strangers revisited“, she was really keen on getting her hands on it and reading it too. Well, I lent it to her and she thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

I also passed her my copy of Anita Desai’s “Fasting Feasting“ and good grief! She read about the characters eating rice with mutton curry and that triggered in her a craving for that and it prompted her to ask whether there was any place in town where we could have that…

In the end, I took her to Balkis, or is it spelt Balqiz? She and my brother had the nasi bryani with mutton curry while I had the same but with chicken…

LJ went the following day and had the same with mutton curry and he posted the photograph on Facebook…

*From LJ’s mobile uploads on Facebook

…and he had the same again the next day. Gee! He must have enjoyed that a lot!

For one thing, it certainly looks like the rice seemed different between the two days. My daughter commented on that once – that there was poor quality control and the nasi bryani wasn’t all that good on certain days – sometimes a bit too hard like it was uncooked and at times, it even had a burnt smell.

Anyway, it was a good day when we went and my brother and sister-in-law enjoyed it a lot. They can get that at the Indian restaurants in Auckland for around NZ$10.00 (RM23.00)…and I think here, it’s RM6.00 only for mutton and cheaper for chicken. As a matter of fact, that lunch treat, inclusive of drinks, worked out to around the same price as one plate of nasi bryani in New Zealand in our money.

Eat at home (3)…

My brother and sister-in-law came home from New Zealand with their youngest son last week…and their eldest child and his girlfriend came the following day. We had a low-key family gathering in the house…and for the dinner, we ordered the food from the Golden Happiness Restaurant here.

There was the more-than-Four Seasons…

…and also, this fried chicken dish with some kind of sweet sauce…

…both of which were pretty good. Also included was this deep-fried imported fish with some very thick sambal-like sauce…

…but I thought it wasn’t all that great. Being a kampong boy at heart, I would much sooner go for our buris or keli…or any of our cheaper local fish. We also had this dry version of the not-to-be-named dish which would normally be served as a soup…

…and frankly, I would much prefer the soupy version. I loved this plate of braised pork belly though…

…which was eaten stuffed in steamed mantao (bun). Heavenly! Yum! Yum! LOL!!!

This is the local Sibu version of sio bee or siew mai (meat dumplings)…

…and theirs were really very yummy. I don’t know how much they’re selling those but when Gundot was in town during the mid-year holidays, she bought some from Hock Cheu Leu, an old-school restaurant in town (that has been in existence since my childhood days) for RM1.20 each, frozen and RM1.30 each if she wanted then steamed. Good grief! At that price, I think I would rather just go without it.

This was the vegetable dish we had – broccoli with asparagus clams or whatever you call those not very decent-looking things. LOL!!!

…and we had the fried noodles, dry, as well…

I think that was about all the dishes that we had – I don’t think I had missed out any.

On the whole, I would say that I did enjoy the dinner and I wouldn’t mind having that again, maybe with a couple of changes in the selection of dishes here and there…at home or at the restaurant.

Ruby…

I am able to converse or communicate in Mandarin fairly well but when it comes to reading, my ability is limited to only a few words like those on the mahjong tiles. LOL!!! So, the truth is I am not too sure whether this actually means “Ruby”…

Anyway, we were back at that restaurant again as my mother-in-law celebrated her 77th birthday on the 15th of July and since my brother-in-law and his family were back in town from Bintulu last Saturday, we had the dinner earlier.

My missus bought a birthday cake for the occasion…

– my favourite, the Japanese baked cheesecake from WeCare Bakery.

Gosh! I wonder if the flames would be so big too when I celebrate my 60th in a couple of years time…

Well, we had the birthday mee sua, fried and served with eggs…

…and the pandan (screwpine leaf) chicken that night was really very nice…

The meat was very well-marinated, so fragrant…

…and absolutely delicious.

There was also the deep fried prawn balls…

…which I thought was just so-so or perhaps, we were already so very full by the time it was served. We used to have that same dish with the prawns still in their shells and I thought that was comparatively much nicer.

The salad sotong (squid) was served earlier and it was not bad…

…and so was the sweet and sour fish…

…though I would prefer the ones at Y2K or Sweet Family.

We also had the sea cucumber soup, the mixed bean combo and the  cangkok manis fried with egg. I did not take any photographs of those as I had featured them often enough in my previous posts.

The bill for the 8 dishes for 9 people came up to RM148.00. For one thing, the servings were huge and we could not finish some of the food. Perhaps they should consider reducing the portions and charge less so that there would not be so much wastage and at the same time, there would be more happier and satisfied customers who would only be too delighted to come back again…and again…and again.

Almost the same…

My daughter loved the yong tau foo in Penang…

*recycled pic

…where you can choose whatever you want and they will cut them all up into bite-size pieces and serve them to you in a bowl of clear soup. I think they also do that in KL but at this particular place, you can have it sort of dry like this…

*recycled pic

I do not know how much this would cost but what we had in Penang was not really cheap – anytime more than RM10.00 a bowl.

In Sibu, they do it differently. What they have are sets with different combinations and you will choose which one you like. This one, the most expensive of the lot, costs RM8.50 a bowl…

…at Sing Long Cafe, a coffee shop at the Fortune Commercial Centre (behind the Rejang Medical Centre).

There are other cheaper choices, of course, and the cheapest is this bowl of sui jiao (meat dumplings) soup…

…which only costs RM4.00 a bowl. No doubt it is more expensive than the usual bowl of pain sip/kiaw/wantan soup which comes at only RM2.20 a bowl but these dumplings have a lot more meat inside – value for money, that’s for sure.

Well, like what I said in my reply to one of the comments in a post a few days ago, we may have the same things but they may be a bit different in their own ways. The most important thing is that they taste good and on that, I am sure, you will all agree.

I want some…

The first and the last time I had a bagel was in Kuching when somebody opened up a franchise place there many many years ago. They told me it was like our Sibu kompia but I was somewhat disappointed with it. It looked like someone had stepped on the kompia or something – kind of flattened and it seemed to me quite tasteless. Even though I was not a fan of kompia, I thought that at least, it was a little bit nicer.

Well, I’m bringing this up now as my daughter went to this bagel place in Wellington…

…and boy, wouldn’t I want one of this? Drool! Drool!

This is a photo of the bagels on the menu card…

…and even minus the filling, I do not see any similarity with our humble kompia.

This one that my daughter had was the classic bagel platter with jalapeno cheddar…

…which cost NZ$7.50.

Frederick, if you are reading this, I would want one like that at the KompiaTiam…or something similar – a slice of turkey ham or beef bacon and cheddar cheese perhaps and after toasting, add the lettuce and tomatoes before serving. I wouldn’t mind paying more for that (but not NZ$7.50! *faints!!! LOL!!!). After all, this little thing that I bought at the WeCare Bakery was RM1.70 each.

My daughter had this together with the bagel – a regular Moccachino with a chocolate fish…

…for NZ$3.30.

I keep telling her not to bother cooking for herself unless it is raining so heavily that she cannot get out of the apartment or she’s so busy that it is more convenient just to whip up a simple meal and eat in the room like these soy sauce chicken drumsticks that she cooked the other day…

After all, many things that they have there are not easily available here, so she should grab the chance to enjoy all of that in Kiwiland in her two years there. I certainly am glad she’s doing that…sometimes.

Pretty boy…

This is Bernard…

…an ex-student of mine, though not really my student per se but he was in my public speaking and debating team for a few years before he moved to Kuching after Form 4. Right now, he’s in Canberra, Australia doing Law…and everytime he comes back to Sibu, he would want to meet up  and we would go out some place for a bite.

This time around, we went to this new Taiwan Cafe…

…located in the commercial area in the vicinity of the Sibu Bus Terminal, next to UOB and opposite Sweet Family Restaurant.

Bernard had this bowl of noodles…

I do not know what it was called as everything was in Mandarin and at first sight, it did not look too appealing, I must say. But after mixing everything up, it certainly seemed better…

It tasted all right – not bad and nothing to shout about either. You definitely would not catch me making a beeline back to the place to have some more of it.

I had the beef noodles, dry…

The beef was tender and nicely done but on the whole, I did not quite like it. I thought the sauce that they tossed the noodles in had a peculiar taste – something like black vinegar.

And I was pretty sure they had black vinegar in this siew mai/sio bee (meat dumpling)…

…though when it was served I thought it was soy sauce.

They had four in one serving of those, all freshly made on the spot and steamed,  including one with a tiny shrimp on top…

…and another with a bit of shitake mushroom and the fourth one with nothing at all and sad to say, I did not think any of them was fantastic.

Bernard had their specialty – sui kuo char (fruit tea)…

…while I had my usual kopi-o-peng kau (strong iced black coffee). I don’t know about Bernard’s but my coffee had got to be the worst in town. It was so weak that it tasted almost like plain water.

The bill came up to RM19.70…which is definitely more than what you would need to pay for breakfast at a normal coffee shop but less than at one of those cafés. All things considered, I’m afraid I probably would not be dropping by the place ever again…

On the wings of love…

My nephew and his girlfriend from New Zealand were in town for a few days and on Saturday, I sent them to the Sibu airport to catch a MASWings flight…

…to Kuching on transit to Singapore. Upon arrival at the airport, their worst fears were confirmed. The 10.30 a.m. flight was cancelled and they would have to take the 11 something flight – via MAS/Boeing 737 instead.

Delays and cancellations seem to be the order of the day where MASWings is concerned. When Clare flew in one Friday morning from Kuching for the weekend, her 6 something flight was delayed till 7.00 a.m. and when I went to pick her up at the airport, I saw that the flight to Kuching at that same time had been cancelled.

Then, a couple of days later, a nephew of mine (another one) was flying back to Kuching that night after attending his aunt’s funeral in Sibu and the flight was cancelled too…and they put him up for the night at Kingwood Hotel here.

This time around, when I joined them at the counter, after parking my car, there seemed to be a bit of a problem. The MAS personnel, a young girl, was asking for their tickets…and they kept telling her they did not have any tickets. But don’t we all know that nobody uses tickets anymore? She could have been more specific and asked for the computer printout or in their technical term – the booking itinerary.

I confirmed with her that they would be able to catch the connecting MAS flight to Singapore and helped them with the checking-in. When it was all done, I said to her in my sweetest tone, “Thank you very much. Have a nice day!”

As we were walking away, my nephew’s girlfriend remarked, “She’s so unfriendly.”

I replied, “Why do you think I wished her a nice day? That was a very very broad hint!” She probably got the message as when she heard that, she did attempt to smile – in a sort of peculiar and embarrassed manner.

I have often heard of the double standards MAS employees would give to foreigners and locals – no prize for guessing who would be treated a lot better. But these two were from New Zealand and they certainly did not look anything like local Malaysians and yet, it was no better in any way. MAS had not done too well in the recent “World’s Best” awards…and if this is representative of the best they can do, you can imagine that it is going to be downhill all the way, this much I am pretty sure of.

Or is this part and parcel of the so-called “rural air services” exclusively for the very rural Sarawak and Sabah? I just wonder in what way the main towns – Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri would qualify as being rural…and Kota Kinabalu in Sabah as well. Well, as far as the  fares go, they are definitely in no way, rural. Sometime ago, I thought of hopping over to Kota Kinabalu one weekend on MASWings in one of those small aircrafts…and when I checked online, the airfare was over RM500 return. I could fly to KL via MAS on a Boeing 737 for half the price that same weekend and a lot less if I chose to go by Air Asia. Tsk! Tsk!

Rural air services, they call it? Gosh! All of us, rural people, must be very rich to be able to afford that kind of airfares…or should I just put all that down as outright exploitation since they have an absolute monopoly around these parts? As they say, “Power corrupts! Absolute power corrupts absolutely!”