Pleasant surprise…

I was just going through the motions, caught in the rut of my everyday routine and I did not expect it at all when Kongkay contacted me on Sunday night to invite me and my missus out for dinner the following evening – the eve of National Day. It certainly was a pleasant surprise!

Well, it turned out that he was in town along with some blogger-friends of his from Kuching – the husband & wife food bloggers, Nate and Annie, and he was entertaining them and a few other family members and friends to dinner at the MingZiang Court, the Chinese restaurant at one of the big hotels in town…

The dinner started with this dish of hot treasures…

…that included some abalone. slices of ham, beef tendon and so on.

Then came the soup…

…and thankfully, Kongkay had graciously omitted that not-to-be-named delicacy and replaced it with black chicken soup instead. Black chicken? Ugh!!! But one sip of it changed my tune completely! It was really very nice…and so very sweet – I think I saw some dried scallops in it. Hmmm….I must KIV that for the next time I steam some chicken.

The fish that night must have cost a fortune as it was one of the three most expensive freshwater fish from the upper reaches of the Rejang River, worth their weight in gold. Those would be the empurau, semah…and this one, the tangadak…

For one thing, these fish have a lot of bones, so extra caution would be required when eating them. Nevertheless, the flesh is really sweet and smooth and never fails to satisfy.

Next, we had the stuffed duck…

…stuffed with glutinous rice and what-have-you…

…but even though the duck was nice, I thought the rice inside was not sticky enough. I think I’ve had better stuffed duck elsewhere.

But the prawns were really delicious…

Done in two different styles, each had its own flavour or special taste. I think the one in the mihun basket was cooked with salted egg, both were a bit spicy…like there was wasabi added…and when Kongkay or somebody asked me which was better, I just did not have an answer. I felt both were equally great! That would be one dish I would definitely order, should I happen to drop by there for dinner again.

The fried mee sua…

…was excellent and could beat Ruby’s hands down but for a place like this, I guess the price would also be something to reckon with.

The dinner ended with the fruit platter…and it certainly was a delightful evening spent with friends, old and new.

Thanks a lot, Kongkay. Too bad you will not be around in Kuching when I go over in a couple of weeks’ time…but we’ll catch up with one another some other time. We always do…