One in a million…

This place at Rejang Park here in Sibu has been around for years and years and I keep hearing people telling me how nice and cheap the food is…

Finally, at long last, I dropped by to give it a try. It is a tiny little coffee shop kind of place, so to cater to the crowd, they had tables outside in the open/covered area.

We had the sweet and sour pork ribs…

…which were pretty good.

The kiam-sor (salty and crispy) fish fillet was not that great…

…but the fried midin (jungle fern) was all right – like at everywhere else in the town, I guess…

Everybody liked the tofu dish…

…and the sea cucumber soup…

The portions were big and more than enough for the four of us that night. The best part was that the bill came up to only RM38.00, inclusive of rice and drinks.

For all that food and that kind of money, I certainly can see no cause for complaint…

I’m back…

This was the 3rd time that I stayed in this hotel in Kuching in 2010 (29th-31st December)…

…and at RM135 nett, government/pensioners’ rate…

…I certainly would not want to stay elsewhere…

…considering that the room is very nice and can rival those in the very much more expensive hotels around…

It is spacious and the decor is tastefully done…

The complimentary buffet breakfast isn’t much to shout about though…

…but it may be quite good on certain days – depending on what’s on the menu. Anyway, in Kuching, I would rather not have breakfast in the hotel so that I would be able to go out and eat all the very nice stuff around the city.

However, I really love the breathtaking view from the restaurant on the 18th Floor especially in the morning…

You can also get a bird’s eye view of Kuching city…

…from different angles…

The location is a bit out of way, not exactly around the city centre but all things considered, I would still want to stay there the next time I hop over to Kuching.

Do it on my own…

I went to Kopitiam Fantasy to try the Sarawak laksa there that Alfie said was nice…

…but I thought it was just so-so – nice but not really great and I still prefer the one at Thomson Corner. The sambal belacan (pounded dried prawn paste with chillies) was very good though – really pedas (hot)…

Well, now that my daughter’s home, I am trying to cook things that she likes and the other day, I decided to cook my very own Sarawak laksa all by myself. I used this new brand of laksa sambal (paste) that I got from a cousin of mine in Kuching…

I boiled a piece of chicken breast and kept the stock. In the meantime, I shredded the chicken meat into fine, thin strips…

I also boiled some prawns – shell removed and de-veined, of course…

…and kept the stock as well. I also boiled the heads and the shell of the prawns for the stock before throwing them away.

Then I mixed the stock from the chicken and the prawns and added the laksa sambal and boiled that for the broth, soup or gravy – whichever you prefer to call it. It seems that with this particular brand, you do not need to tapis (sieve) in order to get a “cleaner” broth but if you are using some of the other brands available, you may need to do that.

When it had started boiling, I added a tin of santan (coconut milk) and a tablespoon of anchovies (ikan bilis) stock instead of salt and msg.

The other things that I needed to do were to fry some omelette and cut into thin strips…

…and to blanch some mihun (rice vermicelli) and taugeh (bean sprouts).

To serve, place the mihun in a bowl and on top, place the chicken shreds, the prawns, strips of egg and taugeh and pour the broth over all of that…

Add Chinese celery and serve.

My verdict? It was very nice but I think I still prefer the Double Swallow brand. Perhaps I should try that one of these days to see if it is still as good…

Saturday in the park…

Well, it wasn’t Saturday that day…but we did get to stroll around the park. More about that later!

My ex-student, Bernard, was home from Canberra, Australia for the summer holidays and was in town for a few days. He contacted me and we managed to squeeze in some time to go out for breakfast. Finally, I managed to try out this place that he had been raving on and on about – praising it to the skies – the Bukit Lima swimming pool canteen.

I had the kampua noodles – white (RM2.20)…

…which was tossed in chio-cheng (light soy sauce) and Bernard had it black (RM2.20)…

…tossed in dark soy sauce and he had his with chilli sauce as well.

I would say that the noodles were pretty good and so were the pian sip – soup (RM2.20) that I had…

The stall was run by a middle-aged lady who was assisted by her son, probably a school drop-out…and Bernard told them that I was his teacher. When the son came over to serve us, he greeted me and said, “Nice to meet you!” Gee! That was so sweet…and the fact that he could speak fluent English would get him my thumbs-up. The way things are going, he’s a rare breed these days, I’m afraid…

Well, after breakfast, Bernard and I went for a stroll at the park right beside the canteen/swimming pool…

It has been there for a while now and I’d driven past a few times but I never actually stopped there to walk around and enjoy the peace and quiet in the vicinity…

This is the Kutien Memorial Park in Sibu…

…and there are a few others around that I have not been to either.

Perhaps it is time that I get my butt out of the chair and drop by these places. The relaxing stroll would certainly do me good, don’t you think? LOL!!

For a little while…

In case anybody, after seeing my previous two posts, is wondering what on earth I was doing in Kuching, actually I was hoping to go over with my daughter sometime so that she could get to eat some of the things that she loved there.

Then, I received word that my cousin and her family would be home for the Christmas holidays and she would be having a get-together to celebrate her 50th birthday and her son’s 21st simultaneously…

Some of you may recall meeting her that night when we happened to bump into her at the Muar Restaurant in KL…

So there we were for the celebration…

…but sad to say, the karaoke machine broke down a couple of days earlier, so singing our hearts out at the party that night was completely out of the question.

It was a flying visit, a really brief one (29th – 31st December, 2010)…and unfortunately, on our first night there, the restaurant that I had wanted to go to with my daughter was fully booked and we went to the Indian restaurant instead. I was hoping that she would be able to eat her favourite baked cheese crabs…

…and thankfully, another cousin of mine, Gundot, bought a whole lot for us to take home and enjoy.

Melissa also loves the hay p’ia (prawn fritters) at Peterson’s…

…but we did not get to go there for that. In the end, Gerrie (who took us for the kolo mee at Oriental Park) bought those for us to bring back to Sibu, lightly cooked so that we could fry them ourselves and enjoy them piping hot and nice and crispy. As a matter of fact, she bought us so many pieces that it would come as no surprise if anybody were to see us serving that, come Chinese New Year. LOL!!!

The trip was timely – certainly a good way to wrap up the old year as although it was a really brief one, what was most important was that we got to meet most, if not all, of our dear ones in Kuching and we had a really good time.

Time stood still…

It certainly looks as if time has been standing still in this part of Kuching city since the time when I was there last – in the 70s when I used to go and watch movies at the Cathay Cinema…

…which is still there today but is presently used as some kind of a market place.

The buildings look old and badly need a fresh coat of paint. There are a couple of old-school gents’ tailor shops around…

…and even a ladies’ “dress making” one…

You can tell from that Saloma outfit in the shop sign that it does not cater to today’s young and trendy, that’s for sure.

Now, what was I doing at that God-forsaken part of the city, you may ask? Well, Gerrie loves the kolo mee there…

…and took us all to the coffee shop, Oriental Park…

…to give it a try.

This is the noodles stall at that coffee shop with a fancy name…

…and as you can see from the sign, everything’s RM2.80 a bowl. Pretty cheap, don’t you think?

You can have your noodles dry…

…or in clear soup, like this bowl of mihun (rice vermecilli) …

Indeed, the kolo mee there is very nice but I missed the clear soup with minced pork, bits of pig’s blood, liver and other innards…that they would have at some places such as those along Carpenter Street. I guess that will have to wait till I get to go to Kuching again another time.

Anybody hopping over to Kuching anytime soon? I can fly over and meet you all there…

One for the road…

We flew out to Kuching on a flying visit – me, my missus and daughter…in the last few days of 2010 for a two-night stay, coming back home on New Year’s Eve. While we were there, my cousin, Lindy, took us out for dinner and we had the opportunity to relish some Indian cuisine one more time before the new year.

I’ve been to this Indian restaurant before and enjoyed the food there very much, so I was looking forward to dropping by there again. We had the makhani (butter) chicken that everyone seemed to be raving about…

It was very nice…but personally, I thought the mutton vindaloo was even better…

Like on my previous visit, we had garlic naan…

…with mushroom masala to eat with the bread…

…but I was quite positive that they used abalone mushroom previously. This time around, they used those canned button mushrooms which I thought paled in comparison.

We wanted those deep fried bitter gourd strips that we had in Penang but the guy said that the delicacy was North Indian and the cuisine at this particular restaurant was South Indian and he suggested that we had the crispy cauliflower…

*Melissa’s photo taken on her Canon IXUS 95IS*

…insisting that it would be just as nice. I would beg to disagree though – I didn’t think it was something so nice that I would be dying to have it again.

Other than this, for another vegetable dish, we decided to give their palak paneer a try…

*Melissa’s photo*

That was actually blended spinach cooked with cheese and whatever else…but if you asked me, I would much sooner go for my pounded/blended* daun bandong (tapioca leaves) fried with lots of pounded ginger plus chillies and ikan bilis (dried anchovies)/pork belly slices/chicken/prawns* anytime. (*Select one as desired)

We also had the pilao rice that we had on my last visit…

…and also the bryani rice…

…and to wash all that down, we had the pineapple lassi…

On the whole, we enjoyed the dinner and the company was great. Thanks so much, Lindy and hubby, MD, for taking us out and for the treat. We owe you one…

Through the years (2)…

In my post yesterday on my uncle and aunt’s Golden Jubilee celebration – their 50th wedding anniversary, I mentioned that I would be featuring the dishes we had that night at the banquet in another post.

Well, dinner started with the symbolic mee sua – the traditional Foochow longevity noodles…but the fried version with the golden eggs…

,,,which, though quite nice, was, unfortunately, rather cold. This was followed by the chicken with fish maw soup…

…which was really very nice indeed…

I don’t know if this is the trend – to have fried mee sua and the soup served separately but when I was making the reservation for my birthday dinner, the people at that restaurant asked me whether I wanted it like that but I didn’t – I would prefer to have the noodles in chicken soup, the way we have always had it on birthdays and other special occasions since young.

The more-than-Four Seasons came next…

No complaints, of course, as I’ve always enjoyed this dish, or most of the time at least.

Then we had the steamed fish…

…which was very well-steamed but alas, the fish was not really sweet – probably the fish had been frozen for too long but with light soy sauce, it was fine.

The duck was nice but again…

…it was not piping hot and the glutinous rice in it did not seem to have much taste.

I only had a piece of sea cucumber from this dish…

– the sea cucumber and beef tendon broccoli as I was quite full by then.

Still, that did not stop me from having a few of the prawns…

…served with their own-baked bread to be eaten with the very nice gravy. I don’t really know but I understand this is a Vietnamese-style dish.

Finally, there were fruits for dessert.

All in all, it was a nice dinner except that some the dishes were already cold when served…probably because there were simply too many tables and they were not capable of handling such a large crowd. I would think that they should do something about it or for that kind of money, people would much sooner go elsewhere…

Through the years (1)…

As I have mentioned in my previous post, my uncle and aunt celebrated their Golden Jubilee – their 50th wedding anniversary recently, on 20th December, 2010 to be exact…

The reception was held at one of the hotels in town…

There was a lion dance to welcome all the guests upon their arrival at the venue…

They have been blessed with three sons and two daughters and a number of grandchildren…

A toast to their good health and eternal love and happiness!

Throughout the evening, there was entertainment including a lion dance (with disco/modern dance moves incorporated)…

…and songs rendered by some very talented singers. I was told that this one, related to my aunt…if I’m not mistaken, always sweeps the championship trophies in singing competitions in Bintulu…

…and my cousin, their youngest son who did the Chinese mask performance, also belted out a song or two…

Dinner is served…

…but you will have to wait till another post to see what we had that night. LOL!!!

Faces…

I have heard a lot about this uniquely intriguing Chinese mask dance and as a matter of fact, there was an Indian guy performing that at a Chinese New Year show along Bukit Bintang, sponsored by one of those foot reflexology shops, when I was in KL early this year…but it was so very hot and crowded that I did not bother to cross over to the other side of the road to watch.

Well, finally I had the opportunity to see it performed live recently – at my uncle & aunt’s Golden Jubilee, their 50th wedding anniversary reception…

It was very lively and exciting…

…and there was even a Monkey God mask…

This one was a black-faced mask – I don’t know whether that was supposed to be “Pao Ching Tien” – the legendary Chinese black-faced judge…

You do not only get to see the masks changing as the performance progresses – there are also some magical tricks where some props may appear out of nowhere, for instance the Monkey God’s stick…or this red fan…

This was the last mask and we could get to see half the face…

…and finally, the identity of the dancer was revealed when the performance ended…

It turned out to be my cousin – my uncle’s youngest son.

Bravo!!! That was a great show indeed…and thoroughly entertaining! More on my uncle & aunt’s anniversary celebration in the posts to come…