Little gesture…

Melissa’s coursemate was knocked down by a mat rempit (reckless motorcyclist) outside the teacher-training institute in Sungai Petani, Kedah some two months ago and sustained a fracture in her leg and had to undergo surgery. It was no doubt a stressful time for her and her family and yet the institute insisted on her sticking around, crutches, wheelchair and all, for the last few weeks even though most of what had to be done was already done. Luckily, she had her friends around to help her in any way they could and when they were finally dismissed and told that they could all go home, I helped book the air ticket for her so she could come back together with Melissa as she would be able to help her along the way from Penang to KLIA to Kuching and finally, to Sibu (as by then, all the direct flights from KLIA to Sibu were already fully-booked)…where her parents were waiting for her to take her back to Bintangor.

It wasn’t a big deal, really – the least we could do for a friend but her family was very grateful and insisted on inviting us out to dinner as a gesture of their appreciation. So there we were at this restaurant…

…with them…

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that when eating here, it would be good to come extra early before the crowd comes in unless one makes a reservation…and does not mind the commotion and the noise. Well, we didn’t and even though we could get a table quite easily, we were told that we would need to wait for around 45 minutes for the food to be served. So we waited…and waited…and it was way after an hour before we finally got to eat. Another thing about coming here after dark is one should avoid parking one’s car under those trees…

See those little white spots in the trees? Those would be the “swarm” of birds in the town centre, millions of them, and you can imagine what your car would be like when you get back to it after having had your dinner here.

Anyway, we had their steamed fish…

– a Soon Hock, it was and Melissa said it was very nice. Personally, I thought that the recipe, their way of cooking was nice and the sauce was very tasty but I found the fish itself to be quite bland and best eaten dipped in soy sauce.

The plum sauce pork…

…was very good, very tender and delicious and so was the sizzling beef on a hot plate…

…and the specialty of the house – their own-made tofu…

Every table seemed to have ordered this…

– the mixed vegetables in a yam basket but I did not think it was all that sensational. Ah well, never mind where but I’m never a fan of that, anyway. Give me the cangkuk manis fried with egg…

…anytime…and I would say that they certainly do it pretty well here too.

The sea cucumber soup was all right…

…but I did not like biting into those thin strips of ginger in it.

Actually there were 7 of us, 6 adults and one kid (who could actually eat quite a lot…and almost finished the whole bowl of rice all by herself!!! LOL!!!) and we ordered for 4 persons only and my goodness! The servings were really huge for 4, I must say.

All in all, it was an enjoyable dinner…and a great opportunity for our families to interact and get to know one another better. Thank you so much, Christina, and everybody for the dinner treat…