Just for you…

I cooked this dish of tempuyak (fermented durian) prawns for my Chinese New Year open house…

…and it certainly seemed to be very well received.

Either they were really very nice or everyone was particularly very hungry for this, along with the rest of the dishes that I had cooked, were gone in no time at all.

Well, the other day, I did manage to get some more of those freshwater prawns aka tua thow hay (big headed prawns) or in Malay, udang galah and I decided to cook some for my mother…

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap photographs of the ingredients and the cooking procedure step by step. Anyway, all you need are a bit of belacan (dried prawn paste), around 1 cm3 of it, one chili, seeds removed, and one stalk of serai (lemon grass), bruised at the end. Boil these ingredients in a bit of water till the belacan has dissolved and you can smell the fragrance before adding in a spoonful of tempuyak. Stir well before adding in the prawns…

I only cooked 6 prawns as they were solely for my mother so if you wish to cook more, you would need to adjust the amount of the ingredients used accordingly. There is no need to add any salt as the tempuyak would be salty enough and if your tempuyak is a bit too sour, you can add a bit of sugar to counter that.

Simmer for a while to allow the sweetness of the prawns to come out and get into the soup.

So, there you have it – another one of  my hassle-free easy-to-cook kampung-style dish that you can try! Good luck!

That’s more like it…

We dropped by here for dinner the other day – my missus, Melissa and I. My missus and I were here once before and we quite liked the food served.

This time around, we ordered a plate of fried rice (RM6.00) to share…

…as Melissa felt like having that and she said that it reminded her of what she used to have at a place called Cinta Malaysia in Wellington except that they used chicken instead of the bits of char siew, it being a place that did not serve pork. I thought it tasted something like what we had here in Auckland, New Zealand minus the colour of the frozen vegetables used.

For the vegetable dish, we had the bitter gourd fried with salted eggs (RM7.00)…

…and it was pretty well done, I would say.

My daughter also wanted this dish of kiam sor hoo-phee or translation, the salty crusty fish fillet (RM12.00)…

…and she liked it and I guess that was all that mattered. Personally, I would say that it was well-cooked but I did not like the frozen fish fillet used as I found it to be quite bland or somewhat tasteless. I wished they had used some fresh fish fillet instead.

The pork belly fried with salted fish and dried chili (RM12.00)…

…was very nice but could do with a bit more salted fish to give it a stronger taste and fragrance.

What I like about this place is upon payment of the bill, they give you the chit from the cash register in which everything is itemised and the individual prices indicated. At most places, they would just give you the bill in which they would write “food” and the total for that indicated in one lump sum so one would not know what cost how much.

I must say I was quite pleasantly surprised that the total for the food only came up to RM37.00 as of late, I felt that dining out at such places around here has been getting a bit too expensive. As it is, I certainly wouldn’t mind dropping by again and I do hope that it stays that way.

STOP PRESS:
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
This is new – the Tiramisu Mille Crepe, just launched yesterday…

…here at the home of mille crepes in Sibu @ RM9.00 a slice…

I would say it was very nice. I particularly loved the coffee fragrance.

But don’t take my word for it! Just hop over to give it a try!

Just one more time…

My friend, Huai Bin, was saying that he would be leaving town in a day or two and asked if I would want to go out for dinner with him just one more time. Well, of course I would! I’ve always enjoyed his company, he being always so very cheerful and positively-inclined unlike some people who would moan and groan incessantly about work and everything under the sun so much so that it would leave a bad taste in the mouth.

After the not-that-satisfactory pork burger that I had but which he was pretty impressed with, I had to take him here…

…to let him try what I would think is really good and truly worth the calories.

Yes, another thing about Huai Bin is how every little thing seems to impress and delight him and he would go and capture everything from every angle on camera…

…and that makes one feel somewhat appreciated as it gives the impression that one has taken him to the right place – a place that he likes and finds pretty nice unlike those people who would complain and criticise everything left, right and centre upon arrival and spoil whatever mood there may be in the first place at that point in time. You would have to be careful though whenever you’re in his presence as you’ll never know when you’ll be caught on candid camera. Smile!!! LOL!!!

I remained faithful to my jumbo-sized glass of iced water while he had this mixed fruit yogurt (RM3.80)…

…which would normally cost RM6.50-7.50 as stated in the menu.

They were having some special promotions on their smoothies & yogurts and also some of the other drinks and amazingly, they had even lowered the prices of their burgers by RM2.00 each…

I was getting worried a bit when the waitress confirmed that there had been a change in management since sometime last year…and I was keeping my fingers crossed in the hope that they had not changed the chef.

Huai Bin wanted one with an egg so I suggested the beef cheeseburger (RM12.90)…

…instead of the double cheeseburger which would have two beef patties and two cheese slices but that would not have an egg (RM14.90, formerly RM16.90).

So did he like it? Well, one bite into it and he was rendered absolutely speechless – nom…nom…nom!!!

It was so very nice and juicy and he enjoyed it thoroughly to the extent of using a bit of the bread to wipe off the juices that had dripped onto the plate to eat it all up nice and clean…

I had the fish and chips with apricot mayo (RM10.90)…

…and I thought that was very good too.

I ordered the Ceasar’s salad (RM7.90)…

…just in case the burger was not filling enough for Huai Bin but it certainly looked like that was sufficiently substantial and between the two of us, we only managed to finish half of it.

For our after-dinner dessert, we adjourned to this regular haunt of mine for the mille crepes…

– the rum and raisin (RM7.80) and the double chocolate (RM8.80)…and I had the Horlicks dinosaur (RM4.50) while Huai Bin had the Godzilla (RM5.50)…

All too soon, it was time to call it a day…and time to say goodbye. Thank you so much, Huai Bin…

…for everything – it was absolutely great each and everytime and we’d do it again the next time you’re back in town, wouldn’t we? Take care, God bless always…

Sure looks good to me…

I saw Huai Bin‘s photograph on Facebook of the pork burger that he had, bacon and all, and it sure looked good to me. I certainly wasted no time and made a beeline to the place the very next day…

I did not like what I had the first time I dropped by here but the smoked duck and mango slices appetiser that I had the second time around was pretty good.

The bacon deluxe burger certainly looked great…

…but at RM19.90, I thought that was somewhat a way bit too pricey. As for the taste, it was quite all right but it failed to sweep me off my feet. Somehow I could hardly taste the bacon and I was not too sure whether the patty was pork or beef. It did not have the fragrance and taste of the latter so I guessed it was the former even though the colour would make you think otherwise…plus it was kind of dry or perhaps I should just say, it was not exactly as juicy as I would have liked it.

Well, if it’s burger that you want, I would think this would be a better place – I love their cheese burger (RM14.90) which would come with an egg and also their spicy grilled chicken burger (RM12.90) and their HUGE double cheese burger is only RM16.90, much cheaper than this one here.

My missus had this sambal sotong rice (RM10.90)…

She liked it a lot and my daughter said it was nice too. I tried a bit and I thought what I had here was nicer (and cheaper too) and it could do with a little bit less msg.

Melissa had their mushroom chicken chop (RM16.90)…

…and the moment it was served, I could see the disappointment in her eyes. If I’m not wrong, I think she had expected fresh mushrooms like those she used to get in New Zealand and not these canned ones which she does not fancy too much actually. I tried a bit and thought that it tasted Chinese – not like a western dish. Ah well! They did claim to be a fusion cafe so one would not be able to argue with that.

All things considered, the place was all right and the food was edible, to say the least, but at those prices, chances are, given a choice, we would be a lot more likely to head elsewhere.

Just a little bit…

When I was small, I had a preference for luncheon meat to corned beef. Those were the days when the latter was made in China and came in the red and yellow cans – I think it was the “Great Wall” brand but like the Ma Ling luncheon meat, it became mushy and had a peculiar smell and was hardly edible. These days, I would go for this brand…

…which is actually much nicer and more affordable than the rest. It does not come cheap though – at one time, it was RM5 something a can but the price has gone up to RM7 something now.

Normally, I would do exactly what my mum did all those years and just fry some sliced Bombay onions in a bit of oil, add the corned beef and the potatoes and fry till the potatoes were cooked like what you can see here but these days, I would do that without using any additional oil. If you open the can and let the meat slide out…

…you can see the fat/oil and that would be more than enough for the frying.

Use a fork to mash the block of corned beef…

…and at the same time, get the other ingredients ready. The other day, I decided to add just a little bit extra…

…so other than the onions and potatoes, I threw in some sliced chilies and some curry leaves as well.

I peeled the potatoes first and cut them into bite-size chunks and boiled them so that I would not have to fry them for too long for them to be cooked. Once that was done, I drained the potatoes for use later…

Fry the sliced onions in a non-stick pan…

…and add the corned beef…

Mixed the two well together and fry for a while to let the fat melt in the heat so that it could be used for frying all the other ingredients.

Having done that, throw in the chilies and the curry leaves…

…and lastly, the potatoes…

Cook for a while till you see that everything has been nicely fried…

…before you dish everything out and serve…

I thought it was very nice with the additional fragrance of the leaves and the little bit of spiciness from the chilies but my daughter said that she would rather have it the old way…so I guess some things, especially when everyone is happy with them, are best left unchanged and I would just have to go back to how my mum used to cook it before then.

Another way…

I blogged about how I cooked my version of the cincaluk omelette here – the one where I rolled some of the fermented shrimps in the fried egg. That was very nice but a tad too salty due to the excessive amount of cincaluk used plus it was quite a hassle.

So the other day, I tried a simpler way and for that, I got these ingredients ready…

– one Bombay onions and two chilies, both thinly sliced and two sprigs of curry leaves and two tablespoons of cincaluk. The previous occasion, I used shallots, cili padi and Thai basil leaves but I thought I would do it differently this time.

Then I beat 5 eggs and mixed that thoroughly with all the aforementioned ingredients…

Now that everything was ready, I heated up a non-stick pan and added just a bit of oil to grease it completely and I poured in everything…

After it was cooked on one side, I flipped the omelette over…

Darn! I should have used a smaller pan – it turned out that the omelette was nicely browned around the centre but kind of pale around the side. I would have to remember that the next time I want to cook this again and divide everything into two and fry twice so that I would end up with two nicer looking omelettes…hopefully.

Anyway, once it was cooked on both sides, I dished it out onto a plate and served…

As they say, the test of the pudding is in the eating…and I must say it was very nice – a lot nicer than what I had here and a lot easier than how I did it previously.

I think I would stick to this way of cooking cincaluk omelette from now on…

Do it again…

My friend, Huai Bin, is back in town for the Chinese New Year festivities and is still in town at this point in time. We went out for dinner once – his treat as he got lucky at lottery…so when he wanted to go out for dinner again the other night, I jumped at the chance to reciprocate. We wanted to drop by here on that previous occasion but it was closed – I guess it is closed on Mondays…so there we were – the very first time for Huai Bin while I have been here a few times before…

I loved the Chinese New Year decorations – the lanterns in the birdcages…though we thought it could do without some of the lights as it made the place look more like a club than a cafe.

Huai Bin ordered the Indian ginger tea…

…while I stuck faithfully to my usual glass of iced water.

Of course, we had to go through the ritual first before starting to dig in into what we had ordered…

I ordered the nasi pecel (RM14.00) from the Indonesian menu…

…which included some banana leaf-wrapped rice , a few lemon grass chicken skewers, kangkong (water spinach) and taugeh (bean sprouts) and so on with satay peanut gravy a la gado-gado, half a stewed egg and tempeh and a piece of peyek.

Huai Bin had the nice nasi tumpeng (RM15.00), also from the Indonesian menu…

…that my missus had the last time we were here. He loved the otak-otak in banana leaf and the beef as well as the chicken which came across like something between rendang and kurma.

To go with our individual orders, we also had this butter curry chicken (RM14.00) from the Indian menu…

It was very nice and went well with the rice that we were having.

We had a delightful dinner and a great time chatting about all things under the sun but when it was about time to pick up the tab and leave, Huai Bin beat me to it. Now, now! It was supposed to be my turn! Anyway, not one to make a fuss, I just let him settle the bill and then I took him here for dessert…

He loved the Mulu ice cream and also the Kahlua ice cream that we had a couple of nights ago and I ordered this Blue Curacao to try…

It was nice, a bit on the sour side…and personally, I think I would just stick to the Kahlua – I prefer that one a lot more.

Well, thanks a lot for dinner and your company, Huai Bin. It always is a pleasure and hopefully, we can do it again…one last time before you leave town?

Just for a day…

The morning my friend, Ivan, arrived in Sibu, we stopped by here for the kampua noodles…

I ordered the pian sip- kampua combo so we got the meat dumplings instead of those few thin slices of boiled meat. I also ordered the RM3.00 special instead of the usual RM2.30-2.50, requesting for extra dumplings and this was what we got. Incidentally, this is Huai Bin‘s favourite in town but Ivan said that he liked the noodles at this other place more but he felt that the pian sip here was nicer and I would concur. That other place never had nice pian sip in the past but lately, they have improved somewhat but theirs are definitely not the best in town.

I also ordered the traditional Foochow mee sua (thread/string noodles)…

…to share for longevity and prosperity. This was from another stall in that same coffee shop and though it was quite nice, we felt it was a bit oily and could do with a little more of the traditional Foochow red wine. One thing’s for sure, if given a choice, I would definitely head elsewhere or cook my own at home.

For our drinks, Ivan had the 3-layer teh-c peng special while I had my usual kopi-o peng…

Among some other things, Ivan brought us this…

– the celebrated pomelo from Ipoh, this large ancestor of the grapefruit that signifies abundance, as the Chinese word for pomelo sounds like the word for “to have.”

That same day, I noticed that our pussy willows were blooming…

My missus had stuck some stems into a pot and used them for decoration for the festive season and I had noticed earlier that they were sprouting leaves and now the buds were flowering. Well, if these are indications of a forthcoming windfall, that has yet to happen…unfortunately. LOL!!!

Well, Ivan left the following day but we did manage to drop by here for lunch first and of course, we had to have the midin (wild jungle fern) fried with belacan (dried prawn paste)…

Actually when we were placing our orders, we were informed that they had run out of midin (they did not have any either at the restaurant where we went for dinner the previous night) but a few minutes later, the waitress came back and said that the midin had been delivered and we could change our order if we wanted…and we did. What I suspected was that the supply was dwindling due to the heavy demand over the Chinese New Year festive season when every Tom, Dick or Harry would be home for the celebration…and probably, they were reserving whatever they had for regular patrons and when the lady boss realised that it was me in the corner, she sent the waitress back to our table to tell us that we could have midin, after all.

Melissa wanted the creamy butter prawns again…

…and this time around, they certainly seemed very generous with the rich thick gravy. Yum! Yum!

I ordered their salted egg pork ribs to try…

…and it was good. I would not mind having that again sometimes.

We never had this before either- their sea cucumber fried with egg…

Long ago, they used sharks’ fins but they do not do that now and at one time, they used tung hoon (glass noodles) in place of the offensive stuff. All of us loved this very much – it certainly was pretty good, I would say.

We had the Foochow-style tofu soup as well – the one they cook with minced meat and canned oysters and Ivan loved it a lot – he said it tasted like sharks’ fins soup and he actually liked the food here more, compared to what we had for dinner the night before.

Well, not long after lunch, I sent him back to the airport to catch his flight home. Thank you so much, Ivan, for everything and especially for taking the trouble to come by just to extend your Happy Chinese New Year greetings. It certainly was very nice and sweet of you and here’s hoping that you will have a wonderfully awesome Year of the $$$$$$$$nake ahead too!

So happy…

The other day, my friend, Ivan, made a special day trip here all the way from KL to wish me a very Happy Chinese New Year and that night, my family and I…

…took him here…

…for dinner…

Of course, we had the celebrated fish head curry…

…and the waitress recommended these spare ribs…

…and I must say that they were simply out of this world – clearly better than those that I have had any place else. I certainly would want to eat that again the next time I drop by the place.

I have always loved this a lot as well – their roast duck…

…served wrapped in their very thin egg skin…

…instead of those usual round pancakes that they use for Peking duck. Well, this was as nice as I remembered it to be…

They were out of midin (wild jungle fern) but we did get to enjoy their cangkuk manis fried with egg…

Oooooo!!!! I super LIKE that blue and white plate of theirs!!!

After that most delightful dinner, we adjourned here for dessert. On his last trip here, Ivan fell in love with their Mulu ice cream…

…and all this while, he had been longing to come back to indulge in it again and he certainly looked so happy to have had the opportunity to do so…

I also ordered this Kahlua ice cream…

…to try and I must say it was very very nice.

Well, I certainly hope both the dinner and dessert were good enough for Ivan to consider his trip here worthwhile…

Can you feel the love tonight…

February 14th was Valentine’s Day but no, we did not go for one of those over-priced romantic set dinners that they were having at many places in town.

We were bringing Melissa’s friend who came that very day all around town and by evening, we had arrived at the town centre. I did get to show her these floating grocery stores parked at a wharf by the river…

If you get on board one of those boats, you will find that it is like any shop or grocery store and is well-stocked with canned foods, stuff in packets or boxes, instant noodles, bottled sauces, rice and the whole works, even kerosene. These will sail along the river and will stop at villages and longhouses along the way and the folks there would usually buy on credit. Everything they take would be recorded in the little 555 notebooks and come pay day at the end of the month, they would pay what they owe.

We parked the car and was about to get out to go on a tour of the pasar malam (night market) when it started to rain and we had to cancel the plan. We drove past the 7-storey pagoda, the Sibu Central Market and made our way here. It was still early and they were all so very busy cleaning up the place and decorating it in preparation for that special night for lovebirds…

They had some special floral decorations for the occasion…

…all around and on the tables like this one, for instance…

…or this one…

I noticed this peculiar looking plant…

…and according to the boss, it is some kind of ginger and the flowers are edible…

In fact, they use it in some of their dishes, he said.

Since it was a special occasion, we ordered some of their special drinks instead of our usual f-o-c iced water. These are their sexy pink lady and their pineapple ginger soda…

They had increased the price just for that day by RM2.00 for everything on the menu which I thought was perfectly all right. I ordered my favourites for Melissa’s friend to try – their mushroom roll and Payung rojak…

…their belimbing prawns, the ikan keli (catfish) dish and their otak-otak…

I also ordered this what-we-call ikan pusu or what is more commonly known as ikan bilis (dried anchovies)…

Somebody had that before and said it was very nice. I thought it was ok – very tasty with some salt and sugar added plus lots of sliced onions and a squeeze of calamansi lime but I would think it is something that we can easily prepare ourselves at home and not something I would want to order when dining outside…but at least, now I can say that I have tried that before.

Actually, we had intended to order dessert but after eating all that, we could not possibly manage to eat anymore…so we quickly left the place before the lovebirds came in and after a few stops here and there for photographs e.g. at the Sibu Gateway and the Horoscope Garden, we called it a day and headed on home.

Early the next morning, we drove Melissa’s friend to the airport to catch her flight back to the peninsula. We certainly hope she had enjoyed her very very brief stay with us and would come by to visit us again sometime.