Poor thing…

That day, when I sent Melissa’s coursemate to the school, they got down to business right away – assigning him his classes and duties, giving him his timetable, books and what not and there was a briefing for him and two other “new brooms” at 1.15 p.m. that same day. At around 3 something, he called me and asked if I could help transport his suitcases, bags and all to some temporary place of stay that one of his new colleagues had arranged for them…and good grief! That house was in a kampung (village) so very far away in an isolated part outside of town that I had never been to.

While we were having our dinner that evening, he contacted me and asked if I could go and get him and if he could stay the night at my place. Of course I said that he could and I asked if he had any lunch or tea and he said that since the kampua that I took him to eat when he arrived, he only got a bottle of mineral water during the briefing in the school, the poor thing!

So after our dinner, we went to get him and took him here…

…and he had the pecel lele (RM5.50)…

– with the very nice fried ikan keli (catfish). According to papakucing, pecel is derived from the word “parcel”. As you can see in the photograph, the rice was wrapped in a special kind of leaf which would give it its special fragrance, and hence, the name “parcel”.

I saw this bakso stall…

…and decided to order a bowl (RM4.00)…

…to share and try. It was nice – I liked the beef balls…but the soup was like clear soup with chicken stock, none of the beef taste that I had expected. I would simmer those balls in the soup so that the taste would go into it but obviously, they did not do that. It certainly seemed very popular with the crowd there though as I saw them dishing out one bowl after another.

Not far away from where we were was this man…

…selling satay…

…at 50 sen a stick – never mind if it was chicken, beef or kambing (mutton). I ordered 10 of the latter and also 10 of the beef and with the ketupat, the total came up to RM11.00…

It was very nice, I would say…so I would KIV this place for anytime I feel a craving for some decently-nice satay.

This used to be a very popular place a long time ago where young people would hang out to eat…and to see and be seen but its popularity waned. Looking at the crowd that night, it seemed that the place is slowly but surely making a comeback…and I hear that the YB of that constituency has promised to upgrade the place to make it much nicer and call it “Bandong Walk”.  Well, it is already very nice as it is, if you ask me.

Among the many eateries around, there is this chu-char (cook-fry) seafood place…

…halal, of course, and this Pak Soh Tom Yam place too…

They say it is very good but I have yet to go and give it a try.

I probably would want to try this one as well…

…as it was rather packed so I guess the food must be really good too.

You will certainly be spoilt for choice if you come here as there are so many options to pick. Why, they even have a takoyaki stall…

– don’t play-play!

After dinner, we went for a drive around town to let our visitor see the sights but it was already dark by then. Imagine this – he had been in Sibu for one whole day and all he had seen was the way from the airport to his school and from his school to that temporary place of stay. Poor, poor thing indeed!!!