Absolutely (2)…

…and now, the moment of truth! The place was awesome but how was the food?

Well, the seafood tom yam was very good…

It had a slight hint of sweetness and was not all sour and spicy like at most other places.

We also had the pandan chicken…

…which looked kind of dry and crusty/hard unlike the nice ones that I would usually go for here…

…but what it lacked in appearance, it certainly made up for it in its taste. It wasn’t dry or hard at all and tasted really good with whatever that had been used to marinate the meat.

The midin kerabu was really good…

…and other than that, we also had the smoked duck kerabu…

If I were to drop by this place again, I would just order one kerabu instead of two as they tasted more or less the same and I did not think the smoked duck one was all that great. If I’m not mistaken, they cut the duck into thin strips and deep-fried them…and with the overpowering sourish taste, I could hardly tell it was duck or anything else for that matter. I would much prefer the mango & smoked duck slices that I had here instead.

I insisted on having the seafood otak-otak…

…and it was absolutely superb! Very, very nice, I would say…except that I did not like how it was served. I saw Chef Wan cooking something like this on TV and he had his in a coconut. Perhaps they can use banana leaf instead…or just transfer it into some kind of a bowl or plate and serve. That aluminium foil certainly spoils it all, I must say.

I did not mind the fact though, that they did not serve the pineapple fried rice…

…in a pineapple. I saw somebody in some forum complaining about this but I would rather have it served in a bowl than an old, dried and shrivelled pineapple that had been recycled and reused for don’t-know-how-many times, not that it will affect the taste in any way! The fried rice was good, and they certainly were very generous with the meat floss.

It seems that they have a Chinese menu as well and Gerald, the owner, kept insisting that we should try the fish head kway teow…

…and so we did. It was all right – nice but I don’t think it swept any of us off our feet and I must say that fish head is not something I would want to have when out fine dining in a classy restaurant…if you get what I mean.

A cousin ordered a plate of fried noodles for his one-year-plus daughter but before I was able to snap a photograph of it, the dish went round on the carousel and was gone in a jiffy. I liked it a lot and the general consensus was that it was very good. Luckily, my poor niece was not a big eater and was quite happy to get a spoonful or two of the noodles. There certainly wasn’t much left for her once we were through with it. LOL!!!

That night, one of my cousins passed me these…

She had managed to “persuade” her friend to make this nyonya kuih specially for me – extra lemak (rich with coconut milk/santan) but kurang manis (not so sweet) and it was simply out of this world! We had a bit of that for dessert – I think I had at least four or five pieces…and when I got back to the hotel, I decided to finish the rest – that would save me the trouble of having to bring it all the way home. Muahahahahaha!!!!

So, to sum up, I would say the food here was pretty good – it certainly was a delightful dinner but I really could not see what was so tribal about the Thai and Chinese cuisines served here. I did see a short list of some Sarawak dishes including the Melanau umai (raw fish)…and I did read somewhere that they have some very nice Foochow dishes here as well. Foochow? I wonder how they would feel at being classified as tribal. LOL!!! Anyway, I really do feel that perhaps they should think about including some local ethnic delights in their menu…lest the name of the restaurant be construed as being somewhat misleading as far as the food is concerned.

All things  considered, I do look forward to dropping by there again should I happen to hop over to Kuching anytime soon. Anybody keen on joining me?