Dear John…

My very dear friend, Vivien, met us, Melissa and I, upon arrival in Kuching and took us to the hotel where we checked in and dumped our bags in the room before dropping by here…

…for tea. Actually, it is located in the same building as the hotel and a cousin of mine was already there, waiting at the lobby for us so that she could join us as well.

I don’t know who this group of people are but it seems that they have given their thumbs up to the place…

Hmmm…the food should be pretty good then…hopefully!!!

Inside, this notice caught my interest…

I don’t know if that is really necessary though – I mean I always see people putting their hands in plastic bags or gloves before handling food even at roadside stalls but then again, we’ll never know.

At the counter, I could not decide what to have. I thought of ordering their Portuguese egg tarts to try but they looked quite sunken and miserable…

In the end, Vivien had the lamb pie (RM7.50)…

…while my daughter had the beef & cheese (RM4.80).

I wanted the beef & steak but they were out of those so in the end, I settled for the smoked chicken (RM4.80)…

The filling of all our pies were very nicely done…

– tasted just like those meat pies overseas but even with those abroad, I am never a fan of puff pastry…especially when it is heated up using a microwave oven. I wouldn’t mind it so much if it had been a conventional oven in which case, the layers of the puff pastry would turn nice and flaky and one would be able to smell the rich butter fragrance in the case of good puff pastry but with a microwave oven, you will get nothing of the sort – other than a hot pie, the texture of which will turn horrible once it has cooled down. ..and as far as pies are concerned, I would go for shortcrust pastry anytime.

My cousin had the chicken quiche…

…which did not look very appealing but she said it was nice.

Incidentally, she did not come empty-handed, not at all – she had brought along these yummy treats from this place for me…

…and while we were there, another cousin dropped by and she gave me this…

These juicy smoked barbecued pork ribs are from here…

It is featured in the travel magazine – Borneo Talk, it seems.

Good grief!!! Imagine after eating all that, we still had to go out for dinner that night…and we’ve only just arrived in town! Oh me oh my!!!!