It’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri here in Malaysia, a festival Muslims all over the world would be celebrating at this point in time – Selamat Hari Raya ma’af zahir dan batin to all my Muslim readers, relatives & friends alike.
We’re also coming to the end of the first week of the school holidays here and Melissa has been home since the end of last week and of course, we would grab the chance to spend some quality time together. I suggested going somewhere for the holidays but she didn’t think that would be a good idea. She felt that she would rather spend the few days at home since she would not get to do that when working, other than the brief weekends when she would get to come home for a night or two.
Of course, we’ve been out and about whenever we liked and we did stop by here where she had this fruit cocktail…
…and I had the bubur cacar with red beans & cincao (grass jelly)…
I thought it was really nice though I wished they had added a bit more crushed ice as it all melted away a bit too fast, possibly because it had been very very hot here lately. Nonetheless, it was really good and I tapaoed some for my mum to enjoy…
On one of our outings, we stopped by a stall at Kampung Nangka here and Melissa bought some of these…
She said she tried that for the first time when a friend of hers at the teacher-training institute in Sungai Petani, Kedah, gave her some and said that it came from Sarawak and she did not even know of its existence, much less its name.
I had seen them somewhere before but I never felt like buying as they looked so pale and did not seem very palatable – little did I know how mistaken I was for they were indeed very nice, these kuih cincin as they are called…
I found out that they’re a traditional delicacy originating from Sabah or Brunei and we would get a lot here in the towns of Lawas and Limbang – I must have seen them there a long long time ago…and somebody was telling me that in Sabah, the best ones come from a place called Papar. Inside, there is something made from gula apong (nipah palm sugar) giving it a slight sweetness in taste. I liked it…and sure would not mind buying again.
One night, we also drove through Hua Kiew Road here. I think my lawyer-friend/ex-student, Louis, told me a long long time ago that they sold very nice steamed pao‘s there…
…but only at night and more recently, I’ve seen people sharing about them either on Facebook or somewhere else.
If you drive straight in from the Sibu Post Office traffic lights junction, with the Central Police Station on your right and the Maybank branch on your left, you will come to the place not too far in on the left hand side. The road is kind of dimly-lit and narrow, so do go slow…and stop when you see a tower of those big bamboo steamers at the entrance/gate of one house. That is the only one along that whole road so you will not miss it – in fact, I could find it without any specific directions so it shouldn’t be a problem for anyone else.
The big ones are selling for RM1.80 each and the small ones, RM1.20. They are certainly very generous with the filling…
…and I loved it at first bite – it really tasted good and the skin was pretty well done as well, just the way I would like it!
The char siew ones were great too, same price…
…and I’ve been told that these people would buy the char siew oil from the people selling those barbecued stuff for use. I guess they would only use a bit with a lot of meat, for obvious reasons, and that would explain the light shade of red in the filling.
I did not have a problem with the colour of the filling but I did think there was a little bit too much fat in it and they could just do away with that teeny-weeny bit of egg – it was so small that one would hardly notice it was there!
We have been cooking and baking stuff at home as well – things that we can’t get outside here or even if we can, they are usually not that nice and not really worth the calories. Melissa made this quiche lorraine…
…and I enjoyed that a lot…
…especially with all that ham in it…
Slurpssss!!!! Yum! Yum! In fact, I’ve been thinking of baking that for a long time now but as they say, procrastination is the thief of time. Hehehehehe!!!!!
Ok, I guess this is more than enough for the time being – we’ll pick up from here in some other later posts… Stay tuned!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 