Once is not enough…

My friend and his wife from KL was in Sibu for two nights this time last year and they were overwhelmed by the nice food here and could not wait to come again. That was why when I saw that Air Asia had special offers on their fares, I quickly informed him and he wasted no time in getting down to booking their tickets and here they are – back in Sibu again and for a longer stay this time, four nights and that, in itself, would speak volumes for the fact that Sibu is indeed a place worth visiting.

They flew in on Thursday – that day when it was raining heavily in KL and Singapore with flash floods everywhere and it was raining quite a bit here too – I’m not sure whether that was the reason but their flight was delayed and they arrived at around 3.40 p.m. instead of the original scheduled time at 2.20 p.m. I met them at the airport and whisked them off to this place for a Sibu kampua mee welcome…

I also ordered the black version…

– the one using dark soy sauce that some people seem to prefer but like me, they thought the white one was a lot nicer.

I also let them try our Sibu Foochow-style fried noodles…

…but unfortunately, the one here was not anything like the real thing. It was very nice though, with a whole lot of extra ingredients added unlike at most places here these days but it just wasn’t anything like what it should be. I told them I would take them to sample one that would be more like what I’d always known it to be like all this time but I could not promise anything at that point in time as there would be so many places to go to and so many things to try. Now, who says there is nothing here in Sibu? Humphhhh!!!! And believe you me, all those noodles plus our drinks, Sibu coffee no less, came up to only RM10.80 – they thought that was extremely cheap and could hardly believe their ears!

Ooooo…look at what they brought me! Cookies from Marks & Spencer, no less…

…and these probably came from Japan…

…though I’m not that sure as, if I’m not mistaken, they have made-in-Singapore instant noodles under that brand name as well.

Well, that’s not all – there were also this special beef stew from one place in KL and yellow rice wine chicken from another somewhere in Kepong…

They are still in my freezer – I have yet to try them as I have not had the time – so many things to do…all the places to take them to and all the nice things to eat. Oops!!! I already said that, didn’t I? Hehehehehe!!!!!

Next stop, dinner!

FOOTNOTE:
I was rescheduling my posts and I accidentally published the dinner post which was originally intended to appear tomorrow…and now it is ahead of this one and not in the correct chronological sequence. Never mind! Just scroll down and have a look, it doesn’t really matter!

Gone fishing…

In my previous post, I mentioned that my friend and his wife were here from KL for a few days…and for dinner on their first night in town, I took them to this place for some of our local ethnic delicacies such as the Melanau umai…

…which is raw fish with a generous squeeze of calamansi lime and all the other ingredients added including thinly sliced onions and chili and a bit of belacan (dried prawn paste).

For starters, as always, we were served these nice keropok (prawn crackers) from Mukah, a seaside town a few hours’ drive from here…

…and of course, I had to order the only-in-Sarawak midin (wild jungle fern) with belacan…

…and their very nice paku (wild jungle fern, a different variety) with santan (coconut milk)…

…and not forgetting, their lokan…

…which they claim to be the only one in Malaysia…

…made with the shellfish, minced…with meat, onions and don’t know what else.

That would have been substantial enough, I would think, and the total would come up to over RM50 for 4 persons, inclusive of rice and drinks…and towels. Tsk! Tsk! However, we just had to order the expensive river freshwater prawns or udang galah (tua thow hay/big headed prawns)…

…and despite being listed in their menu as asam (tamarind) prawns, I think it is more towards the Melanau style of cooking, something like how I would do it at home, but a little bit more than my simpler version of that but at that price, perhaps, they could work a bit on the presentation – with a slice or two of terung (brinjal) Dayak maybe or some lemon grass stalks or a few of those fragrant leaves or even some thinly-sliced chili for a bit of colour.

At RM50.00 a kg for the ones that big at the wet market in town or maybe a bit bigger, those of course did not come cheap – RM18.00 each and multiply that by 4, it came up to RM72.00. Ouch!!! But I guess it was still very much cheaper than what we had here at RM85.00 a kg – I wonder if that’s the same in KL and the surrounding areas.

We also ordered another of the specialty of the house – their roast lamb…

…and it was so very good except that it did not come cheap – RM60.00 for that but considering that there were four thick slabs – the size of a regular lamb chop and that would work out to RM15.00 each, I suppose that was quite fairly priced. Most importantly, they did it really well – none of that lamb smell that would put a lot of people off and it was so tender and went absolutely well with the mint sauce and the garlic dip that came with it.

Personally, I do not drop by this place that often as the things aren’t exactly cheap plus I did not quite like the place but that night, it appeared to me like they’ve done something to spruce up the place a bit and for one thing, it was definitely brighter than before and thus, I could take nicer photographs of the food unlike on my previous visits. Besides, I wanted my friends to sample something local instead of stuff that they can find in KL or elsewhere…and of course, I would try not to take them to places that I’d taken them to before on their previous visit.

They did say, however, that they would want to go back here and there for this and that so we’ll see. There’ll be more in the coming posts, so do hang around!