Change of plans…

Actually, we were planning to go some place else but Annie, home for the holidays from KL, invited us to join her and her family here. Gosh!!! From her photographs on Facebook, I knew she was there the day before for lunch and now, she would like to go there for a second round for dinner.

So, there we were…again and it seemed that they have a nice new menu now…

…though the place is a bit too dim in the evening and it is rather difficult to read the fine print. It certainly does not help one bit that the font is extremely small and in a lighter shade of grey or whatever colour that I just could not make out in the dark. For that same reason, I prefer coming here in the daytime as I would be able to take nicer photographs in natural daylight.

We ordered lots of pizzas including my favourite – the Pizza Italia and this one that we had had before as well and liked a lot – the one with mushrooms…

…and the kids loved the Hawaiian…

…though I know the mum isn’t all that fond of pineapples…and we also had the pepperoni one as well…

Four pizzas altogether, other than our own individual orders!

My missus had the terrayaki chicken chop…

…which was nicer than any that we had had elsewhere plus their really good own-made mushroom sauce that came with it was an added bonus!

I decided to try their pork burger…

…which turned out really great as well…

…but I had some of the pizzas and sampled a bit of most of everything so much so that towards the end, I was kind of struggling to finish it all up.

We ordered a whole lot of other stuff but I gave up trying to take photographs of them as they would not turn out very nice in the relatively dark surroundings.

It seemed that Annie had ordered some of the instant Sibu kampua noodles to take back to KL and when she went to collect earlier that day, the boss of that very lucrative business venture asked her to pass me these…

…to try. They now have the curly version of the noodles now – something like what you would get in your Kuching kolo mee, and from their Facebook page, I saw that they also have mee pok, the flat version of the noodles but that one is selling at RM6.90 a pack as opposed to only RM6.50 for the rest. Well, I’ve yet to cook any but when I do, rest assured that I would blog about it. It sure is nice of you to remember me, Eric, thank you so much.

And I must thank Annie’s mum too for the tilapia, fresh arrival from Batang Ai. She gave me one huge ikan patin the last time and it  was absolutely superb – no mud smell at all.

Last but definitely not least, I must thank Annie for the scrumptious dinner treat. We certainly enjoyed everything and gosh…by the end of it, we were so full we could hardly walk. LOL!!! Well, it looks like the other place would have to wait a while longer – I think I have had enough Italian at this point in time…

Almost new…

I am pretty sure some of you are equally guilty of this – buying something and using it a couple of times and then stash it somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Like for instance, there was a time when everyone was going crazy over that special pan and singing its praises to the skies. My missus also had one though I do not know where exactly it is now – somewhere in the house, of course, but I don’t know where. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard anyone mentioning it for a while now – nobody seems to be cooking anything with it anymore.

Well, this is another of one of those things…

…that my missus bought a long long time or maybe she did not exactly buy it – perhaps, it was one of those things that she managed to exchange for the coupons that she had accumulated from that direct sales company.

For the uninitiated, that’s a sandwich toaster. We did use it a number of times but when it comes to toast sandwiches, I think I would prefer toasting the slices of bread with our good ol’ 33-year-old toaster and making them manually. In other words, I was not all that fond of what came out of this toaster plus if I remember correctly, there was a limit as to what I could stack inside the sandwich. Other than that, there would be all that cleaning and putting away after use. Tsk! Tsk!

Anyway, my daughter wanted to make some waffles that day so we took it out as it can also be used for this particular purpose – they have the moulds for waffles included. She just prepared the batter…

…that she would usually use for making pancakes and once that was done, she was ready to roll.

Now, don’t they look absolutely gorgeous?

Thankfully, that thing still works fine after all this time. Melissa certainly was delighted that they turned out great

She added some chocolate chips to them for added flavour and of course, I was delighted too as I got to enjoy eating them…

The texture was absolutely perfect and ooooo…that rich buttery taste and fragrance, Golden Churn no less! Yum! Yum! Hehehehehehehe!!!!

Well, I do think that if you have these appliances and you keep them nicely and properly, you can always take them out for use when you need them…and they would still be as good as new.

Later, for lunch, Melissa cooked the organic wholemeal spirals that a cousin of mine sent me from Australia with Basilo pasta sauce, minced beef, thinly sliced mushrooms and a bit of spices…

There was no parsley in the house and all our herbs in the garden have died – the basil, the mint…and the rosemary and dill never did grow so I just added a bit of chopped spring onion on top for added colour. Come to think of it, we can’t get parsley here – not at the market nor the supermarts in town. I guess the restaurants get their ready supply via special order – they always seem to have it and use it to garnish their dishes, more for decoration than anything else.

All I did was to toss everything together, sprinkle a bit of Parmesan on top and dive in…

Oooo…that was good and of course, when it was cooked by one so dearly loved, it sure did taste a whole lot better! Wink! Wink!

Home again…

My friend, Annie and her twins were home for the school holidays and also for the Ching Ming Festival. I did get to see them for a while as soon as they arrived when they stopped here for the kampua noodles but they were caught up with a lot of family matters and I did not get to see them till breakfast on Tuesday morning here…

My daughter had their egg and avocado sandwich (RM8.80)…

…that I had before once and I thought it was very good. My daughter enjoyed it too…

…and she also thought the drink that she had was good – the soya bean milk with cendol and gula Melaka (RM3.80)…

My missus said that her soup version of the Foochow-style noodles (RM7.80)…

…were nice but she was of the opinion that what she had before on our previous visits, the fried version of the Foochow-style noodles with gravy/sauce, was better.

I had their Big Breakfast (RM11.80)…

…which I thought was not all that big. The pancakes were good, as always…

…and the sausages and baked beans were like sausages and baked beans, no more no less. I did not like their scrambled eggs though – a far cry from what I would dish out myself and if ever I were desperate enough to order this again, I would ask for an omelette or fried eggs, sunny side up instead.

Annie and her family arrived late but it was no matter as we had all the time in the world and everyone promptly placed their orders and had their fill. I did not manage to photograph what they had, just this bowl of  kampua noodles with minced meat (RM3.80)…

…which they said was very good. I was pretty sure that was true as I could detect the pleasant fragrance of the lard used in tossing the noodles – I think I would order this the next time I drop by here to give it a try myself.

They must have enjoyed all that they had very much for Annie asked me their opening hours and whether they would be open at night. Probably she was hoping to drop by again before she went back to KL. Well, if anyone is interested, I think their opening hours are from 8.00 a.m./8.30 a.m. till 2.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Gosh!!! And look at what the nice lady brought me all the way from KL…

…thank you so very very much! Yaaaaa!!! Happy days are here again! I love her mother-in-law’s own-made wine-infused lap cheong (Chinese sausages) a lot!!! She gave me some before and we had just finished eating all of the many we got from her then. After that, my missus got a packet from the shops and I would say that those paled miserably in comparison. Other than that, Melissa was indeed so very delighted upon receiving the two packs of Ferrero Rocher’s Easter bunny and eggs that Annie gave to her.

We certainly had a great time that morning – great food, great company, who could ask for more?

One night in Bangkok…

I am pretty sure that they spent more than one night in Bangkok and at Pattaya too, my friend and her hubby, when they went over to Thailand on a “honeymoon” last week…but as soon as she got back to Sibu, she sent me an sms asking me when I would be free for breakfast. Well, I would say that I am free most of the time so we arranged to meet here the very next morning for breakfast.

Gosh!!! Look at the things she brought back for me…

…and what caught my attention was the name of the brand of this particular item…

Sacred Heart? That’s the name of the Catholic cathedral here in Sibu and also the school where I used to teach before I retired. According to her, those sweets were made by the nuns at a church in Thailand by that same name. I took one out and was not very impressed by the look of it initially but when I tried it, I found that it was so very nice with the peanut inside and the sweet part was kind of thin and crispy/crunchy like thin glass or crystal unlike our coconut candy that we used to enjoy when we were kids – those were as hard as stone, not these. I liked it so much that I had to have another…and another…and another!

And if you think that was all she gave me, I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken. She also passed me these that she said her husband bought on a recent trip to Sarikei…

Ooooo….those straight udang kering (dried prawns) must have cost a bomb! They’re so expensive these days. Thank you so much, my friend, for all the goodies – that is really so very nice of you, I must say.

Now if you’re wondering what we had for breakfast, she had the Sarawak laksa (RM5.00)…

I heard somebody say that the one here was very nice and while she was in Thailand, she saw on Facebook the photos of the one I cooked last week and she was drooling away. According to her, one can have just so much of tom yam and in comparison, our Sarawak laksa is still the best…and true enough, the one here was good or according to her, it  was as good as the good ones in town and better than the one that she had here….as soon as they got home as having been away for so many days, her hubby, who was already suffering from the withdrawal symptoms, simply had to go for his fix of kampua noodles.

And talking about kampua noodles, that was exactly what I had that morning (RM2.70)…

I did not intend to have that initially but when I got to the shop, I noticed that they had a new stall there, not the same people as the one that was there before…

The moment I arrived, a familiar face (extreme left) greeted me. Hey!!! They used to have a kampua noodle stall at one of the better known coffee shops (Kok Cheng, at the corner opposite the Cathay Cinema in Sibu – now the Star Cineplex) in town in the early 70’s! He could still remember me despite the fact that we had not seen each other all these years. I can clearly recall that at one time, I had a bet with a friend that if I could eat FIVE plates of the kampua noodles, he would pay for them. Of course I could and he paid for them but after eating, I felt so heavy and just had to lie down and sleep. Hehehehehe!!!!!

I was delighted that the noodles I had were very good, as nice as I remember them to be. I also ordered a small bowl of their pian sip to try (RM1.80)…

…and I would say that I loved the soup. It was very clear and absolutely tasty. The skin was thin, very nice, but I did wish that they had a little bit more meat in the dumplings…

All things considered, this is definitely one of the better ones that I’ve tried around town and I sure would not mind going there for these again.

Incidentally, while waiting for my friend, I noticed this…

…at the rojak telur stall. Obviously, the girl had cut everything ready and put it all in plates and what I liked about it was how she did not stack up all the plates one on top of the contents in the other. I have seen that done in a Chinese restaurant where they arranged the tomato and orange slices and the lettuce leaves on the plates before hand so they could just put everything on each plate after cooking and serve and that got me wondering as to whether they made sure that the bottom of each plate was clean or not. Another plus point in this girl’s favour was the fact that she took the trouble to cover those plates at the top as well…and I felt the effort on her part was indeed most commendable.

All in all, breakfast was good and I had a great time chatting with my friend about her trip to Thailand and everything else. Thanks once again to her for all the stuff she gave me – it is indeed very much appreciated.

Stay home…

We went to the mid-morning service in the cathedral on Sunday. Since Melissa is on a one-week mid-semester break, we did not have to go to the usual one that we would go to at sunset on Saturday nights so we could drive her back to her school the following day.

It was way past noon when it ended – time for lunch! I did not plan on going to any place fancy and Melissa was keen on the idea of having something light and agreed on going for some thosai…

…here so that was where we ended up that day. It seems that normally, for lunch on Sundays, they would only serve nasi bryani or nasi campur (mixed rice) but since I asked for it, the nice boss was kind enough to get his guy to make it for us. It was very nice but normally, we would ask for the paper thin version which we would prefer but it completely slipped my mind as we had not had that for quite a long time.

I was afraid that it might not be enough for me so I asked for the nasi bryani as well…

…with chicken curry…

Incidentally, for the uninitiated, the curries here would be more towards the Indian or mamak style and not quite like the Malay or nyonya ones. Melissa says she enjoys those very much and loved going for them that time when she was in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

My missus had their nasi campur and they gave her some of their sambal belacan to go with it. If I remember correctly, the boss did mention once that they would only give the sambal when somebody orders their fried fish but he would always give us some whenever we drop by regardless of what we order. My missus enjoyed it so much and kept saying that it was very nice so I went to ask the boss if he could sell me some of it. Gosh!!! The next thing I knew, he went to get some and gave it to me…

…on the house! Of course my missus was delighted with his generous gesture!

I did not ask for the prices of each individual item but the total for everything came up to RM18.00. Hmmmm…if I take away RM5.00 for our drinks – two kopi-o-pengs and one teh ais, that would leave RM13.00 for one nasi bryani, one nasi campur and two thosais. I’m pretty sure that guy must have given me a special discount…again! That’s really very cheap, you reckon?

I was planning on going out for dinner that evening since Melissa was around. In my mind, I was quite sure that she would love to spend the short holiday going out to eat all the things she loves. However, she said that she would prefer to stay home for dinner instead. She was out with her mum all afternoon to that very disappointing book sale in town and I wouldn’t know where else so guess who had to do the cooking…

It wasn’t anything special – I just fried some corned beef with thinly sliced Bombay onions. There weren’t any potatoes in the house so I did not add any this time around. For the vegetable dish, it was omelette with thinly-sliced long beans and a bit of lap cheong (Chinese sausage), thinly sliced too, for some added flavour…all in under 30 minutes.

Of course, she enjoyed that…and it certainly looked like we would be staying home a lot more over the following few days to enjoy whatever we might decide to cook instead of eating out. It’s no big deal really since I do enjoy cooking and when people like and appreciate what you dish out, it certainly makes it even more worthwhile…

Photogenic…

If people say you are very photogenic, it means that you look really good in photographs but it does not mean that you are good-looking, right or not? More often than not, where photographs are concerned, what you see may not be what you get. I guess that is why in advertisements, there are always disclaimers to this effect, for instance, something like this – “Product image for illustration purposes only. Actual product may vary.”

Well, I saw this…

…on their Facebook page and I hear it was also in the local newspapers…and even though I do not usually go for this kind of stuff, since my girl was home for the holidays and she would appreciate this very much, we made a beeline there the other day for lunch.

Of course, we had to order my daughter’s favourite – their oyster omelette (RM15.90)…

…and it came out looking very different from when we had it here the last time we dropped by and thankfully, it was a whole lot nicer too…

I thought those crispy and very fine hair-like frills of batter on top were very nice and the finely chopped shitake mushrooms were an added bonus too but I must say that I wished the oysters were more visible to the naked eye.

As for the burgers, I ordered the special chicken chop one (RM11.50)…

…which I thought, looking at the photos, would not come in a charcoal bun…

…but obviously, they must have cut all the buns ahead of time and the chef did not bother about who’s…oops…I mean, which is top and which is bottom. Tsk! Tsk! It certainly tasted really great though…but I do feel it was kind of pricey, don’t you think?

Melissa had their beef with cheese (RM9.50)…

…while the mum had the chicken sotong (RM9.90)…

…and both of them felt that theirs were good too.

All the burgers came with a complimentary drink. Too bad they did not look as nice as in the photographs.

Smooth…

I hardly ever buy ice cream home to eat. Usually I would eat it once in a while for dessert at my favourite café in town…but Melissa is home for the one-week school break and the other day, we dropped by the supermarket in the neighbourhood to pick up some stuff and browsing through their freezers with all the different types and brands of ice cream, I decided to buy this (RM11.50)…

…for a little bit of indulgence on our part while she’s home.

Like I said, I don’t usually buy these things and I thought it was a box of those minis that I would finish in just one bite. However, Melissa wanted one after dinner that day and when she opened the box, I realised that I had bought the normal big-sized ones…

…and there were only three inside. I guess that would be just perfect – one for me, one for Melissa and one for the mum.

It looked the same as any of the usual ones that I had had before…

…and they seem to be pretty proud of the fact that they use “Belgian chocolate” in the making…

I, for one, would not be able to tell the difference. People told me once to buy the imported KitKat from Langkawi (which we can get here actually) as it would be a lot nicer, creamier…bla…bla…bla…  To me, they’re all the same – just the price is nicer…if you get what I mean. Hehehehehe!!!!

Anyway, I tried one myself…

…and ooooooo….!!!! It was so so so nice!!! I don’t know about the chocolate – it was just chocolate to me but I found the vanilla ice cream inside so rich, so creamy, so smooth…and with the hint of strawberry, I absolutely loved it!

Of course, I finished it in no time at all…

…and if you ask me, I would say that this is a whole lot nicer than those branded imported ones and at less than RM4.00 each, it is definitely a whole lot cheaper. Other than the snob appeal, if one is into that kind of thing, why pay more and settle for less?

Oh dear! Oh dear! Now I would have to resist the temptation of going back there and getting some more… Sighhhhh!!!!

Slowly…

My friend, Philip, from the US gave me these packets of sambal laksa (laksa paste) around July last year…

*Archive photo*

and I tried the one on the right but I did not think it had the authentic Sarawak laksa taste. What put me off this particular brand was that even though I did not have to sieve the broth (you would need to do this with some brands of the paste), there was some powdery residue in it, making it somewhat unpalatable. I had the Hj. Manan one before and though it was pretty good, I also did not think it was quite like the real thing. However, the expiry date was drawing near – in June this year so I decided I might as well cook it instead of letting go to waste.

In my mind, I was of the opinion that last Friday would be a good day to do that as Melissa would be coming home for the weekend followed by a week-long mid-semester break. I had bought the prawns a few days earlier and peeled them so that would be one less thing to do in the morning in question. I would not say it was difficult but there would be quite a few things to see to and it could be very time-consuming. Ah well!!! As everyone knows, I’ve already retired and I have all the time in the world so I could just go through it slowly, doing one thing at a time, and as a matter of fact, I quite enjoyed getting it all done at my own casual and easy pace.

To start off, I bought a ringgit worth of taugeh (bean sprouts) and I had to go through the chore of removing the tails. Once done, I boiled some water and poured it over them to blanch them…

…and drained away the water quickly before they got overdone. I also poured the water over the mihun (rice vermicelli) to soften it…

Then I cut the tauhu pok (fried bean curd cakes) thinly…

…and fried some omelette and did the same.

I had forgotten to buy some daun sup (Chinese coriander) so for the garnishing, I just chopped some spring onions that we had growing in our garden…

…and I also pounded some chillies with belacan (dried prawn paste)…

…for the dip.

I boiled the prawns in two bowls of water and saved the stock and I sliced some fish cake and did the same…

Usually, in Sarawak laksa, chicken is used. The breast meat is boiled and then shredded into thin strips but I was not having any meat that day so I substituted that with the fish cake.

All right, I had everything done now…

…and the last thing I would have to do was to cook the broth.

I poured the stock from the prawns and fish cake into a pot and brought it to boil. Then I emptied the packet of sambal laksa into it and let it simmer for a while. Lastly, I put in an ikan bilis (dried anchovies) stock cube and poured in a can of santan (coconut milk). Of course it would be nicer to use fresh santan but I was too lazy to buy some grated coconut and squeeze. Once I had brought it back to boil, the broth was ready…

All that we had to do after that was to put the mihun and a bit of everything else in a bowl, pour the broth over it, garnish with the chopped spring onions and serve…

That certainly was a lot of work, wasn’t it? It sure would be easier and faster if there were more than one person doing everything but it was no matter. Just watching Melissa enjoying one huge bowl all to herself to the max…

…when she came home that afternoon was worth every minute that I spent cooking it.

I am sure you would do the same for your loved ones as well, wouldn’t you?

What to do?…

I dread buying prawns, the seawater variety…or what they call pek hay (white prawns)…

*Archive photo*

…as I would have to go through the tedious chore of removing the heads and shell and cutting the top side and removing the veins…and if it isn’t a garbage collection day, the stench from your litter bin later can be quite unbearable. I do not have this problem when buying our giant freshwater prawns, the udang galah or tua thow hay (big-headed prawns)…

*Archive photo*

…as the sellers would be able to de-vein them for me without removing anything else – I have yet to learn the skill…though I don’t think I ever will.

Well, I was at this shop in Penang and I got to try the very nice har mee (prawn noodles) there. The guy was closing shop for the day and I saw him pouring away the leftover stock into the drain outside and inside the huge cauldron were all the heads and shell of all the prawns that he served with his noodles. Since then, that is exactly what I would do everytime I buy those prawns – wash and rinse the heads and shell well and boil…and I would solve the problem of having to put up with the aftermath – that horrible smell and I would have the very nice and sweet prawn stock for use when I cook something.

Like the other day, I bought some and I used the stock to cook this delightfully tasty kampung-style sayur rebus (boiled vegetables)…

Normally, I would boil some belacan (dried prawn paste) and a handful of ikan bilis (dried anchovies) for the stock but since I was using the prawn stock that day, I only added a bit of belacan for the fragrance and taste, along with the chili. Once I had brought it to boil, I just threw in the paku (jungle fern) and baby corn…plus one small ikan buris, our local freshwater river fish, that I managed to get from the market that same morning and added a pinch of salt – I needed to do that as without the ikan bilis, it would not be salty at all. You may use any vegetable for this soup actually, even bitter gourd, but this is our usual combination – paku and baby corn or cangkuk manis and sweet potatoes/pumpkin and there are other options as well, too many to list here.

That small fish cost me around RM10.00 that day and there was not all that much to eat, good for the sweetness and the flavour only. With the current prices these days, such simple kampung-style dishes may still be as simple and still very nice but I am afraid they are no longer all that affordable anymore.

As for the prawns, I bought the big ones – the pek hay…and they cost RM35.00 a kilo which would make them as expensive as the udang galah – the smaller or medium-sized ones would be around this same price while the bigger ones may go up to RM45-50.00 a kilo these days. Of course, there are the smaller ones of those pek hay – selling at around RM15.00 a kilo or less and normally, we would just buy those for cho-liao (use as ingredient), for instance, when frying vegetables, just for the taste and the sweetness but when we want to cook a prawn dish, we would have no choice but to fork out the money and get the big ones.

Ah well, I guess that’s just the way things are going – what to do? Sigh!!!!!

It’s not easy being green…

This is my favourite brand, and I am pretty sure it is the favourite of many too, when it comes to instant mee goreng (fried noodles). I haven’t had any for quite a while now – usually, I would just eat whatever my missus buys and leaves lying around the house or I would cook something else for breakfast.

However, when I dropped by the shop round the corner from my house the other day, I saw that they have come out with this new flavour – green chili…

…and at RM3.80 for a pack of five, I thought that was all right, less than 80 sen a packet…unlike some of the instant noodles that I see on the shelves at the shops these days.

I bought a pack and the other morning, I cooked one packet to try…

There was a packet of bumbu (seasoning) inside, a bit of sweet dark soy sauce and some green-coloured oil. I checked the ingredients and these are the contents – refined palm oil, green chili, onion, spices and permitted colouring – chlorophyllin. That last one, alongside the green chili used, probably explains the colour.

I was too lazy to dig into the freezer or the fridge to see if there was anything that could go with it so I just fried an egg…

…the way my mum used to do it – in a wok, with the crispy golden frills all round. Like what she used to do as well, I splashed the hot oil over the yolk to cook it so it would not so orange and raw-looking and of course, I made sure not to overcook it…unlike what I would get at those makan stalls at the shops here, there and everywhere.

After boiling the noodles to soften, I tossed them with all the ingredients provided and served…

– with the fried egg by the side.

Yes, it was very nice. I liked it a lot – very slightly spicy with a hint of that green (chili) taste, almost like the original but not exactly. It did not look as green as in the photograph on the pack or the packet though. Ah well!!! I guess it is not easy to be green…

Have a delightful weekend, everybody…and happy holidays, kids!!!