Grandpa…

My ex-student, Andrew, who happens to be my godson too, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with his wife, Michelle…and they have been blessed with a little girl, Ashley. Now, wait a minute! If Andrew is my godson, then Ashley would be god-granddaughter, right? Hey!!! That means I’m a grandpa, albeit a god-grandpa. Gee!!! Ain’t that nice? Hehehehehe!!!

Anyway, they came back to Sibu on holiday and to spend time with Andrew’s parents here, and one morning, I did manage to take them out for a dim sum breakfast here and of course, since they live so far away and will not get to eat anything local all that often, I had to order a plate of our Sibu Foochow-style fried noodles for them to enjoy…

…and yes, theirs was, indeed, very very nice.

We also had the lau sar pao…

– the salted egg custard bun and as you can see, they really do it perfectly well here. Oopsss!!! I should have used a new plate having made a mess of the one I was using while enjoying the yummy noodles.

We also had their char siew pao and their har kao (prawn dumplings)…

– I ordered two storeys/baskets of the latter as the ones here are pretty good. Other than those, we also had their three-flavour siew mai, a set of three dumplings all done differently, and their xiao lung pao…

…which did not look all that nice but they were nice even for someone like me. I am not a fan of those as I don’t really care for the ginger soup in them but these were not as strong on the ginger, I thought, and I actually enjoyed it.

The chee cheong fan, with char siew, was great but I did not like how it was served – like this…

Usually, it would be served without the sauce and upon placing it on the table, they would cut it up and pour the sauce there and then. Luckily, it did not affect the taste all that much and I thought it was fine as well. Even the third yam puff…

…on the plate that obviously was a failed attempt in the process of frying it was nice. If you observe carefully, the one at the back did not have that fibrous characteristic of the exterior of a nicely-done yam puff.

All in all, we had eight items, seven with an extra serving of the har kao, plus one big pot of Chinese tea and to my surprise, it was so very cheap…

I bet there is no way anyone can get what we had for less than NZ$20.00 in New Zealand…and with the delightful company, needless to say, I truly enjoyed the breakfast and had a delightful time – I certainly hope the feeling’s mutual.

And I must say thanks to you, Andrew, and Michelle for the gifts you brought back all the way from New Zealand…

…despite having to endure the hassle of travelling with a nine-month-old kid. That certainly is so nice of you two and really thoughtful indeed – truly, I am very much obliged.