Same thing…

I did manage to drop by the Ramadhan Bazaar in Bintulu that afternoon before the grand wedding dinner in the night. I went to the one in front of this supermarket and departmental store…

…which was a short distance away from the hotel where I was staying.

I would say it was more or less the same thing as the ones in Sibu or elsewhere in the country – you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I stopped by the first stall on the right…

…and bought these kuih bahulu (traditional Malay egg cake)…

I don’t know how they make them now but in the old days, they would use those copper chuan (mold) and cook them over a hot charcoal stove. The last time I saw some of these was at Tesco in Sungai Petani many years ago and I did buy some home too then. They’re all the same shape now, it seems – in the past, we had some fish-shaped ones, that much I can remember.

I did not fancy the other things they were selling…

…nothing that we can’t get in Sibu.

The food looked pretty good at some of the other stalls…

…but unlike the ones I would frequent in Sibu, it appeared that there, they would leave everything exposed…

…and thankfully, I did not see any flies fluttering around. That would be so disgusting, really.

This one with all the smoke…

…was selling all the panggang (barbecued) stuff.

It was already past 4 in the evening and if we compare that one…

…to the ones we had here in Sibu, theirs was certainly not as crowded…

Perhaps this was not the main one and there were others all around town that were more popular, I wouldn’t know as this was the only one that I went to check out during my short stay in the town.

There was a stall selling “nasi Arab” (Arabian rice) – I sure would love to try to see what that was…but I was going to a wedding banquet in a few hours’ time so I decided to give it a miss…and of course, I did not buy nor eat any of these…

…either. LOL!!!

After that quick walk around the Ramadhan Bazaar, I headed back to the hotel to bathe and change and get ready for the main event of my visit to Bintulu…and that’s coming right up! Make sure you come back for my post on that, okay?

We agree…

I was thinking that perhaps we could go back to that nice restaurant opposite the hotel for lunch but my two aunties who had their breakfast at the hotel cafe were informed that starting that very day itself, there would be an eat-all-you-can lunch buffet promotion for only RM10.00 nett per head and we went in to check out the spread. We all agreed that it was pretty good and since it was so very cheap, we all agreed that we would have lunch there.

There was nasi lemak but they called it pandan rice and I thought it was nicer than when I had the former for breakfast and that wasn’t just because of the pandan added. There was the sambal to go with it and a choice between hard-boiled and fried egg…

…plus all the usual condiments…

Other than those, there was also the fried chicken and the curry…

…and the fried pumpkin with cangkuk manis…

…with green bean and sago soup for dessert…and there were some nice mini-papadums too.  Other than these, there was a free flow of iced lemon tea or drinking water, plus coffee and tea.

I don’t think this was mine – perhaps it was my missus’…

…and as you can see, it was a lot more neatly-arranged than mine…

LOL!!!

I had a second helping…

…and the second time around, I opted for the fried egg…

…which I thought wasn’t too badly done.

Everything was to our satisfaction but we all agreed that the green bean and sago dessert was not sweet enough. Nevertheless, we all agreed that that was fine with all of us as at our age, a little bit less sugar would definitely be a good thing.

After sitting around, chatting and catching up on things in our lives, we all retired to our rooms to rest and get ready for the grand wedding banquet that night.

Do it all over again…

Another cousin of mine and her hubby would be arriving from Kuching that next morning when we were in Bintulu and since my cousin would be real busy, that being the day proper of her daughter’s wedding banquet, I told her I would go and meet them upon arrival as well.

I gave my breakfast voucher to my aunties so the two of them could go for breakfast together (they have one voucher of their own too between the two of them) and while the time away on their own while my missus and I were out. The two of us went to this coffee shop…

…opposite the Bintulu bus terminal…

…and the Farley supermarket and departmental store.

I had the beef tripe noodles (RM4.00, or was it RM5.00, can’t really remember now)…

…which was all right, no msg overdose in this one, while my missus had their sambal kway teow (RM6.00)…

…and it was really good.

I tried the steamed paos too…

…to see if they were any good…

…as I thought I could buy some back for my friend, Philip, but no, I did not bring any home to Sibu with me, if you catch the drift.

We spotted them selling those Miri phong peah and tau sar peah…

…that we had when we were there and we liked them a lot so this time around, we did not hesitate in buying some to cart back to Sibu. We also bought two of the made-in-Bintulu pandan phong peah to try and they turned out to be really very nice, maybe even nicer than the ones from Miri, not as sweet.

I went to the washroom first prior to our long drive to the airport and was tickled by the notice…

…that I saw inside. LOL!!!

After that, we proceeded to the airport to pick up my cousin and her hubby…and there we went again – we took them to the hotel to check in but their room was not ready so they left their luggage in our room and off we went! Where to? My cousin wanted to buy some Bintulu belacan (dried prawn paste) so I drove back to the house and she got some from that Ms Sim there…and I also took them on a drive round Bintulu old town.

Then it was time for lunch, so we contacted our two aunties to see what mischief they had been up to and we all agreed on going for lunch together…but I think I will just leave that till my next post. You’ll stick around, won’t ya?

First in line…

It’s the early bird that catches the worm, or so they say…and we were the first in line, my missus and I. We arrived on Sunday evening and were invited to dinner with my cousin and her family that very first evening in town while my two aunties arrived on Monday morning and my cousin invited the four of us to dinner with her family at her house that night.

Gosh! I can imagine how busy she must have been with her youngest daughter getting married and all the things to see to…and yet, she was able to come up with one really impressive spread exclusively for the dinner. I loved her masak merah…

…and her beef dish…

Initially, I thought that was masak hitam but no, it wasn’t anything Malaysian and yes, it was very nice too!

She even went through the trouble of cooking her chicken curry…

…from scratch. These days, I would just use those pastes in packets which can be real nice as well. Of course, hers was good though I wondered who dished out the curry and made such a mess – probably the hubby or one of the kids. Muahahahahaha!!!!

If I remember correctly, I think this was pork…

…and I enjoyed it very much and I absolutely loved her ladies’ fingers with the sambal on top…

…but the dish that stole the limelight was this –

– fish (bawal hitam/black pomfret) wrapped in banana leaf and baked and served with the oh-so-delicious sambal. I was told she had tom yam paste in the dip. Hmmmm…gotta try it sometime!

I think I just had a piece of the tofu…

…and I don’t remember helping myself to the ngor hiang/lor bak…

…nor the dishes she ordered from outside, the butter prawns…

…and the mixed vegetables…

I wouldn’t want to waste my tummy space on those when there are so many lovely own home-cooked dishes to savour and enjoy.

Don’t ask me how many helpings I had for honestly, I just cannot remember. I just feasted on the delicious fare till I was bursting at the seams. Too bad for the other guests to her daughter’s wedding who arrived the following day and those who were not able to come – now they can see what they all missed! Muahahahahaha!!!!

Thanks so much, cousin, for that wonderful dinner – hope it was not too much trouble. Truly, that was very much appreciated…by all of us, thank you on everybody’s behalf.

P.S.:
SELAMAT HARI RAYA MAAF ZAHIR DAN BATIN to all family and friends celebrating this very auspicious occasion today…

God bless, everyone.

Looking around…

At the end of my previous post, I mentioned that we took my two aunties to the market in Bintulu…

There wasn’t much in the market proper and neither was there anything to buy at the tamu, the native/ethnic side with their jungle produce and other stuff…

We did not buy the belacan (dried prawn paste) here…

…as my cousin told me of a house in the vicinity of Tanjung Batu where we could get very good belacan from a lady surnamed Sim. Following my cousin’s directions, I managed to locate the place and bought all that we wanted from her. Unfortunately, it was not the season so she did not have any more cincaluk (fermented shrimps) for sale. We did not want to buy those at the tamu as they looked kind of overly pinkish, probably the result of the use of colouring though some say they use ang chao (the residue obtained from the making of the traditional Foochow red wine).

After we had got our belacan, we stopped by this shopping mall…

…as I heard they have a “New World” in Bintulu…

…and I was expecting it to be affiliated to the ones in New Zealand. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed that it was no different from any other supermarket around and in fact, some of ours can be a whole lot better in terms of the availability of imported stuff including those from New Zealand and also Australia.

There wasn’t much at the mall proper – it was a mall like any other anywhere else…

…but I spotted this stall…

…selling pretzels, popcorn and cream puffs…

I have not come across any place in Sibu selling really good cream puffs so I decided to buy these and try even though they did not come cheap at RM1.70 each. Ouch!!! I asked for a box of 6, RM9.60, meaning that there would be a discount of 10 sen each and the girl took these empty cream puff shells…

…and pumped in the cream of my choice – I went for the vanilla, the only one that I like…

…and goodness me! She actually weighed each puff shell and repeated the action each time she had pumped in a bit of the cream to make sure that she would get that exact same amount of cream in each puff, no more no less.

I tried one right away and thought it wasn’t too bad and I finished off the rest later in the hotel…but at RM1.70 each…or even at RM1.60 after the 10 sen discount, I don’t think I would want to buy anymore ever again, thank you very much.

After we had left this mall, we stopped by the Farley branch there…

– we have one in Sibu and each looks like a replica of the other, almost exactly the same. You can see the Promenade at the back – that’s a new hotel coming up in Bintulu but it isn’t completed yet at this point in time.

It was way past noon already so we decided to go for lunch and I took everybody here…

…for the ethnic/Dayak cuisine.

This was what I had…

– the pansoh babi (pork cooked in bamboo) and the lumuk (aka as buah terap) muda, both of which were so very good…plus the bandong (tapioca) and cucumber leaves…

I loved the bandong leaves – the cucumber was all right but they had a milder taste and were overshadowed by the former. The ikan patin masak asam…

…was simply excellent – I truly liked it a lot!

That was indeed a delightful meal but I had to fork out RM8.00 for all that I had picked. It certainly was a lot more expensive than what I had in Kuching which was half the price and equally nice. I guess that’s to be expected in a town with all the highly-paid “gas people” walking around with wallets and pockets bursting at the seams. Anybody would like to raise an objection to that sweeping remark? Muahahahahahaha!!!!!

Morning comes…

When morning came that first morning when my missus and I were in Bintulu, we had to go to the airport…

…to pick two aunties of mine from Kuching, one Ah Ee (mother’s sister) and one Ah Kim (mother’s brother’s wife), as my cousin was busy and I offered to do that for her.

The Bintulu airport is nice…

…smaller than the one in Sibu but it is as good as new, unlike the one in Miri…

It was very cold inside when we were there that day, a welcome change from the hot and dry weather that we are experiencing here currently.

When the two ladies had landed, we took them to the hotel to check in and then, off we went for breakfast here…

…which was in the same commercial area as the hotel where we were staying. I could not see any name anywhere so I do not know exactly what it is called. Most of the stalls were closed (on Mondays) except for one bak kut teh stall and since we did not fancy that, we settled for this one…

…instead.

I had the piansip mee, dry (RM4.00)…

…which was in fact, kampua mee plus pian sip…even though on the stall, it was listed as mee wanton which it definitely was not, not at all!

My missus and aunties had their chao chai bihun (RM5.00)…

…and all in all, we thought that what we had were all quite good but yes, things in Bintulu are obviously more expensive than in Sibu and I did think that my noodles had too much msg in it, so much so that I had to endure the lingering taste for quite a while before it disappeared.

After breakfast, we dropped by this bakery…

…which was right across the road from the coffee shop.

I remember my very dear friend, the late Jimmy, bought these pineapple cakes…

…from there for me when he was still teaching in Bintulu. Good grief! They’re RM2.40 each!!! The ones in Sibu are selling for RM1.50 and I already feel that is mighty expensive. I certainly would not want to fork out all that money for that one small mouthful when I can go for a nice plate of kampua noodles in Sibu for the same amount or maybe just a bit more, depending on where you go.

They do have the mini ones as well now…

…and a whole lot of stuff that people would go to Taiwan and buy and cart home…

…to give to their families and friends.

I loved the sun biscuit that my friend, Alex, gave me many years ago when he came back from Taiwan after a trip there so I bought two boxes of these (RM2.00 a piece)…

– one for my parents and one for my mother-in-law though I do not know whether they are any good or not as I did not get myself any to try.

My missus bought these panggang sambal (RM3.00)…

…and we had it in the hotel that afternoon for our afternoon tea. It was very nice – the sambal was very fragrant and spicy but of course, the pulut had none of that panggang fragrance…and at RM3.00 each, I certainly would think many many times before buying one.

After that, we headed to the market…

…to see if there was anything we could buy and take home.

Evening comes…

We arrived in Bintulu at around 5.00 p.m. that day and after checking in at the hotel, my missus and I went on a random drive around the old town and we ended up here…

If I am not mistaken, the locals usually refer to this place as the Tanjung Batu beach. There is another one at the Similajau National Park, but we did not bother to check that one out.

It being a Sunday evening, the place was crowded and I was quite put off by the rampant littering all over the otherwise very beautiful park located at such a scenic seaside location…

There are some stalls there…

…and to put it mildly, they did not look very clean nor presentable. I only saw one stall selling satay and stuff, run by some Chinese boys so my guess would be that there should be more but they were not open as this is the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan. The rest were selling drinks, ABC and so on. I saw this man cutting a coconut…

– he certainly was enjoying brisk business selling his coconut drinks in the current hot and dry weather that we are experiencing here right now.

As I have mentioned in my previous post, I do think the town authorities should pull up their socks and take some drastic action to improve the state of affairs in this town…especially at this beautiful beach…

…which would have been such a pleasant place to relax or go for a stroll…

…had it not been spoilt by the crowd that frequent the place.

After a brief stop here, we went back to the hotel to bathe and get ready for dinner here…

My cousin’s children, the son from KL and the eldest daughter from Penang, and their families were arriving that same day and they were going for dinner at this restaurant right across the road from the hotel where we were staying and she had asked us to join them.

I enjoyed the midin, fried with garlic…

…so much as it was very nicely done – very “sweet” and crunchy, absolutely perfect. Maybe I was hungry after the long drive and the long day but I honestly thought I had never tasted midin that was nicer anywhere else, ever.

The sweet Thai chili chicken…

…was very good too and so was their hot plate tofu dish…

I hear this is one of the signature dishes of the house.

The fried bitter gourd with salted egg…

…was fine, as good as any elsewhere but I thought the salt-baked fish…

…I had here was a lot better. This was similar to what I had here and if I am not wrong, it was the salt they used. It was good on top but when one reached the lower part of the fish, it would be way too salty with all that salt around.

The so-called Philippine pork leg a.k.a. crispy pata…

…wasn’t anything like what I’ve always known it to be. I don’t think it was deep fried like in the case of the usual ones. This came across like roast suckling pig except that we only got the leg, not the whole animal. It was nice, of course, but we were already too full by then…so I just had a bit of it.

After that scrumptious dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel and hit the sack for I had to get up early the next morning to pick two aunties of mine who would be flying in from Kuching. Thank you so much to my cousin, her hubby and family for this very delicious welcome treat upon our arrival in Bintulu.

Straight ahead…

The old hometown looks the same…

…but no, Bintulu certainly has changed…a lot since the last time I was here on one of my working trips.

Two Sundays ago, the 13th of July, we sent Melissa to her school which is located somewhere in between which would mean that it is more or less the same distance back to Sibu (99 km) or straight ahead to Bintulu (122 km). After everything was settled and done there, my missus and I drove on to attend my cousin’s youngest daughter’s wedding on the 15th but we decided to go a little earlier so we could spend a couple of days there to see whatever they might have in store.

The road to Bintulu from Melissa’s school was not as good as from there to Sibu and it did not help one bit that there were two long stretches where they were doing repairing and resurfacing works, one 2 km long and the other a kilometre. In the current very hot and dry weather, the dust could be seen from far far away like there was some open burning going on.  Other than those, most parts had all those badly-done patches the rest of the way so it was not really a smooth and pleasant drive.

The town centre has not changed much. I remember staying in that inn with the HSBC branch right across the road and there’s a not-very-impressive shopping complex further up that road but I don’t recall seeing this very nice temple…

…at the time. Probably it was there, just that I did not notice and they’ve done it up very nicely since.

While the town itself has remained pretty much the same, many vast commercial areas have mushroomed all over, here and there and everywhere outside the town proper. The roads in the town in some parts were, I’m afraid, not much better than what we went through along the way from Melissa’s school and there were simply not enough signs to help first-timers in town get around so we would end up at some place, unintended and u-turns were the rule of the day. I also noticed in places along the road where the grass was very long, left uncut and many of the buildings and blocks of shophouses badly need a new coat of paint. The town authorities obviously need a paradigm shift and should pull up their socks now that it is no longer the little cowboy town that it used to be…to make Bintulu a lot more presentable and impressive than what it is presently.

We stayed at one of those new(er) areas – the  Assyakirin Commerce Square/Commercial Centre at this hotel…

…right next to the one affiliated to that cheap airline.

I used my government rate and got a standard twin room like this…

…for only RM118 nett per night with one breakfast…at the cafe on the ground floor, right beside the lobby…

Breakfast was supposed to be at 6.30 a.m. but I went in way before then. This being the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan, it was made available extra early for their pre-dawn sahur…

I thought the fried noodles…

…were all right and so were this chicken dish with Thai chili sauce…

…and the beef rendang…

…or at least, that was what I thought it was. The chicken curry was good too…

…even though it looked like those who had their pre-fasting meal ahead of me had helped themselves to most of it. Normally, at such hotel buffets, there would be people going round to see if anything needs refilling or at least, they would use a spoon to “rearrange” the food to make it look more presentable…but there wasn’t a single soul to be seen. I guess it was simply too early for anybody to be up and about.

There was nasi lemak too with the sambal, hard-boiled egg, cucumber plus the peanuts and fried ikan bilis (dried anchovies) in the tupperware…

…to go with it and there was porridge…

…if one would be thus inclined and on the other side, there were the cereal, bread and stuff and there was a free flow of coffee or tea and juices as well.

This was all that I had…

… that first morning in Bintulu as my missus and I would be heading to the airport in a bit to pick up two aunties of mine from Kuching who were also coming to attend the wedding banquet and we planned to go with them for breakfast upon their arrival. Do stick around for my blogpost on that and more.

Incidentally, if you are in Bintulu round this time, you may be interested in their Ramadhan buffet…

…which seemed to be quite popular as I would see quite a number of people having dinner in the cafe those three nights I was there.

Sometime ago…

This was two Saturdays ago when we had a dinner here to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 81st birthday…

…12 of us altogether – her, my missus, Melissa and I, my brother-in-law and his wife and their daughter, back from Singapore and their son, home from KL and then, there was also my brother-in-law from Bintulu and his wife and one of their sons plus my niece’s good friend.

Luckily, we had made a reservation before hand as the place was packed to the brim (and parking can be such a pain in that part of town) so we had to wait for quite a while before the food was served. As what they would usually do, we were served these Mukah keropok as starters…

…which were great, and dipped in the chili sauce provided, they were even nicer.

This restaurant claims to be the only one in Malaysia serving lokan…

…and everyone loved it!

Some of my in-laws tried umai…

…for the first time and they enjoyed it. I’ve heard people calling this the Melanau sashimi but I don’t think it is the same – the raw fish in this dish would have been “cooked” already by the calamansi lime juice added (some use vinegar but I think it is not as nice).

We ordered another specialty of the house – the paku in santan (coconut milk) but when we were served, it turned out to be midin instead…

Well, it was perfectly all right as it tasted great. In fact, personally I felt it was a lot nicer than paku which I had had many times already on my previous visits.

Another specialty of the house would be their roast lamb…

…which Melissa enjoyed so very much. I would have to take her back there again sometime for more.

We also ordered their sea cucumber soup…

…and their creamy butter prawns…

…using the very expensive freshwater udang galah, were really good too.

Everybody sang praises of their fried chicken with onion rings…

…though I was not too thrilled by it. When I said that, Melissa remarked that it was definitely much nicer than the colonel’s, case closed.

On the other hand, I absolutely loved the sweet and sour fish…

…so so so much. My Bintulu brother-in-law brought a huge one over, I think it  was a red snapper, and got them to cook it for us. I really feasted on it from head to tail.

People always say that the prices here can be quite steep but ours that night, inclusive of drinks (some had more than one) and rice (quite a lot of it, really), came up to RM325.00 for 12 persons which I thought was very reasonable. That prawn dish alone would have cost quite a bit already. To me, that was, without doubt, a truly awesome dinner – a delightful change that was so much nicer than the ones we had before and I certainly would love to go back there again and again.

Open…

We wanted to check out this new chicken rice place in town the previous weekend when Melissa was home but it was not open for business yet. In the meantime, my friend, Rose, had been there but judging from her review, it certainly was not something to look forward to. However, when Melissa came home again the following weekend, her mind was already made up – that she would go there to give it a try, so there we were…

…that Saturday afternoon.

The service was quick and efficient and in no time at all, we were served.

I ordered the Jumbo King set (RM15.50) which was intended for big eaters but the girl said that there would be enough for two…and that included a big glass of herbal tea…

…and a big plate of chicken rice and a big bowl of soup…

…plus a big plate of their steamed chicken – one drumstick plus breast…

Looking at the amount of everything, we felt that there was, in fact, enough for three.

Melissa and her mum shared that while I ordered the drumstick set (RM6.00) for myself and got the rice, only slightly less and a plate of chicken that looked almost as much as the jumbo set – just the bowl of soup and the drink were much smaller.

I also asked for the chicken liver, small (RM2.00)…

…and good grief! They gave so much of that…and I was kind of worried that I might end up with a gout attack. Thank goodness nothing of the sort happened. We also had their bitter gourd fried with egg (RM6.00)…

…for our additional vegetable dish. They have a few types of herbal soups on the menu too but we did not order any as they all had chicken claws in them. Eyewwwwwww!!!!!

Rose was complaining in her blog that everything was bland and I would agree with her but I think that was because of the lack of seasoning used. To me, that would be a good thing – less salt and less or no msg. One would be able to taste the flavours of everything, just that it seemed they just used the normal kind of chicken. I think if you use the better and more expensive type, the meat is sweeter and nicer and you can just eat it on its own. Like Rose, we had to resort to the use of the blended chili dip…

…which, unfortunately, was not hot enough for us – we are more accustomed to stuff a whole lot spicier. The liver was fine and the bitter gourd was ok – not great, just ok…and yes, we had had better chicken rice elsewhere, I’m afraid.

If I am not mistaken, this is a Miri franchise and looking at this review, it certainly seems to be very popular among the people there. As for us, all things considered, let’s just say that we are in no hurry to go back there again…especially when we do have some nicer places of our own here.