The rain came down…

We have the pasar malam (night market) every night here in the heart of Sibu town but no, you would not find me there as parking is such a problem and I would have to park far away and walk all the way there by which time I would be perspiring like hell, completely drenched and feeling so hot and uncomfortable that I would not be in the mood to buy or eat anything…and I have not even started walking around the entire place yet. That was what I told my friend, Philip, home from the US at the time, when he told me that there are some local/Sibu/Foochow delights available there…and that very nice man actually went and bought some of the stuff for me!

There was this eyew chang koi (fried shallot cake)…

…that was really so very beautifully done. I remember the ones we used to love so very much when I was younger. There was somebody selling this, steamed in small metal bowls, by the side of the Lido Cinema. He or she would take the bamboo spatula and cut lines in it, patterned in a grid of little squares, sprinkle the fried shallots onto it and then pour the nice sauce all over it. Gosh!!! That was so so good and how much did that cost then? 10 sen only, I think…or was it 5?

Then there were these chai peah and ban chien koi…

…that were so very nice too. I know the guy who makes the latter (top)…

In the afternoons at around 4.00 p.m., he would set up his stall in the open space/parking area in between the two blocks of shops in the next lane to the one where I stay and later in the evening, he would pack up and move to the pasar malam to continue his trade there. I do wish he would start selling earlier as I usually would have my tea at around 3 as 4.00 p.m. would be rather late already and I would not want to spoil my appetite for dinner at around 6.00 p.m. Yes, I am very regimented and will stick steadfastly to my schedule.

Anyway, back to what Philip got for  me, there were also these…

…or koi (yam cake), fried sio bee (meat dumpling) and stuffed kompia. The latter two were good but I think the former sure deserves special mention. I used to buy the or koi at a stall at Rejang Park – they were superb many many years ago but lately, it has gone all soft and wobbly, probably the result of too much flour and too little yam and as if that is not bad enough, it has become so very expensive. These were so good that since I was in the vicinity of the night market the following day…

…I thought of getting some more for Melissa to take back to her jungle school to heat up on one of the days in the week and enjoy. This is just a small section of it, mostly the Chinese stalls selling non-halal food…

…and drinks and it stretches right to the very end…

There are also those sections selling halal stuff like satay and so on and also those stalls selling handbags, wallets, clothes and others.

Now, this was where the problem started – there were many stalls selling the same things so which exactly did Philip get the or koi from? Was it this one that was so very popular…

…that the moment the things left the hot wok, they would be snapped up instantly by the customers?

Or was it from this one…

…where I thought the things looked quite similar?

I remember the ones that Philip bought were placed in paper bags before going into the plastic bags so there I went, peering into everybody’s purchases to see if there were any paper bags used but before I could find any like that, the skies opened and the rain came pouring down VERY heavily  so I had to run for shelter and my hunt for the elusive or koi came to an untimely end…