Hits and misses…

An ex-student of mine, working in Kl, was home for a while and he contacted me out of the blue to invite me out to tea. That certainly was a welcome surprise and a very pleasant one at that as I had not seen him since he left school. He wanted some ang tao peng (iced red beans) as the ones over in the peninsula are not the same  – they use the bigger and kind of salty red beans which are not to his liking. That was why we stopped by here and he had the ang tao cendol while I had this…

 – their bubur cacar with ang tao and cincau (grass jelly).

I thought it was not very nice – it was kind of diluted, rather lacking in the richness of the santan (coconut milk) and evaporated milk and none of the nice gula Melaka (palm sugar) fragrance. Initially, I thought it was just what I had ordered but my ex-student also said the same about his ang tao cendol so I guess it probably was another person doing it or maybe, we caught her on a bad day. I certainly hope this is not permanent or I would need to look for another place to get something that would be to my liking.

After that, we adjourned here for the kompia…

…fried and stuffed with pork belly and yes, they were nicely done and we enjoyed those very much.

The tiramisu mille crepe…

…was great, as always and so was their chocolate lava cake…

…which was perfectly done with the “lava” oozing out slowly…

…the moment I cut the cake open.

It was a really nice outing with my ex-student, chatting away and catching up on each other’s lives – I sure look forward to doing that again sometime.

Moving on from there, I’ve been seeing people sharing photographs of steamed paos (buns) in their blogs and on Facebook so I thought I would drop by the market here to get some myself. I did buy one, char siew (BBQ pork) filling, for Philip when he was home from the US and he loved it. In fact, he said it was even nicer than the ones that he enjoyed a lot from Kuching. However, he did not like the sio bee (meat dumplings)…

…though. Unfortunately, the buns were sold out that day and I decided to buy the dumplings to try – RM9.00 for 12 so that worked out to 75 sen each. They’re 80 sen each elsewhere now and some can even go up to RM1.00 or RM1.50 each at a couple of places…and yes, I do agree with Philip that they were not nice. The texture was all wrong, not firm or somewhat a little bouncy or rubbery like sio bee and more like meatballs made from minced meat plus I was really so put off by the amount of msg in them. It sure made me wonder why there were a few people who told me that the sio bee here was nice and that was what prompted me to go there and buy in the first place.

While I was in the vicinity, I stopped by this shop opposite to buy the kompia and since we were having braised pork leg at home that day, I decided to have my own oven-toasted kompia stuffed with the meat…

…even though I do think the deep fried ones are nicer. The kompias here are as nice as ever and they did seem nicer now – at one time, they were getting thinner and thinner and were grossly out of shape at times. Maybe it is because they have increased the price – 3 for RM1.00 now instead of 4 so they can resume making them with the original quality and I would say that is good actually. After all, the prices of everything have increased so it is all right to just jack up the price a bit within a reasonable limit and maintain the quality.

That, unfortunately, is not something that I could say about these made-in-Sarikei Foochow pek quek tong chiew pia (8th Month Autumn Festival biscuits)…

…which used to be available when the Mooncake Festival came around but these days, they are sold here, there and everywhere even out of season. If I am not mistaken, they were RM4.50 a packet last year so they have gone up by 50 sen this year.

Like I said, it would not be so bad if they had maintained the quality but I could only find a very faint hint of the fragrance of lard..

…in the ones in front (Kinsen) which makes it the better of the two brands in terms of fragrance and taste even though the other one (right)…

…does look nicer with all those sesame seeds dotting the biscuit and they taste pretty good too. Perhaps I should go and try those made-in-Sibu ones and who knows I may find one that still has the old-time quality of our local Foochow Mooncake Festival biscuits.

Life is like that, I guess…full of ups and downs – sometimes, you hit and sometimes, you miss…