What I got…

My friend, Rose, went back to Kuching to attend her brother’s wedding and to feast on all the culinary delights there that she missed so much and when she came back to Sibu, she called me so she could pass me these…

– the sio pao from some place at Rubber Road. Some people told me that they’re related to those at Kai Joo Lane, my favourite but all this while, I had not got to try the ones from here…or not that I can recall.

She also gave me one yam puff…

…from the same place to try.

I would say I was not too fond of the pastry that sure was a lot different from the ones we would usually get at those dim sum places and inside, it looked like this…

…the meat filling surrounded by the yam paste and the pastry skin on the outside. It sure was no puff pastry and it would not fare too well  if I were to pass it off as shortcrust either.

The meat filling was the same in the sio pao…

…and in my honest opinion, I still prefer my favourite from Kai Joo Lane a lot. The pastry from there has a lot more of the buttery fragrance and the filling is very much tastier. I thought these were rather too heavy on the msg…even though as a whole, I would say they were not too bad – pretty close but no, I did not think they were all quite there.

But thank you all the same, Rose – it certainly was so sweet and thoughtful of you to go through all that trouble getting those and carting them all the way back to Sibu to let me try. I certainly appreciate that very much.

I really must thank my friends from Terengganu also for taking their time off to drop by our little Sibu town for a brief visit and they brought me one big bag of goodies…

…all the way from the East Coast.

Together, we were involved in the marking of the SPM English Language papers for a number of years before I retired and it seems that they too are no longer doing the tedious chore year in, year out. They arrived here on Monday, 15th…

…and I met them personally upon arrival and I took them here for a special Sibu kompia welcome, pork belly…

…as well as minced meat filling …

…and of course, they loved them so so much that they decided there and then that they would like to tapao some to bring home on the day when they would be leaving.

Unfortunately, the lady making the mille crepe cakes had just given birth and would not be able to make any for a month while in confinement so I was not able to order that for them but thankfully, the chocolate lava cake…

…was available and boy oh boy!!! That…

…literally swept them off their feet. They thought it was so so so good and praised it to the skies.

After that light afternoon tea, I took them to their hotel to check in and later in the evening, I came and picked them up to go for dinner…but that will be in the next post!