During my growing up years, there was a man whom we called Ah John. His house was around three doors away from ours and at a certain time each day, he would push his cart/trishaw with a canvas roof out, squeezing his rubber horn. We would rush out to buy his kantong (ice balls) and sometimes, my mum would ask us to buy some of his rojak for lunch or dinner or just to enjoy. Eventually, he and his family moved away and I did hear of them having a stall at the junction of Hoe Ping Road but I never did go there to buy anything from them…and the last I heard they were running a stall at the hawker centre on the 1st Floor at the Sibu Central Market.
I had something on that morning so I told my Trengganu friends to go and have the Foochow longevity noodles, our mee sua in traditional red wine and ginger chicken soup, for breakfast at a stall at the coffee shop below the hotel where they were staying. The missus did and she loved it but despite my telling them that the Penang prawn noodles at that same stall were really very nice, the hubby went and had their curry mee instead…
*Archive photo*
He said it was very good, just that there were no cockles…and personally, I would love some pig’s blood too…plus they gave whole chicken pieces instead of the regular shredded bits.
We came at around 9.00 a.m. that morning to take them on a tour of the Sibu Central Market, reputed to be the biggest in the country and we spent a long time there. There were many things that caught their interest, things they would not find where they came from or anywhere in the peninsula and they did buy quite a bit to take back as well. They managed to get to sample our golden-coloured wild durian, the buah pakan/pakon that is not as sweet and mushy and they bought a kilo of our straight Rajang hay bee (dried prawns) and one whole long kiam hu (salted tenggiri/mackerel) – they said ours looked fresher and nicer…plus it was cheaper.
Having covered the whole of the ground floor – the dry and the wet sections and the jungle produce section, we proceeded to the hawker centre on the first floor where I spotted this stall…
I had been to this place a few times but somehow or other, I did not notice this stall there till this time around. Ah John’s daughter is the one running the stall now and after all these years, she could still recognise me! We stopped here for their ang tao cendol…
…which I thought was all right…
…nothing sensational but we sure welcomed that after our long walk around the market on a blistering hot day.
After the tour of the market, I stopped by the Chinese Zodiac/Horoscope Park to let my friends go and take photographs (while we waited in the car) and then, we went to the Sibu Heritage Centre (which is air-conditioned)…
…so they could browse around the exhibition centre/museum there to gather some information about the history of Sibu, the cultures of the locals and everything else and they did drop by the handicraft and souvenir shop (where the things are cheaper than most, if not all, of the places in town…and do be prepared to bargain for discounts) and bought a few things from there…
*Friend’s photo on Facebook*
By the time we were through here, it was already lunchtime and I wanted to take them here for the char bee lau (fragrant root) pork trotters but the place was packed to the brim and since it was a hot day, we opted for a more comfortable air-conditioned place and landed here instead. I ordered our favourites, their butter scotch prawn balls…
…and the fried chicken with Thai-style chili sauce…
…the fried midin with belacan…
…their sea cucumber soup which I personally feel is the best in town, and their Foochow-style fried noodles…
We had 5 dishes for 5 people and the bill for just the food came up to only RM48.00. They enjoyed everything and in their opinion, they found the food here very much nicer than at the restaurant that I took them to on their first night in town. Gee!!! This was not in the itinerary that I had prepared! It sure was a good thing that there was a change in plan and we ended up here instead.
Next stop, dinner!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 