After our breakfast, I took my Singapore friend and his friends to the Sibu Central Market, purportedly the biggest in the country.
We walked around the jungle produce section and they stopped to try the buah isu, a wild variety of the durian…
*My friend’s photo on Facebook*
I am never fond of this so I did not try because of its unique/peculiar taste and its extremely spiky and sharp thorns but they loved it! My friend said it tasted something like buah cempedak. They walked around this section and were amazed by many things that they would not get to see back in their island republic including these…
*My friend’s photo on Facebook*
– among the hottest chili in the world. If I am not mistaken, these are one of the Habanero varieties. Unfortunately/Fortunately, there were no sago worms that day so they did not get the opportunity to sample those and eat them alive! Hehehehehehehe!!!!!
After that, we proceeded to the dry section and my friend bought 500 gm of the Rajang hay bee (dried prawns) for RM40. When he got back home, he said that his mum told him they could get those in Singapore at SGD50 a kg. They cost RM80.00 a kg here at the moment so after conversion, it is still a little bit cheaper. He also bought two packs of The Kitchen’s instant kampua noodles to take home and try – they are selling them at RM7.50 each here, a ringgit more than at the actual source.
From there, we proceeded to the wet section and they were stunned by the sight of the udang galah (freshwater prawns)…
*Photo taken using mobile phone camera*
…also known as the tua thow hay (big headed prawns). They were selling at RM60.00 a kg that day but when I went a few days later, there were hardly any left…but I did get to see these big ones at one stall going for RM70 a kg. I heard one of the sellers telling a customer that they had started saving for Chinese New Year – that would be when they would take them all out and sell at astronomical prices to reap the harvest. Tsk! Tsk!
We spent quite a long time there and decided to move on to some place else. Oopsss!!!! I forgot to take them to the hawker centre upstairs!!! I drove them to the Tua Pek Kong wharf and dropped them off to see the floating grocery stores…
*My friend’s photo on Facebook*
…and they said that they got to talk to the people there and they were given some very interesting insights into how these people run their business and they even got the chance to go and look inside one of them…
*My friend’s photo on Facebook*
From there, we drove to Rejang Park to see how they make kompia traditionally at my regular place but I saw that they were done for the day so I took them here instead but here too, they were still working on the dough and even though the hot burning charcoal was red hot and ready in the oven, they had not started baking the kompia yet. After that, it was time for lunch but we were all still full from the heavy breakfast plus a sample of the fresh-out-of-the-traditional-oven kompia at the place we visited so we just dropped by here for some desserts.
They loved the rum and raisin mille crepe…
…and thought it was nicer than the tiramisu…
…and they enjoyed the chocolate lava cake…
…too and the kompia stuffed with pork belly slices…
…but between the two, they thought the ones with minced meat…
…were nicer.
They did order the nasi lemak as well but no, they were not too impressed by it. Well, if you are a regular follower of my blog, you would know that I am still searching for a really good one myself, one that I would insist that anyone visiting our town should go and try.
After that, I dropped them off at a shopping complex in town…
*Archive photo*
…to browse around and maybe buy a thing or two…(to be continued)
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 