Grow old with me…

This has been around for a very long time…

We used to hop over to Singapore quite often in the past and we usually stayed at a hotel at Kramat Road for the convenience and easy access to the Orchard area via Cavenagh Road. There were two stalls by the side of the road then, beside the building that housed the Le Meridien Hotel (it seems that it is now the Concorde), facing Orchard Plaza and we would often stop by to have the soya bean milk and the tofu fua that one of them was selling. The other stall was an outlet selling these celebrated curry puffs and stuff but somehow or other, we never bought any to try, not even once.

Well, my niece, working in Singapore, was home over the weekend for her father’s birthday and she brought us a whole of things including some that she bought on her recent trip to Phuket, Thailand, thanks so much to her for going through all that trouble, and among the goodies were the curry puffs…

…from this long established name that now has outlets all over the island, I hear.

Were they any good? For one thing, I am not a fan of deep-fried curry puffs – I prefer the baked ones with shortcrust pastry, no less so that would be one point not in their favour already.

Thankfully, the pastry was not oily, not like the ones I had at Sungai Petani in Kedah, but the filling…

…was all right as far as the curry taste was concerned – the Sg Petani ones were much nicer but perhaps, that was because I had those on the spot, piping hot from the wok and without doubt, that could have made a world of difference.  There were mostly potatoes inside though I did spot some chunks of chicken and a bit of egg. I would prefer beef in my curry puffs.

Two of them had two eyes…

…that with the rolled up crust at the top, made them look something like cabbage patch dolls, minus the nose and mouth. LOL!!! I actually enjoyed eating the thick crust, I must say – it was not hard at all and tasted pretty good.

I am not too sure but this one tasted like tom yam…

….and inside, there were the imitation crab sticks that I am not particularly fond of. Nonetheless, I liked the filling of this one more than what was in the curry puff proper.

All in all, I do prefer the ones we have here…

*Archive photo*

– though I am not buying them anymore since the price went up from RM1.00 to RM1.10 to RM1.20 and perhaps, it has gone up even more now like most everything else since April 1st. Tsk! Tsk!

No, I have never tried the IKEA ones – nobody has ever taken me there for theirs and nobody has ever bought me any to try either (Hint! Hint!) so I am in no position to compare the two…and I don’t know how much these cost though I am quite sure they do not come cheap especially after conversion into our currency. Sobssss!!!

It’s your day…

It was my brother-in-law’s birthday…

…so my niece came back from Singapore for that and we all went out for dinner here that night.

After that first time, we went there again one other time with our girl and that was it, despite the fact that the food here is nice and reasonably priced, the reason being the fact that Sibu is located on very swampy land and owing to the perennial sinking problem, the road in this area, like in many areas around here, would not be very car-friendly.

So what did we have that night? Well, there were these butter prawns…

…that were very fresh and succulent and of course, we had to order my brother-in-law’s favourite, the sweet and sour fish fillet…

It tasted great but the fish was kind of limp or soft. Maybe they did not fry it well till nice and crusty or they put it back into the sauce before dishing it out and serving (instead of just pouring it over the pre-deep fried fish) but it was all right, not too bad…just that we have had others elsewhere that were nicer.

The salted egg chicken…

…was good and so was their pork belly dish with salted fish and dried chilies…

The sea cucumber soup…

…was just like sharks fins’ soup minus the offensive stuff and all of us sure enjoyed it and the vegetable fried with tau joo (fermented bean curd)…

…was a hit though to me, it was a little on the salty side. I am not really a fan of this vegetable, not sure what it is called – Sabah yeu chai or something…and this time around, I thought it was quite nice, after all.

The omelette…

…was fine, just that it was not what my in-laws had in mind. They were thinking of something done old-school style with a lot of the very fragrant golden fringe like what I had here but no, this was not how it was supposed to be done. Still, an egg is an egg…and it was o.k. – we managed to finish all that in no time at all.

All in all, we thought the dinner was quite delightful…and with the rice and  drinks, the bill came up to slightly over RM120.00 only for 8 persons. I would say that was very reasonable, around SGD45.00 and it certainly was cheap for my niece who picked up the tab, thanks so much to her from all of us!

Vino de amor…

The name of this place…

…reminds me of this song…

…which, it seems, is the vocal version of this must-learn and must-play piece of all my friends in the 70’s who were into the classical guitar but it has a slightly different name, the Romance de Amor/Amour.

Well, I did mention in an earlier post that I did not cook anything special over the weekend when my girl came home so I decided to take her out for a special treat instead. We dropped by here once before when they first started but they were not open for lunch then and somehow or other, we never came back.

Of course, she was delighted when I mentioned that we would be going for pizza…

…and that one with a whole lot of salmon came at a whooping RM48.00. Never mind, as long as she enjoyed it and she loves salmon, that girl of mine!

We also ordered their potato roestti (RM22.00)…

…with sausages…

…to try.

It was all right – we wouldn’t mind the potato a little softer but we thought the bigger sausage…

…was very nice and we were wondering if they made the sausages themselves as the chorizo-like one…

…tasted quite different from the ones I brought back from New Zealand but I loved it, maybe because it had a taste that I am more accustomed to – slightly like those at the char siew barbecued pork stalls…and I do enjoy those.

I saw the beef kway teow Reanaclaire had in Adelaide and that reminded me of a very nice one here that I had a long time ago. I don’t think they have it there anymore as the boss had retired and I am not sure if the current people are still whipping up the dish but I vaguely recall having it at another place that I have not been to for ages and was contemplating upon dropping by to see if they still serve that there. Then, I saw it in the menu (RM16.00)…

…and wasted no time in placing our order for it. It was good, with lots of beef, nice and tender despite the fact that I did spot a slice…

…that was not cut across the grain.

We did enjoy what we had – the servings were huge and what we had were pretty good all right plus the service was great. The place was very crowded though and very noisy…and rather hot. I have read complaints about the latter on Facebook and I thought perhaps it was because of its open kitchen concept and their wood-fired oven…

…was right in front. We had that at the Italian place we went to in Auckland but it was an open place, not enclosed and air-conditioned and of course, the temperate weather there was so much cooler and nicer so we did not feel the heat at all.

Well, if you ask me, as far as the place, ambiance and taste are concerned, I think I prefer the other one.

Checking it out…

It was quite a while ago when someone mentioned in passing that the coffee here was very good…

…but I never got round to checking it out till the other morning.

If anyone is interested, it is located almost opposite one of the private hospitals in town and the Sibu Polyclinic is right down that same road…and if you are seated in front at that shop, you will see the “UFO” not very far away.

Well, the coffee is o.k…

– I would not say that it swept me off my feet but it was all right, better than a lot of other places but it is RM1.60 a glass though while others may be going for RM1.50 or less and some have already gone up to RM1.80 for quite sometime now.

There are two stalls up front – one, a pizza stall, that was not open that morning and the other, a roti canai stall…

…that certainly seemed to be doing pretty well.

The kampua noodle stall is at the back, behind the drinks section, and not visible from the road so those uninitiated would probably think they do not have it there. I ordered a bowl (RM2.80)…

…to try and yes, it was very good. It was pretty obvious actually as they did seem to enjoy a roaring business and though it  was just 8 something in the morning, they had run out of liver soup. In the end, I had to settle for their mixed soup (RM4.00)…

…and it was really very very nice and flavourful. I did not quite care for the sausage and crab stick though – I’m not a fan of those so the next time I order this, I would have to remember to tell them to leave those out and substitute them with a couple of their fresh minced meat balls instead.

All in all, it was a good breakfast, for RM8.40 in total.

Piece by piece…

I did not cook anything really special when my girl came home on Friday for the weekend but I made these bergedil or potato patties or croquettes for her. She loves bergedil and at times, they are available at my regular Malay kuih stall at Bandong here. They’re not bad, I would say, though they are usually a tad too oily.

There were two potatoes left in the house so that was all I had to work upon. I washed them, cut them into quarters (so it would be easier to cook) and boiled them. In the meantime, I chopped some spring onions from my garden and peeled, sliced and pounded one Bombay onion…

…and I also soaked some udang kering (dried prawns) and pounded them to add to the ingredients. After that, I added some breadcrumbs…

In the past, I had pounded my own cheese crackers but there wasn’t any in the house and I saw a half-used pack of breadcrumbs in one of the airtight containers in the pantry so I just decided to use that instead. Of course, it would be nice to add minced meat, beef especially, but I decided to do it differently.

I mixed everything together and then I put in the boiled potatoes, peeled and eyes removed…

…and mashed them well. I broke an egg and beat it and added a bit to the mixture as a binding agent…and saved the rest for use later.

Once everything was ready…

…I rolled the mixture into little balls and flattened them into pieces…

…ready to be fried.

I heated some oil in a pan and once it was hot enough, I dipped each piece into the aforementioned egg, coated it with breadcrumbs and dropped it into the oil to fry till golden brown…

There you are! I let the pieces stand on some kitchen towel for a while to absorb any excess oil…before putting them in a plate to serve…

It certainly was not difficult to make and I sure would want to make some more some other time and try adding some other ingredients like cheese or ham or bacon. I bet with those, they would taste great too!

Who was it…

This lovely postcard…

…came in the mail the other day and I did not know who sent it.

It came from Osaka in Japan…

…and yes, I did know that this blogger friend of mine went there recently but I was not sure if it was her.

Ahhhh!!! That’s the Osaka Castle in the distance. My missus…

…and I were there sometime in the mid-80’s in the winter…

…when we were still very young and that was before my girl came along.

I checked the stamps…

…and from what I could make out in the postmarks, the date stamped looked something like 15.12.18 – could it be the 18th of December, 2015? Wowwwww!!!! Amazing! Getting something in the post some 8 months ahead of time! This has got to be possuperduperlaju! LOL!!!

Then, I saw this…

…in yellow ink so it was not clearly visible or maybe it was due to my failing eyesight, I wouldn’t know. So it was from 1sun3, after all, and she wrote it on the 10th of April. That, I would say, was pretty good – getting here all the way from Japan in less than a fortnight.

Thank you so much, my friend. It certainly is so very sweet and thoughtful of you to drop me a line everytime you go somewhere on vacation. I do hope you had a jolly good time there.

Blank space…

“What is this?” I asked.

I had seen the bottle in the fridge for a few days but I did not know what it was that was inside.

It looked like some kind of sambal that she would use to fry paku or midin (wild jungle fern) or sweet potato leaves or vegetables such as kangkong (water spinach) or long beans. However, it did not look like it had any udang kering (dried prawns) inside but it sure had a very nice fragrance whatever that went into the pounded sambal…

“I don’t know,” she replied…and then she added, “Maybe it’s your tom yam paste?”

No, it was definitely not my tom yam paste – that was still in the original bottle stashed away nicely in the fridge and this sure was not it. Maybe it was some sambal for her ayam balada – I could vaguely recall we had something like that not too long ago but never mind, since she said it was not hers, I decided to just use it and cooked this…

Hehehehehehe!!!!

 I fried some ikan bilis in a bit of oil until golden brown and then I removed it to use later for garnishing. Then, I added the sambal into the oil and fried it till it was done before I put in the leftover rice that was in the fridge that morning. Finally, I added two eggs…and it was done! I garnished it with the aforementioned ikan bilis and some chopped spring onions from my garden…

…and served.

It certainly was very very nice and I would want to cook it this way again…

– maybe I could add some prawns, pineapple…and lemon grass and curry and Thai basil leaves…and serve it with crushed peanut sprinkled over it. I bet that would be really good but the problem now is…I do not know what went into that mysterious bit of sambal though I am pretty sure I know where that came from. Wink! Wink!

I guess this temporary loss of memory or blackout comes with old age – the mind going blank suddenly. Sometimes, I was telling friends where to go and eat some nice dish…and I just could not recall the name of the place at that point in time…and ever so often, I had just put down my phone some place and I could not remember exactly where so I had to search high and low for it.

That has also happened before when I met my ex-students from way back when. Often, I would shock them by calling out their names and they would exclaim, “Wowwww!!!! You can remember, sir!!!” Of course, I could and I would take pride in that…but there had been occasions when I just could not put a finger on the student’s name and at times like this, I wished they would just tell me, “Hello, sir! Remember me? I’m so and so!” instead of letting me struggle, racking my brain for the elusive name…and the funny thing was, after a few days, the name would just pop up in my head like magic! Tsk! Tsk!

Anybody else in this same boat?

The choice is yours…

I dropped by this place again the other morning and I decided to try their kway teow goreng (fried flat rice noodles)…

It seemed to have the exact same taste as the fried noodles I had the last time I was here. I guess it must be the same recipe, the same ingredients – they just substituted the yellow noodles with the kway teow…but it was nice, the way they did it, so I did not have any cause for complaint over the fact.

However, I could remember when I had the noodles the last time, though it tasted great, it was devoid of any added ingredients so when I saw them taking out the fried chicken wings from the kitchen, hot from the wok, I asked for one…

…to go with my kway teow. That was a mistake! No, no…it tasted fine but when I was paying for my orders, I found out that it was RM3.00 each! Oh me oh my! I wonder how much the Colonel charges for one piece of chicken at his place. Long ago, chicken wings (usually the barbecued ones at the roadside stalls…or the deep fried ones at my school canteen before I retired) were RM1.00 each and then it went up to RM1.50…and then, RM2.00…but RM3.00!!! I might as well order a second plate of the kway teow! Tsk! Tsk!

And talking about the kway teow, it certainly was very reasonably charged – at RM3.00 only…compared to those chu-char places where they used to charge RM3.50 a plate (dunno if they have jacked up the prices now) and no, they would not have a lot of added ingredients either – bits of meat, egg and green veg that are hardly visible to the naked eye. So, what I had that morning – the kway teow and the chicken wing…

…came up to RM6.00. Ouch!!!

Thankfully, the kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee)…

…was only RM1.30 compared to RM1.50 at the Chinese coffee shops or RM1.80 for quite a while already at some others. It wasn’t really great though, not as kao (strong) as I would like it to be and typical of many Malay shops, it was very sweet. I certainly would have to put in a kurangkan gula (less sugar) request if ever I would have that again.

Works are going on in the area right now to give the place a nice new image – Bandong Walk, it will be called…

…so all the makeshift stalls have shifted to the other side of the road for the time being but this one is new…

…located in the open space right beside my regular car wash place opposite. One of the guys told me that they would put out tables and chairs and the boys working at the car wash would help out with the serving at night. For one thing, they would be using electric ovens for their pizzas, not the traditional wood-fired stone ones and while I was getting my car washed that morning, the boys had turned the tv on…

…full blast, with some lady belting out a dangdut song.

Of course, the choice is mine…but if it is going to be that noisy, I think I’d pass…thank you very much!

I choose you…

If I were to choose one brand of luncheon meat that I like, it would be this one…

…made in Denmark…

…and because there isn’t all that much fat in it…

…it is not so mushy like some brands and that would put me off right away.

It is salty though so one would have to eat it with rice or bread or add more egg when cooking. To reduce the fat/oil and to get a nice red crusty exterior, I grilled the pieces in a non-stick pan first till all the oil came out  and then I used the oil to fry the sliced Bombay onion and the eggs…and mixing all those together, it was done…

So very easy! If you want to see photographs of what I did step by step, it is all here in my 2012 post…except that this time around, I did not add any curry leaves as it was raining very heavily that morning and I had no intention of going out to pluck some.

This is available at a number of places in town and prices vary around RM7-8.00 a can. I bought mine at RM7 something but I can’t remember exactly where now. These days, I jolly well can’t afford any of these…

…anymore as I saw some at the supermarket near my house going for over RM12.00…and the last time I checked at another supermarket in the town centre, it was already over RM16.00. Absolutely outrageous, those prices…and they’re kind of hard and dry, anyway – not as nice.

These made-in-Singapore ones…

…and these made-in-the EU, Singapore recipe…

…are good too but I have not bought any for quite a while now so I am not sure of the current prices of these.

I was ok with the made-in-China Gulong brand at one time but if I’m not wrong, theirs do not come cheap anymore, around RM8.00 a can, and I did read somewhere that there are imitations. Anyway, as long as it is from China, my missus would not touch it…like the RM2.00 something (compared to RM5 something at least these days for the other regular brands) can of sardines that I thought was very nice but because of the bad press the products from there have been getting, I guess it is best to play safe and avoid buying any.

Let’s give it a try…

I still had two little sengkuang/mangkuang, two pieces of tau kua, a bit of prawns and some French beans left so I decided to fry some more popiah filling the same way that I did the other day. We had finished all the skin that we used the previous time but there was this pack…

…in the fridge that my missus bought a while ago – though I wondered why since she has never been into making popiah. other than those little rolls with prawn sambal inside for occasions like Chinese New Year.

Well, this one isn’t as easy as the other peel-and-use type…

…that one would only need to thaw once taken out of the freezer, that’s all.

It sure looks more like the freshly-made popiah skin…

…though, just a little thicker and harder but once steamed, it would turn soft.

However, it tears rather easily though…

…so it would be best…

…not to apply the pounded chili or put the filling first. It was fine when I put the thinly-sliced omelette and lettuce first, before adding the filling and the chili, in whichever order, and crushed peanut (this could be at the bottom too, actually) on top and rolled…

…and yes, one should not be over-ambitious and add too much filling to make one big popiah – the skin will give way, that’s for sure.

I would say it was all right and as the title of the song goes – ain’t nothing like the real thing!

And moving away from the subject of popiahs, I fried this for the girls for breakfast…

…before sending them back to their school on Sunday – fried bihun with canned stewed pork chop and thinly-sliced French beans and egg. If anyone is interested, I’ve blogged about cooking it before right here…and like what I mentioned then, make sure you get the canned stewed pork chops as this would be mostly lean and all you need to do would be to get rid of the bones and mash the meat into bits and pieces.

Come, give it a try…