Forty-four…

Towards the end of the 60’s and the beginning of the 70’s, there were only two Form 6 classes in Sibu and in fact, in the whole of the central region of Sarawak – the Arts stream in Methodist Secondary School and the Science stream in Sacred Heart Secondary School. Many would drop out of school at Primary 6 or after Form 3 or later, after Form 5…by which time, there were not all that many left. Being an Arts student, I had to move from the latter to the former…and I had classmates from the other schools in the town and from far and wide, from places such as Betong, for one.

Our class was bigger, Lower 6, 1970, but some dropped out when they did not get Grade 1 in the Senior Cambridge Examination, a few left to go overseas to study and some moved to other schools such as Tanjong Lobang in Miri. By the time we finished Sixth Form in 1971, there were only 27 or 28 of us left…and to date, a few had passed away.

There was an attempt to hold a reunion sometime last year but there were not all that many who could make it at the time for one reason or other. After that, somebody suggested holding one in Sibu and I was given the task of organising. I would not say that the response was overwhelming – only 15, yours truly included, joined though there were others who signed up but later, pulled out owing to unforseen circumstances. Still, we appreciated very much the effort of everyone who came especially those who came back from as far as Australia and also Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Betong and Sarikei…

I made a booking at this hotel and asked specially for their special room where I had attended two reunion dinners not too long ago with my Kanowit students here and here. With some of our spouses and our children, we were able to make up three tables and that was all the room could accommodate. It was very private with two staff members – a waiter and a waitress assigned to serve us, very comfortable and had its own toilet plus there was a PA system and karaoke facilities as well.

This was the first dish – their hot and cold mixed combination…

…which was followed by the fish lips’ soup with dry scallops and crab meat – I had requested for that instead of the unmentionable offensive stuff. I did not take a photograph of it though as the efficient staff divided the soup into little bowls and served it to us individually.

After the soup came the roast duck…

…which was pretty well done…

…and came with the dark sweet bean sauce dip. I do think though that what I had with my Singapore friends at another restaurant in town had a slight edge over it but then again, that was a different duck dish, not the same.

The curry fish…

…served with rice, was a hit…and was gone in no time at all. One of my classmates, back from KL, said it was the best siakap he had ever had anywhere and added that the chef must be really good. Hmmmm…I did not even know what fish it was – I just ate. LOL!!! My missus said this was nicer – it had a very slight sourish taste and not sweet like the one at the other place but my girl said that though this was very good too, she would prefer that other one. Like with everything else, I guess this was obviously a case of to each his own, one man’s meat another man’s poison.

After the fish, the dish of braised abalone slices with fresh mushroom and broccoli was served but I was up and about at the time so I did not get to snap a photograph of it as well. I guess it was good as by the time I got back to the table, there wasn’t very much of it left. The final dish was the Vietnamese prawns…

…served with their really awesome own-made bun…

…that was so good you could eat it on its own and in fact, one of my classmates’ son did. He was allergic to prawns, he said but he tried the bread and loved it! They did not use the giant freshwater udang galah (bamboo prawns) this time around and I was glad they didn’t as the last time we had that, I thought the prawns were kind of bland, not all that nice. These big seawater prawns were a lot better as they were very fresh, sweet and succulent.

Then came the desserts – a lovely bowl of ice-cold peaches and longans each and this platter…

…of or nee (yam paste) and mochi with or tau sar (red bean paste) and whatever else inside. The paste was not as fine as what we had with our Singaporean friends but personally, I would prefer it this way.

This dinner with 6 main courses and two desserts, 8 altogether, cost RM400 per table, exclusive of the 6% government tax. There were only 28 of us, 10 at one table and 9 at each of the other two but we all agreed to divide the total, including the drinks and everything, equally…and in the end, each of us had to fork out RM50.00 per head only for the very delightful meal and a wonderful evening. Service was great so I gave the waiter and the waitress RM10.00 each to show our appreciation of a job well done.

It truly was a memorable gathering and I was glad to have had this opportunity to meet so many of them that I had not seen since we left school…forty-four years ago!