Wait…

Everyone can fly, the tagline says…but at times, it may be a case of everyone can wait. Of course, whenever I fly, I do not mind a little delay as long as I can get to my destination safely sooner or later.

No, I was not flying anywhere but I was at the airport here in Sibu to pick my friend, Philip, who is currently home again for the summer holidays. I must say it amazes me greatly, the wonders of the internet. These days, you can go to one of these websites and see the progress of any flight…

…and they will also tell you if the aircraft is on time…

…or delayed.

Well, Philip’s flight was on time and he even boarded the aircraft on time but when I reached the airport, I checked the website and found that it would land at past 6.45 p.m. instead of the scheduled time – 6.20 p.m. I went to check the information board inside the airport – no, it did not say the plane had been delayed but it was confirmed to arrive at 6.50 p.m.

So, I waited…and waited…and eventually, the word CONFIRMED was replaced by LANDED on the board but by 7.20 p.m., half an hour after the time it was supposed to have landed, still no one had emerged from the arrival hall. Oh yes! There were lots of people but they were on another flight, the MasWings flight from Kuching and whatever other flights from elsewhere. Maybe it was just my imagination but it sure seemed to me that when several flights landed at the same time, the budget airline would have to give way to the others. Perhaps that was why Philip said that he had to sit in the aircraft for a long time before it finally took off – maybe there were many other flights at KLIA taking off and landing at the time…so where this airline is concerned, everyone can wait!

He came out at around 7.30 p.m. and we promptly made our way back to the town…and as I had not had dinner yet, I gladly accepted his suggestion to stop by one place along the way, round the corner from where his mum lives…

…for a bite to eat. If anyone is interested, it’s at the t-junction of Jalan Teruntum and Lorong Merdeka 15 (2.305101,111.840016). You can go straight into Rejang Park, go straight ahead – past the shops and the defunct cinema in the commercial area – till you see a block of only two double-storey shops on your right at a corner of the aforementioned junction. Generally, this place is very crowded, lots of cars parked by the roadside, and is most popular for its steamboat.

I remember telling Philip that the food here would be pretty good but despite staying just around the corner, all these years, he had never got down to checking it out. I could vaguely remember that their fried kway teow with beef was good but when we were there that night, we were informed that they did not have it on the menu. Maybe they have discontinued the item as we can’t get fresh beef here and the imported ones do not come cheap…but they told us that they had fried kway teow with cockles so we decided to have that…

…instead.

Wowwwww!!!! It was so so good! If there were others elsewhere that I loved before, they would have to step aside now and make way for the one we had…

…here. There were hardly any ingredients other than the egg and a bit of taugeh (bean sprouts) and whatever – even the cockles were so few and far between, so difficult to find but the taste, the wok hei fragrance sure blew us away! Both Philip and I enjoyed it a lot and the fried cangkuk manis with egg…

…was really good too.

Philip insisted on paying and when I asked him, he said that the total came up to RM15.00 plus, less than USD4.00. He did not ask for the breakdown but my guess would be that minus the drinks, it was RM6.00 for the kway teow and RM8.00 for the cangkuk manis, the standard price for a plate of vegetables at such places around town here. No wonder there are always lots of people eating here – not only is the food good but it is cheap too…but of course, that may depend upon what you order.

Well, since I did not have dinner at home that night and I don’t think the rest ate very much either after a late lunch and a trip to the Ramadhan stalls, there was a lot of leftover rice the next morning which I fried in my simple kampung (village) style…

…and we had that for our breakfast and lunch before our special Dumpling/Dragon Boat Festival plus Father’s Day dinner that night.

It sure was nice seeing my old friend again and I really must thank him for these goodies…

…that he brought all the way from the US. Ooooo…Godiva, no less!!!

Well, in  case anyone’s wondering what the crème brûlée dessert truffles look like inside, here’s the cross-section…

Nice – lovely creamy chocolate but very sweet. Thankfully, there weren’t all that many in the pack so no, I did not over-indulge…and no prize for guessing what I used the Made-in-Canada Ma Ling luncheon meat for…

Hehehehehe!!!!

I also sliced and pan-fried the rest…

…for breakfast with my old school-style fried eggs and tomatoes by the side. Yum yummmm!!!!