Anywhere…

Anywhere you go in Sibu, you will see stalls in the uncountable number of coffee shops in the town selling kampua mee. All those that you have seen in my blog all this while would probably not even make 5% so you can imagine how many there actually are in the town. Of course, some are very nice while there are others that are not to my liking but still, most enjoy enough business to keep them going so I guess even the not-so-good ones aren’t doing too badly.

I was at the other side of town the other day – I do not venture there very frequently as by our Sibu standard, that is considered far even though getting there will not take much longer than say, 15 minutes by car. It was around tea time and I felt like having something to eat but I did not quite care for anything from our own Sarawak franchise outlet there nor this West Malaysian one so in the end, I decided that I would just stop by here (2.265652,111.862691)…

…for a plate of kampua noodles.

The stall is right in front of the coffee shop…

…manned by the handsome young man in the blue t-shirt.

I wanted a bowl of kampua pian sip but he did not have the combo in his menu so I had the kampua noodles (RM3.00)…

…and a bowl of pian sip (wonton-like meat dumplings), dry.

I did not think the noodles were all that great, I’m afraid to say. First and foremost, I am not all that fond of this thinner and curlier version of the noodles. My friend in the instant kampua business said that if they make the noodles using machine, it would come out like that, otherwise it would be a little bigger and straighter but I don’t know if this same thing applies to these fresh non-instant ones or not.

Besides, I found the noodles kind of lacking in the fragrance of lard and shallot oil which are two prime considerations in determining good kampua mee, the qualities that would draw the line between the boys and the men, so to speak…plus it was a little overcooked and a bit too soft for my liking. But once I tossed all the chili sauce, given in the little saucer, together with the noodles, I thought it was quite all right after that.

It was a completely different story with the pian sip (RM3.00)…

…though.

It sure looked a lot different from what one would usually get to see elsewhere…

*Archive photo*

…especially with the slightly reddish sauce and the addition of those curly green vegetables. Another difference would be the fact that when one eats pian sip, it will be mostly skin and there is very little meat in each of them. When they make them, they would just apply a very thin layer of the minced meat onto the skin, thinner than the peanut butter I would put on my slice of bread. The ones that I had here, however, were very different. There was so much meat inside…

…that I actually felt like I was eating meatballs wrapped with pian sip skin…and yes, I liked it a lot!!!

I don’t recall ever having tried anything from the many stalls at that coffee shop or if I did, probably they were nothing good enough to be all that memorable but yes, I did try the beef noodles there. I cannot seem to find my post on it anymore…or maybe, I did not bother to blog about it as at best, it was just so-so, something one might considering having when one is around there but I would not say it is worth going out of your way for it…but I would say the pian sip is pretty good and on my part, I would much sooner choose that instead.