A few days…

An ex-student of mine, Raphael, was home from the US for a few days and I offered to pick him up at the airport upon arrival on Monday last week. First things first, and what else if not the Sibu kampua noodle welcome here…

He felt it was a little light on the lard and I certainly would agree that it was not as fragrant as before. Perhaps owing to the escalating cost of pork and other related products here, the lady had seen it fit to cut down a bit on that…or maybe it was just one of those days. At another place here, sometime ago, the seller told me that she would mix the lard with a bit of vegetable oil as it was getting a bit too expensive for comfort. Nonetheless, Raphael loved the braised/stewed pork used in place of the ultra-thin slices of red-coloured boiled pork char siew wannabes that you will see elsewhere.

A few nights later, he was free so we were able to go out for dinner and I took him here for the grilled chicken (RM12.50)…

Actually, I did go with my girl and the mum during the week-long school break but I did not blog about it. The fried chicken (RM9.50) that I had was very good but unlike what we had the first time we went and also the second time, the grilled version that the two ladies had turned out to be most disappointing. The meat was dry and hard and I was quite sure at that point in time that it was some leftover chicken from the night before that they just reheated and served us.

That was why this time around, I kept emphasising the point and reiterating to the waiter that we would want one that was freshly cooked, not dry and hard like the ones on my previous visit and he promised it would be to our satisfaction, no worries. Unfortunately, it was still rather dry and hard, not as bad as before, but no, if I had known it was going to be like that, I would have suggested to Raphael that he should go for something else instead, like the fried chicken that I had (RM9.50)…

…which was perfectly ok, very nice.

The umai (RM15.00)…

…that we had, thankfully, was really very good and went absolutely well with the rice…

For the uninitiated, umai is raw fish with lots for thinly sliced onions and chilies drowned in calamasi lime juice, a Melanau specialty here and I was of the opinion that this one that we had, also made using fresh ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret), was a lot better than what we had been having all this while here as theirs had always been a tad too sour and could only be enjoyed if eaten with rice, not on its own.

One thing that puts me off here is how there are things on their menu and yet, they are never available – like their ayam pansoh or oxtail soup…and they are always out of ikan tenggiri (mackerel) so if it is fish one wants, then one would have to order their ikan duai aka bawal (black pomfret). If they have no intention of serving those ever, then they should leave them out of their menu or at least, place stickers to block them out or write “NOT AVAILABLE” so one would not need to ask if they have something or not.

After dinner, I took Raphael to the back of the restaurant to see them grilling the chicken on the barbecue stove and there and then, it dawned upon me why the meat was so hard and dry. They would cook a whole lot at one time and they would arrange those that were done all along the sides while they went on and grilled some more. My guess would be that the heat from the grill would go on cooking the already cooked ones and hence, they all turned out that way.

This would be that same reason why many people told me that they do not like tandoori chicken as it was always hard and dry and from what I saw, they also cooked the chicken and then, they left it on the skewers in the tandoori oven or cauldron and when there was an order, they would just remove one and serve. The ones that we have here would only be cooked upon a customer’s order and hence, it would always be juicy and tender and nice!

After dinner, we went for dessert but you will have to stick around for that as it will be in the next post. LOL!!! In the meantime, I really must say thank you very much to Raphael for all the goodies that he had carted home from the US for me…

…and thanks also to the mum for the dates and guavas…

My missus enjoys the guavas that she did give me once the last time when Raphael came back to Sibu.