You took me by surprise…

My cousin and her hubby from Brisbane, Australia went on a 12-day cruise from Singapore to Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and back after which they flew to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and then to Miri to visit her brothers and their families…and from there, they took a bus to Sibu.

When they were about to arrive, I went to the bus terminal to wait for them. While I was standing there, a handsome young man walked up to me and said he was a regular reader of my blog and he said he would always refer to it to see where he could get to eat some nice things when in Sibu. I asked him his name and he said Kennedy, from Kuching. Now, that was indeed a surprise but yes, it was nice of him to come up and introduce himself. I bet there are others/many who would just pretend they do not know me.

As soon as the bus arrived and after seeing to some things they had to do around here, I sent my cousin and her hubby to the hotel and she asked me and my family to join them for dinner at 7.00 p.m. and for old times’ sake, she wanted to drop by this restaurant opposite the hotel where they were staying.

We were in luck! Normally, they would only serve their very popular Hainanese chicken rice – my cousin loves this a lot – for lunch but they did have some available so that was what we had – the very nice steamed corn-fed chicken…

…with the rice.

While waiting for the food, after placing our orders, we were served these…

I don’t recall ever having the pickled cucumber before and I can’t say it swept me off my feet – I do prefer the braised peanuts a lot more.

My cousin wanted the chess/checker board duck…

…and of course, when you’re in Sibu and you’re in this restaurant in particular, you simply must have their Sibu Foochow-style sio bee (meat dumplings)…

For our vegetable dish, we had the fried midin…

– their third time having these wild ferns since they arrived in Sarawak and they were determined to enjoy it as many times as they could before leaving the state and country to head for home.

 As for the soup, it had  to be the Sibu Foochow-style tofu soup with those canned oysters…

…and they sure were very generous with those.

We certainly enjoyed the dinner though it was rather heavy for the five of us. We actually requested for small servings and asked them to cook for three and looking at the amount we got, we’d probably have to reduce that to two next time. But we had a great time talking about this and that and catching up with everybody’s lives and when it was time to leave, my cousin’s hubby went to the counter to settle the bill.

What a pleasant surprise we got when the cashier informed us that everything had been paid. Goodness gracious me!!! It so happened that an ex-student of mine, now a lawyer by profession, was having dinner there as well and he so very kindly and generously picked up the tab for us. Gee!!! Thank you so much, Iggy – I do appreciate the gesture very much but please don’t do it next time – my heart may not be able to take any more surprises like this. LOL!!!

And I really must thank my cousin too for these…

…that they brought all the way from Australia and these sweet treats from the cruise…

…plus some stuff from Miri as well. It certainly was great to see the two of them again.