It was my brother-in-law’s birthday yesterday so of course, my niece, the one working in Singapore, flew home last weekend for a little celebration in advance and on Saturday night, they picked to come here for dinner.
Of course I have blogged about this place and the dishes available here many times already. My brother-in-law got to pick his favourite dishes and without fail, wherever we may go for dinner, there would be the sweet and sour fish fillet…
…which was good that night. I think we had it pre-ordered once and probably they cooked it way ahead of time so by the time it was served, the batter coating of the fish slices had gone all soggy so it was not all that nice.
He also picked this fried omelette with bits of century egg…
…and sliced Bombay onions and a bit of leek in it, something that he always complains they can never replicate at home. Hmmmm…he has yet to try mine. Hehehehehe!!!!
There was also this dish of what we call Sabah yeu chai…
…whatever it is called in English. They like it very much and would always order it when we go out for dinner but it is not really my favourite. I would much sooner stick to our good ol’ cangkuk manis with egg or midin with belacan.
I am very sure we had ordered this before – the pork with dried chili and salted fish and lots of ginger and onion…
…but I do not recall them serving it in a claypot placed on top of a food warmer with a fire down below. Maybe for smaller servings, they would dispense with that as everything would be gone in no time at all.
This is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, the butter scotch prawn balls…
…and their salad tofu…
…own-made, with dried prawns in the bean curd, served with mayonnaise is another popular dish here.
I’ve never had this before – their hot and sour soup…
…and my guess is that is what usually people call the Szechuan soup. We enjoyed that – it was a nice change from our usual sea cucumber or Foochow-style tofu soup.
There you have it, our simple celebration that night and nothing beats getting together with loved ones, be it family or friends, to share the joy of a special occasion.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
When I was a child the nearest restaurant to us was about 60km away. It was Chinese and we would go there for a treat about once a month. Sweet and sour dishes (usually pork) were always on our order.
Yes, it’s very common – every Chinese takeaway overseas would have that on the go, with rice.
All his favourite dishes make it more memorable and happier. I love all the dishes. I like Szechuan soup too.
That beancurd looked good too, would love to try it out.
Happy birthday to your BIL.
Thank you. You’ll have to come to Sibu if you want to try. Any plans? Gawai mid-year holidays coming soon.
You just gave me an idea: fried omelette century egg.. Never tried that before, will try it soon.. I have century eggs at home now 🙂 But my favourite would still be the creamy butterscotch prawns and salad tofu.. I can finish the whole plate of fried tofu, yummzz..
Usually, there would be three types of egg – salted egg yolk too but there wasn’t any in the one we had that night. Maybe they did not have any good salted eggs in stock – sometimes it is quite hard to find really nice ones.
I’m ok with the fried tofu, nice but not exactly among my favourite dishes here. Very popular though – you see a lot of people ordering that.
The omelet and veggies look mouthwatering. 🙂
I would say everything was good though I am not all that fond of this type of veg.
The tofu dish reminds me of a sweet dish… deep fried yam rolled with sugar 😀
Deep fried yam with sugar? Never heard of nor seen that before, don’t think we have that here. Sure would love to try – wonder where you have this in Penang.
So the next time, isn’t it you want to cook one for him, to let him try yours, hehe!
Yes, the next time we have them over at our house for dinner, I must remember to cook and let him try mine, see whether he likes it or not. Hehehehehe!!!!
All the dishes look very good. A real banquet.
Yes, everything was nice but no, it wasn’t really a banquet – just a nice dinner for the six of us, RM90.00 only altogether for the food.
That’s heartwarming to hear that your niece flew back to celebrate together – with family members all scattered around these days, every get-together counts! 🙂
She’s a good girl, makes it a point to fly home for everyone’s birthdays. I think she takes the trouble to check the air fares regularly and book quickly when they are going cheap. Everyone can fly!
Nice birthday dinner with loved ones. All the dishes looks so yummy. Pork with salted fish sounds good. Will try to cook this if I can get hold of very lean 3 layer pork.
Don’t think we’ve tried it – but we will order sometimes when eating out and I would request for more lean meat.
That Sabah yeu chai. if I am not mistaken is call yau mak over here. I’m just OK with it.
Yup, I think I saw it in Claire’s blog – that’s the name she called it.
Nice balanced dinner.. meat and greens are well ordered. I miss the buttered prawns, they look so creamy and juicy.. 🙂
Different, the ones here – none like this anywhere else.
I wonder how they made the salad tofu so nice, i tried making myself before, but unsuccessful…
I’m afraid I don’t know how to go about it. My sister-in-law was explaining how they do it that night but I was not paying attention, no intention of doing it myself. 😛
Their butter scotch prawn is the boom!! But I notice that the portion is getting smaller and smaller nowadays!
Their signature dish! And yes, I did think the serving was rather small for 6 but at least they have maintained their prices unlike a number of places here – maybe that is why people are coming back, more people now. At one time, the place was kind of quiet, business seemed slow.
Prawns are expensive and they shrink – so they would need pretty big ones for this dish. The smaller ones I use at home as an added ingredient when frying veg were around RM12 a while ago, that day I bought – RM16 a kilo. The bigger they are, the more expensive they would be so can’t really blame them that there weren’t so many in the plate.
The Sabah yeu chai, they are commonly known as yau mak cai in west Malaysia.
In Singapore, they are known as baby romaine lettuce. It can be eaten raw with dressing as a salad.
Oh? I’ve had imported romaine lettuce before, I thought it was nicer. This Sabah one is a little bitter if eaten raw – I’ve tried before when I could not find any other for my salad…and I never like lettuce cooked, any kind. Best raw, in salad or with salad dressing dip.
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