If you ever drop by Sibu, you will not fail to notice how many coffee shops there are in this town.
At the other end of the block, where you can find this one…
…in the vicinity of Sungai Merah here, is this one that I have blogged about not too long ago and there is this one at the end of the block to the left with the covered area in between the two where tables are laid out and customers are able to sit there too if they choose to do so…and then, there is an outlet of our own Sarawak chicken rice franchise too somewhere in the middle of that block and another coffee shop at the other end…and don’t forget, there is this one back to back with the first one I mentioned earlier and yes, there are more in the other blocks of shops all around that same area.
I have been here before a long time ago, so long that I can’t remember whether I blogged about it or not…but it so happened that my ex-student from my English Language tuition class shared this photograph of her plate of prawn noodles…
…on her Facebook page and initially, I thought she cooked that herself but she said, “It’s from a shop at Sg. Merah, just right across from the Catholic Church.” At that point in time, I thought it was this one but she added, “Not sure what’s the name of the shop. They’ve two corner shops joined. Mostly Malay stalls but this dish is from a Chinese stall at the back.” I had no idea at that point in time which shop she was talking about and as a matter of fact, it was only after we had left the place that morning did it dawn on me that this was the one! Good grief!!! LOL!!!
I saw the photographs of the prawn noodles at the stall and I did ask the guy how much one plate would cost and he said RM30.00…and no, of course, I did not order that. My missus requested for the tan hua mian (egg flower noodles) from him (RM5.00)…
…and I must say I was impressed by the amount of ingredients in the dish…
There were bits of liver, intestines, prawns, fish balls, meat and so on and my missus said that it was very nice and had that very much coveted wok hei fragrance. However, she said that the sauce/gravy was tomato and it would probably be nicer if it had been kway teow (flat rice noodles) instead.
In Kuching, you do find noodles served with tomato gravy like this but they deep-fry the finer noodles first – if I am not mistaken, they use the ones in their kolo mee – till nice and crispy and then, they would cook the gravy and pour it all over it, pretty much the same way they cooked the Cantonese fried noodles at one place that I used to frequent in PJ Old Town but they did not have tomato in their egg gravy.
I decided to have something from the Malay stall…
…in front. It sure seemed mighty popular and I thought the dishes they had for their nasi campur (mixed rice) looked good. Perhaps I would drop by for that one of these days.
I had their nasi lemak special (RM5.00)…
…and yes, I thought the rice was slightly better than what I had here but was not as nice as my slightly more expensive favourite in town – I wouldn’t say that one was the best I have ever had but comparatively, I find it better than all the rest around here. I did like that salted fish though but the egg was over-fried and usually with nasi lemak, they would serve the egg hard-boiled, just half of it to the most though.
The coffee was good and yes, I would think we would be back again and most likely, the next time around, I would order something from the noodles stall at the back.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
The egg flower noodle looked pretty and appetizing. Worth the price.
With all the ingredients in it, definitely. The regular Foochow fried noodles, around RM4.00, almost nothing inside. 😦
Good deal for that plate of tan hua mian. I don’t mind tomato based gravy but not to the extend till it taste so sourish. Have a great long weekend.
Here, some of them, it’s like eating tomato sauce straight from the bottle, they don’t know how to do it right. I don’t like those.
The tan hua mian is so loaded with ingredients. I like! I agree with your missus that it would be better with koay teow, my favorite.
We usually have the sauce with kway teow here, first time seeing it with noodles. I wouldn’t mind if they do it like how they do it in Kuching, very nice.
I like Tomato Ketchup so the Kuching’s Tomato-gravy noodles were good for me 😀
Did you try it in Kuching? I love how they do it there, the noodles. Kway teow, we do have nice ones here too but not all are.
That’s a lot of ingredients, here, nowadays the ingredients are little…
Indeed, worth the price.
Wow.. the ingredients in the noodles are overflowing! I like the prawn noodles your student took and your missus one too… so generous with the ingredients, RM5 is worth it.. you should try the Rm30 one… at least taste it and then let us know whether it is worth the price or not… 🙂
Can’t go wrong with prawns, must be very nice – I saw a lot of people eating it but for RM30, I can go to the wet market and buy 1 kg and cook and eat till kingdom come. I wouldn’t want to spend my money just like that. Yes, just RM1 more for all those extra ingredients is truly value for money, I must say. Worth it!
I tend to not like tomato sauces/gravies … Cos they tend to taste artificial-ish, and more importantly, I think they don’t really complement ingredients like liver and intestines … I think I’d love those noodles if it had been a different sauce 🙂
I’m not a fan of tomato-based gravy or sauce either so that is why I am not all that crazy over bolognese but sweet and sour meat or fish is nice, the sauce goes well with rice. I do prefer it with kway teow though…and the way they do it in Kuching with their noodles. I did not try as I was having something from the Malay stall – would not want to use my cutlery with the non-halal stuff but my missus did say it would be nicer with kway teow. We’ll order that the next time we drop by.