This is what they told me…

I was here (2.291904, 111.834897)…

…for the kolo mee a long time ago but my friend/ex-classmate, Robert, told me that they had moved to another place not too far away and asked me to drop by and try but I have yet to do that. I did notice that this one was closed for a while and just a few days later, it reopened and has been going full swing since then. I don’t know if it is the same people as before but they still have those western dishes…

…that they used to sell starting at 3.00 p.m. and I did ask the guy at the back who dishes out all the fried stuff – the fried mee and what not, and he said it would be available from around noon onwards now.

Well, when my Kuching cousins came to town, they went here for the dianpianngu and they were disappointed as they were using the frozen fish balls and they did say something about the soup too, I can’t remember what now. I had the original one in town once and I did not like it so I never went back there again. I would think the people in Sibu will have to pull up there socks as from what many have told me, with the influx of the Foochows to Kuching, there are a few places in the city that sell very nice dianpianngu. What a shame it would be if one can’t find any good one here anymore, this Sibu Foochow delight since time immemorial!

Then, there was Robert’s cousin, my friend on Facebook, who always shares a lot of photographs of all the nice things that he goes around eating…and I saw that they have dianpianngu at this shop (RM4.00)…

…and that was why I decided to drop by to check it out.

My missus ordered the kolo mee (RM3.50)…

…and asked for chili sauce to be added. I don’t know if that was why it was so very red or that would be its usual colour and when I asked her, she said it was all right and added that it tasted just like kampua noodles. I guess this would be another one of those that we have around town then – looks the same, but not quite the same.

As usual, I ordered a glass of kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) and I got this…

…but I just let it be. Sometimes one has to take things as they come, no need to sweat the small stuff.

I overheard the lady at the noodles stall talking to a guy at another table, grumbling about how expensive things have become these days – a packet of sambal laksa is over RM10.00 now, and coffee powder is RM20.00 a kilo, the one she gets from here. Hmmmm….I got the RM35.00 a kilo one from here for the popiah lunch that I had at my house – I’ve tried the RM45.00 a kilo one from Brazil but I did not like it as to me, it was not all that great, none of the much coveted coffee fragrance plus it was way too expensive.

I must say, though, that the coffee I had here was good, albeit the milk substitute – no, they do not have condensed milk around here anymore and they are using what is called sweetened creamer and it is all palm oil.

Going back to the dianpianngu…

…it was actually very nice except that they too were using those frozen fish balls as well. What I particularly liked about it was that the soup had the meng ngee (dried cuttlefish)…

…fragrance and sweetness and that sure pushed it up a head above the rest. These dried ones are very expensive these days and the last I saw any in a bowl of dianpianngu, they were using the fresh cuttlefish and no, those would not be the same, far from it!

I was thinking that perhaps they could give customers an option – to pay more for a bowl with their own freshly-made fish balls, bay kar (tenggiri/mackerel) no less, or settle for the frozen supermarket ones at RM4.00 a bowl. I sure would not mind forking out a bit more for the former.

I saw that they had lor mee (RM5.00)…

…here too and it had been a long time since I had one like those I used to enjoy a long time ago so I decided to order a bowl to try…but no, it wasn’t anything like lor mee as I know it to be but with the chili dip…

…that came with it (even though it looks more or less like bottled chili sauce in the photo), I would say that it…

…was very nice. I had most of the dianpianngu so I was already quite full when this was served. That was why I only managed to finish around half of it but I did eat up all that came with the noodles – the whole egg, slices of char siew and some minced meat and the kangkong…and yes, I would not mind dropping by to have this again should I happen to be in the vicinity but now that I know better, I would not be expecting something tasting like the lor mee I had eaten and loved before.

They also sell Sarawak laksa here and I would love to try the fried noodles and stuff from the chu-char guy at the back to see if they are any good. That would have to wait till the next time we’re around that area then.