My girl had to suffer a blackout at her quarters in her school last week from 6.00 p.m. the previous evening till somebody came all the way from Sibu the following afternoon to see what the problem was. If I remember correctly, there was a blackout earlier in the week at dawn but by the time they were done for the day at school, power had been restored.
It seemed that there was a lot of finger pointing – mostly at the previous guy who was awarded the contract, for one, with accusations that the wiring was not properly done…and so on and so forth but the contract had since expired. From the look of things, I would put it down to poor administration and things related. For reasons known only to them, they still run on generators even though there are electricity lines all along the main road…and there’s no tap water supply even as well! Maklumlah, dunia ketiga kita ni! Vision 2020, my foot! Not that the school is so far inland, upstream or only accessible by some rugged timber road or something like that – it is right by the Sibu-Bintulu so-called “highway” and is only a 1 and 1⁄2-hour drive from Sibu town.
Well, I guess if the problem lies in the wiring, whatever the source of the power supply, there would still be a problem…and hopefully, now that they got a guy from Sibu to check, such blackouts would be less frequent, if at all, from now on. That was why I bought her this…and now, she has this so it was not too bad for her. I wonder how the others staying in the “new” teachers quarters (and the students in the boys’ and girls’ hostels) could stand it – I would have marched into the headmaster’s office and raised a storm and run amok!
Anyway, that was why when she came home for the weekend, I wanted to take her for a nicer-than-usual lunch so we stopped by here…
…for their claypot chicken rice (RM20.00)…
…that she likes a lot.
They have a new sign now but personally, I prefer the old one – this one looks somewhat Chinese but no, it is not a Chinese restaurant nor is it a western one and no, the name is not French – I’ve mentioned that before and you can read about it in this post. I would say it is a fusion restaurant so you can get a lot of western dishes and some local and Asian ones as well…and some that may even be their own creation like this one that is new on their menu – their Japanese pork chop rice (RM14.90)…
…that we had, for instance. It was nice, the pork chop was nice and the rice mixed with whatever soup too especially when we mixed it with the seaweed…but it reminded me of Teochew porridge and no, I would not say it was something that would get us running back for more. My vote would still go to their very nice claypot chicken rice.
This (RM31.90)…
…however, would be something I would love to go back for – their lamb shank. I had seen it on their menu for a long time now and I thought that price tag was relatively cheaper than elsewhere here where it could go up to the region of RM38-39.00 or even past the RM40 mark but I was thinking that probably, that would be a bit too much for us to handle especially when we would be ordering other thing as well. However, since I was going to pamper my girl a bit to make up for the aforementioned ordeal she had to go through, I went ahead and ordered it – we could always tapao whatever that would be left if we could not finish it.
My girl loved it…
…and so did I! It tasted really great and was so very tender, very nicely done indeed…and my girl enjoyed the mashed potatoes as well and yes, I thought it was good too. I certainly would request for a lot more of that the next time we order this…and they can skip the tomatoes and the (canned) mushrooms…if I could manage to get the message across to the sweet, young mono-lingual waitress, that is or perhaps I could just ask to speak to the lady boss.
We managed to finish all of it and most of the other two rice items but that sure was one heavy lunch, I must say. Never mind, as long as we all enjoyed the food and left the place…joyfully.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
A splendid meal. All is well ends well.
Fingers crossed, though I doubt it. Poor Third World country, lots of hanky panky – the rule of the day, the name of the game. Things will just go on as usual, will never change.
Claypot chicken rice…oh, yes, and lamb, too, please!!! 🙂
Both very good. Not too thrilled by the “Japanese rice”.
Monolingual waitress? Only speaks mandarin I presumed? Uncle Arthur is always particular about his English 😀
Not exactly. I do speak Hokkien too…but these days, dialects are a thing of the past. Here, it has to be Mandarin or nothing at all.
I eat lamb chop once, not into it, i remember that time is one and only time, i eat and don’t quite like it and pass to my friend to eat it…
But i love your claypot rice and the Japanese pork chop rice…
This was lamb shank, not lamb chop – stewed, not grilled so not quite the same.
Looked like they have been doing pretty well there.
One thing about those youngsters. They only speak one language. Mostly doesnt understand a single English word and you have a menu full of English words.
Over here you would be surprised to find those Dayak in food industry speaks Chinese!
Same here at the kampua stalls, Dayaks and some Indons even. “Puak lak, puak lak?” they would ask, toss with chili sauce? It is good to learn whatever language, the more the better. Sad that the present generation is all mono-lingual, one language only. Malay is poor, English…not a word! And all the Chinese dialects is history!
How awful to suffer in a blackout especially when the weather is hot & humid. I have always love anything in claypot, noodles, rice, etc…& definitely I go for the claypot chicken rice which looks really good. Yummssss!!!!…
I think it is the only one we have in town. I heard they had it at another place but I went to check and did not see them serving that there. 😦 Thankfully, the one here is good, they do it really well.
I thought the claypot chicken rice looked good, but wow, the lamb shank’s amazing.
Yes, both had their own merits, nice!
The blackout problem is terrible. Poor Melissa. Can’t imagine what it is like especially in this hot weather! That claypot chicken rice is what I would go for. It looks so good.
Yes, not so bad with the water as we bring our own supply of filtered water for the whole week everytime we send her back to the school on Sundays. The latest I’ve heard – today, the whole school blackout, not just the “new” blocks. Even worse! But for some reason or other, there is electricity in the old wooden quarters. Sigh!!!! The things they have to put up with. Imagine all the pupils in the hostels as well – they are all in the new blocks.
Yes, the claypot rice here is as good as any that I have had anywhere else.
As the chinese saying goes.. Eating to prosperity… hahahaa… Now we have appetite and can eat, it is a blessing!
Indeed. There will come a time when we cannot eat this, cannot eat that. Life would be so miserable then, don’t you think?
The lamb shank is definitely a happy ending to this story – and I’m sure it reinvigorated her to face whatever challenges came her way in the week ahead (hopefully no more blackouts!)
Spoke too soon. Blackout again today…since last night! Tsk! Tsk! I hear the headmaster did contact the district education officer about this and I managed to get a friend to bring it to the attention of the DUN representative in that area. If all fail, I would have to get the press into the picture like what happened here – that will get everyone onto their toes.
Claypot chicken rice, one of my all time favorite!! Just that, it takes longer time to finish since it’s so hot!! :p
It’s ok, scoop it out onto individual plates, will cool faster than eating straight from the claypot.
Ohh that lamb rack looks amazingly juicy! and yes that claypot rice looks nice as well, I just made one the other day will post that soon. I agree they are too pricey for a Malaysian restaurant but well if its good food and a little bit of pampering why not
Yes, around RM40 usually but this one here is a little cheaper than the rest – not that expensive if we convert to NZD, around NZD10 only, but quite a lot by our standard. I do think it is ok if it is shared by two or three though with a salad to go with it perhaps.
Yummy food – lamb, my favourite meat 😉
It was really good – we sure enjoyed it, so nicely done, very tender.