When my cousins were in town, they had a whole day to kill as their reunion bash would only be in the evening. I did stop by the shop round the corner from my house to get them the Nestum-coated mochi with peanut butter filling…
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…from Sarikei for them to try and we managed to stop by this coffee shop for the gula apong ais krim (RM3.00)…
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…and they loved it. My Kuching cousin agreed that this was so much nicer than the one I went to try in Kuching – she did not like that one either.
Come lunch time, we dropped by here for lunch but our main intention was to go and enjoy the coffee…
– the old-school local coffee that we have enjoyed since young and the lady boss did tell me that they got their coffee powder from the same place where we get ours.
Now that my girl has to observe a strict regime and keep to a gluten-free diet, there are many things that we could not order. Usually, at such Chinese eateries, they would coat the meat and seafood with flour and deep fry first before cooking the gravy for whatever dish they are for and pouring over them. I understand this seals in all the juices and makes the dish taste nicer…and unfortunately, (wheat) flour is in the list of stuff to be avoided.
The pandan chicken…
…was fine so we had that and also the claypot pork with dried chilies and salted fish…
*Oops!!! Sorry for the blurry pic – this place isn’t the brightest of places, I’m afraid.*
For our vegetable dishes, we had midin…
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…but I did not manage to take a photograph of that and we also had another one of their signature dishes – bitter gourd with salted egg…
They do cook the same elsewhere but somehow or other, they do not do it so well – in the opinion of many, this one here is the best.
The bill for the food came up to RM46.00 for 5 persons – I forgot to tell them to cook for say, 3 persons so I guess they charged accordingly for the total number of persons. I did not think the servings were all that big though and we did not have prawns or fish so I thought the total was a little on the high side. I must make it a point to remember the next time around.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
Your daughter is gluten-free now? I have to be as well, or otherwise risk gastro-intestinal issues LOL Hopefully she is able to abstain – rather hard here at times and I accidentally eat something with gluten. I can’t wait to balik kampung and eat up, but I have to not feast on the kolo mee unfortunately
Luckily my girl is not really into kampua or instant noodles, prefers kway teow and bihun and pek koi – rice flour is ok but she loves pasta so will have to look for gluten-free ones now. She’s ok now that she is abstaining from all things related – no more what she thought was gastric problems and what not and pulse rate over 100.
Oh heavens! Well I am glad to hear she is feeling better with the new diet change. It is hard to do here as almost everything uses wheat flour, but more and more places are offering up a gluten free option – pastas, pizzas, etc.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking too, everything’s wheat flour there but the gluten-free options would be a lot more easily available there, not here.
I have never tried bitter gourd before. 🙂
Lots of health benefits. According to the Chinese, anything that is bitter is good.
Though without fish & prawns, I still think the price is reasonable. Midin is not cheap over here. One very small bundle cost RM4 which used to be RM2 before.
I just thought it was a simple lunch, nothing special and with just two rice and our drinks, the total came up to over RM60 – we enjoyed the dinner at Payung a whole lot more and we had prawns and even though the total came up to over RM80, I thought that was more worth it.
My mouth had only just stopped watering from when you first posted those the Nestum-coated mochi with peanut butter filling… and now it’s started all over again. I’d love a photo of the inside.
I enjoy it very much – love the generous amount of peanut butter inside.
I myself never been to the ice cream gula apong in Kuching. I can do without it so I would not go all the way for it although some praises how good it is to the sky!
I love all the dishes that you ordered. My favourite got to be the claypot pork with chillies and salted fish. Now thinking of it makes me drool and hungry. Lol.
Not nice, the one at Kapit Hotel and they say the one at Open Air is the same. You must come and try this one if ever you’re in Sibu again.
Yes, they do the claypot pork really well here, more concentrated and bursting with flavours. Nicer than a lot of other places where I had the same. The dried chilies are extra spicy though but we were ok with it.
Very nice food and at RM46 for the 5 of you, that’s a very reasonable price. I have been looking at gluten-free versions of some dishes and some of them are pretty good. I am thinking of trying out some.
I guess it is easier to go for other dishes that are gluten free…and learn to live without those that are to be avoided. Lots of other things to eat, not a problem actually. Just calls for a slight change in lifestyle and diet, will get used to it soon enough.
That gula apong beats those pretentious soft serve anytime! Someone should bring them over here
Would be a hit, I’m sure.
Love the pandan chicken…
I like the one here most of all. They marinate the huge chunks of chicken with lots of things, I could taste the kunyit, the serai…and they deep fry it. Other places, they are small and rather dry – not nice.
Sorry to hear of your daughter’s problems with gluten. A lot of people over here also seem to have the same problem.
I wonder why we never heard of it before in our time – we just ate everything.
Not a big problem though – just calls for a change in diet and lifestyle. One of the culprits was oats though – she ate a lot, everytime when she was tired or too lazy to cook or heat up the food the mum cooked for her and that’s just about most of the time actually. 😦 All that talk about oats being good, will lower cholesterol and everything and now this.
On my part, I do believe that moderation is the key – can’t have too much of anything.
The mochi looks so nice. The ice cream gula apong in Kuching has lost their sparks. Just like the new song, one hit wonder. Lol!
It’s more ice than cream over at your side. The one here is rich and creamy, gula apong-flavoured soft serve ice cream with a drizzle of gula apong on top – so very much nicer. One I had at another place here was soft serve vanilla ice cream with gula apong added – did not like it much either, this one is very much nicer.
The price is quite reasonable for five persons, not too bad but I dont know whether the portion is big or not… Anyway, still ok… So Melissa is going for gluten free? I saw a lot of displays in Cold Storage aka Jaya Grocer, “Gluten free” here and there.. .though I really do not go into that.. must google about it since this is so common nowadays…
So easy there, not commonly found here, gluten-free products. Very limited. 😦 Only thing we can do is to just avoid those things to be avoided, actually a lot of things are ok, not like overseas – all bread, cakes, cookies, pasta…all wheat.