A few more days…

My god-son/ex-student, Andrew, and his family had only a few more days left in town before they had to go back and I was really keen on taking them here for the traditional ethnic Dayak delights , something they will not get easily elsewhere and definitely not in Christchurch, New Zealand, so I arranged to meet them there for lunch. It is located right behind the medical centre where my mum is currently putting up so it was quite convenient for me to walk over to meet them there.

Unfortunately, the son was not feeling very well so he and the mum were not able to show up and in the end, there were just Andrew and his girl and my missus and I.

I specially requested for my picks to be served separately in plates and bowls instead of having everything in a tray or a plate the way we would have it usually. Andrew loved the dabai fried rice…

…and this was the first time he had umai…

– the raw fish dish which is actually Melanau in origin.

He did not seem too comfortable with the tapioca leaves…

…that we always enjoy very much but he loved the kasam ensabi (preserved vegetable) with pork…

The deep fried pork served with their special tempoyak (fermented durian) dip…

…was rather hard, a little too crusty and while the dip was very nice, we could hardly detect the tempoyak in it, probably to cater to their mainstream customers. Fermented durian is an acquired taste and not everybody will love it. However, for hardcore tempoyak lovers like my missus and I, we prefer the way they cooked it that other time, very much stronger with the tempoyak and to us, a lot nicer but this was all right for a change.

The pansoh babi (pork cooked in bamboo)…

…was excellent that day and yes, Andrew loved it and another thing worth mentioning as well was the fact that the complimentary soup was really very nice – Andrew’s girl had a lot of it with her rice.

We had the dabai fried rice packed to take back for Michelle to enjoy at home and we also asked for the pansoh babi, the tempoyak pork and the kasam ensabi with pork for her as well. The total for that and all that we had came up to only RM45.00. Too bad they had to leave in a couple of days or we could have made our way back there again to see what else they could try.