The leader…

Many here in Sibu would know of Ah Ling Bak Kut Teh. It started off a long time ago, probably the first in Sibu – the leader, so to speak and to this day, it is still going strong at that same coffee shop…

…to the right of the back of the HSBC Building (that white one to the extreme left in the photograph). I was told that the family took over the business when Ah Ling passed away and the last time I was there, I did notice a little sign at the stall with the name “Ah Ling Bak Kut Teh” on it, otherwise, there is no way of telling that this is the one. I did not take note this time around but I guess it is still there.

Well, my girl wanted to have bak kut teh the other day and as far as I know, unlike the rest, Ah Ling’s is a little light on the soy sauce. She has been taking the very expensive gluten-free soy sauce but we reckoned that a little bit of the regular one would be fine as she is just gluten-sensitive/intolerant and not suffering from celiac disease. I heard that the Singapore version does not have soy sauce but unfortunately, we do not have that here.

When we got to the coffee shop, the mum said she would rather have the chap fan but I told her that the former people had called it a day. They were at the coffee shop opposite but when the new owners took over, they moved here but if I remember correctly, the guy was not well or something so he decided to call it quits and people were saying that the current one was not as nice. Nonetheless, she insisted on going for it and this was RM4.00…

…for one meat and two vegetables including the salted veg…

I thought everything looked quite good but no, she said it was not nice and the rice seemed to have an unpleasant smell to it so she barely finished half of what was on her plate.

Thankfully, our rice from the bak kut teh stall…

…was all right.

I asked for lean meat and they gave me two huge chunks of pork ribs plus the innards that I also wanted…

…and yes, it was very nice – not strong on the soy sauce…and peppery too which reminded me of this…

…that I had once at Damansara Uptown (though I heard that the coffee shop has since closed down). Too bad we can’t get it here, or at least, there is none that I know of – this one has no soy sauce in it, that’s for sure!

We noticed the absence of the curly green vegetables and tauhu pok (tofu puffs) in the bowl…

…but I think I did see some yew char koi (Chinese cruller) at the stall – I guess if you want that, you will have to pay extra for it. Of course my girl did not want the “spare parts” so in her bowl, there were only three huge chunks of the pork ribs…and the total for our two bowls came up to RM22.00. Hmmmm…it certainly doesn’t come cheap, this bak kut teh like the one I had here not too long ago.

Ah well! It’s not something that we would have every day, anyway…and we usually cook our own at home and in doing that, we will have the choice of using the gluten-free soy sauce that we have in the house or do it Singapore-style, just leave it out altogether.

LEADER CAFE/AH LING BAK KUT TEH is located in the vicinity of the Tuanku Osman shops at the end of Jalan Kai Peng, the other end if you are walking from the Jalan Kampung Nyabor side beside the HSBC Building, to the left of it.