We drove past at least once a week when we sent our girl back to her school in the jungle but we never noticed this place…
…till around a week ago so I’m not really sure how new or how old it actually is.
It’s a nice decent place with nice displays of their menu on the walls…
…but it seems that not everything that you see up there is available…and other than that, you can see some interesting stuff…
…here and there as well.
I shared the photographs of what we ate that day on Facebook and one friend came and declared that she had the black pepper beef noodles and it was horrible and somehow, I got the implication that this was one place one should avoid (In her own words, “I went once n never again…“). I just calmly replied that if one does not know, one should always ask – we asked the young boy what was most popular and he said the ayam bakar and we ordered that and we liked it a lot!
For one thing, I wouldn’t want anything with black pepper and that is why I am no fan of that once-a-year prosperity burger and usually, at the shops, they would just use the sauce that comes from the bottle, sold all over at the supermarkets, no, thank you very much. Maybe she got my hint and quickly added that the bebek penyet (clobbered duck) was good.
Another one said that he had the ayam penyet and it was just so-so. Well, the boy we asked never suggested their ayam penyet so we did not order that…and at that point in time, I was browsing on my antique handphone and I could not really see what was in the photograph that he shared in his comment. When I finally came online on my PC, I saw what he had – only the bones were left. Hmmmm!!!
It seemed that he was pissed off by the fact that they did not have any small change and the boy gave him RM37.00 for the RM50.00 note that he gave to pay for his RM12.50 bill…and he was quite annoyed that he had been shortchanged by 50 sen and blatantly declared that he would never suggest this place to his friends ever. I shall not comment on that. Period.
Anyway, to get on with what we had that day, my missus said she wanted the ayam bakar with rice (RM10.00)…
…and yes, true to the boy’s words, it was really very very good, so very fragrant and perfectly done…
…not like one place that we would avoid nowadays where the chicken was way too overdone once too often till the meat was dry and hard and the skin was burnt to cinders – it sure did not taste good at all.
I decided to go for something else on their menu – the bumbu ijo ayam with rice (RM10.00)…
…and it turned out to be just fried chicken but the green chili sambal was so very good – I loved it a lot and it was extra spicy too. My missus obviously enjoyed it very much as well and kept helping herself to what was in my plate but it was perfectly all right as they were very generous with the sambal…
…and there was more than enough to go round.
No, I am never paid to do food reviews – I would always pay for everything that I eat or drink and thankfully, I did have the correct change, right down to the 20 sen on the bill that day…so what is nice, in my point of view, that is, I will say it is nice and what is not, I will say so too…like how I felt the coffee that I had that day was the pits and the gado-gado Surabaya (RM8.90)…
…was a disappointment as the peanut sauce was too diluted, so very watery. I enjoyed the one here a lot more and this one did not have any potatoes in it either – the saving grace was there were the pieces of ketupat/nasi impit which I quite liked.
I asked the boy while I was paying my bill and he told me that the place is owned by a local guy (he said he was around, wearing a hat, but I did not get to see him) and the people doing the cooking in the kitchen are Indonesians and the place opens every day from 10.00 a.m. till 12.00 midnight. I do like the fact that it opens early as my missus and I would always have our brunch after visiting my parents around 10 something or 11 before heading home…and many places do not start their business for the day that early or some will tell you 10.00 a.m. and there is no sign of anybody or anything when you get there at around 11.00 a.m.
Well, you win some, you lose some…and if you ask me whether I would drop by this place again, without a doubt, I would say yes as I would want to try whatever else that they have on their menu…and if I do not know what is good and cannot decide what to order, I would just do what I did that day – ASK!
D’SANTAI CAFE (2.305748, 111.863080) is located among the shops to the right of Star Mega Mall, visible from the main road, Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman (road to Sibu Airport), round the corner from the newly-opened TK Hardware store there.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
Seems convincing, like the generosity in serving sambal/ sauce
Pick and choose, one bad apple does not mean the whole basketful is like that and it’s the same everywhere, I guess – you can’t win them all.
I am not so crazy about black pepper too. One spice that I seldom use a lot in my cooking.
The ayam bakar looked so good. Indeed the gado-gado is too watery to me.
We like freshly ground black pepper and some upscale cafes and restaurants make their own black pepper sauce, nice too. It is the bottled ones that I do not like. Yes, the ayam bakar was a good choice, will definitely skip the gado gado next time unless they improve on the sauce.
I like and agree with their wall quotes.
I do too.
one item on my eating list, ayam, hehe…
The bakar is fine, the other one is super spicy. You can take spicy?
The ayam bakar looks good. To be fair, they should not shortchanged people & by hook or brook, they have to dig up the 50 cents.
Or just give a discount of 50 sen but then again, the boy was an employee, not the boss. Not like one place here, one of the bosses himself…and 10 sen also he will wait for you to dig out the coin! 😦
I would just ask him to keep the change though – I do that all the time at the petrol station, the car wash and other places, at times, a few ringgit but I always get VIP treatment at all those places. Maybe that is why I am poor. The English proverb says, “A fool and his money are soon parted!”
One man’s meat is another man’s poison, as the saying goes.. so cannot say whether the food is nice or not until we go and try individually…
Indeed!!! I’ve been to try stuff people say is THE best in town but ended up quite disappointed. That is why I would be very careful in declaring that I may like something, it’s my favourite but I would never say it is THE best.
You sure did the right thing by asking for recommendations. I do the same at certain restaurants because I have had the misfortune of choosing the “wrong” dishes.
Can’t go wrong if you go for the best sellers. When we simply go for things that we like, we may be in for a disappointment. It may be the same thing but some do it better than others and some suck at it – like Sibu kampua mee. The stalls are all over town but no, they are not all the same.
Bumbu ijo ayam with rice is something new to me, looks very tempting!
It was very good – I sure would not mind going back for that again.
I am intrigued by the sambal that your missus kept helping herself from your plate. I believe I will love it a lot. Salivating now.
I’m sure you would, very very nice and super spicy!
The meat does look quite tasty!
It is. The grilled one would be good for you – the one I had was super spicy, not for the faint-hearted.
ooo very indonesian – i actually like terong balado, so maybe you could order that next time, hehe
I guess that would be something like our sambal terung. Had a very very good one the other day, different from the usual ones elsewhere – post on that coming soon.