Calculate…

It has been quite sometime since we last dropped by here and in the meantime, they have opened two more outlets in the town centre, one at this corner of Blacksmith Road…

*Archive photo*

…and the other was here, taking over from the one formerly there but for reasons unknown, I heard the latter has since called it a day. Of course, I have been to neither of the two as parking in the town centre can be such a pain and the other day, we dropped by the original shop for brunch.

This was what my missus had…

– two veg and the curry beef…

…while I also had the sambal terung (brinjal) as well as the sambal egg plus one half of a salted egg…

…and when I helped myself to this…

…I thought it was masak hitam beef but it turned out to be liver, 3 meat and 1 veg. No, it wasn’t very nice as the liver was very hard despite their slicing it so very thinly and even if it had been beef, it wouldn’t have been that great either as it was salty and too strong on the soy sauce. I do know of other places in town where the masak hitam is a whole lot nicer.

When it comes to beef liver, or chicken, for that matter, at the Malay food shops and stalls, I like it cooked this way…

– as a rendang. I had that when we dropped by here on another day and yes, there is a world of difference and I enjoyed it a whole lot more. I had that plus the asam (tamarind) fish…

…the paku (wild jungle fern) with young sweet corn and the sambal kedondong (ambarella)…

…that I enjoyed so much the last time we were here, two meat and two veg…

My missus had her usual two veg and one meat and she chose the sotong (squid)…

…and the paku and the kedondong that I had. The total here came up to RM13.00 for the two of us, a little bit of difference compared to what we had at the aforementioned place – RM11.00 altogether.

Except for the masak hitam beef liver that was not to my liking, everything else was good and my missus did enjoy her picks at both places, no complaints.

At the latter, I asked the boy how much the rice was out of the total of RM16.00 inclusive of drinks and he came and started calculating away using his electronic calculator for a long while and he could not give me a figure. I asked him how much the drinks were and he said RM3.00 for two kopi-o-peng and of course, common sense would tell anybody that the balance of RM13.00 would be for the food.

Looking at the itemised charges on their menu on the wall, I got RM6.50 for mine and RM4.30 for my missus and therefore, the total would be RM10.80 only…so I asked if they charged for the rice and he said yes, RM1.30 per serving (and no discount even though we asked for half of the regular only)…so the total would come up to RM13.40, a difference of 40 sen. Ah well!!! What they do not know wouldn’t hurt them – as they say, ignorance is bliss!

LIZA ISLAMIC CAFE (2.327044,111.83921) is located at the traffic lights junction at the end of Sungai Merah bazaar, opposite the primary school and church and MIA CAFE & RESTAURANT (2.308507, 111.820287) is located among the shops at Jalan Bunga Normah 4, Simpang Tiga, Sibu, facing inwards overlooking the houses along Jalan Kuda, off Jalan Kampung Nangka.