No, we do not eat out all the time. In fact, we do cook our own and eat at home a lot. For one thing, I would get up early in the morning and very often, I would whip something up for breakfast.
Not too long ago, I decided to use up some spaghetti that was lying around in the house – my girl ate some of it those days when she did not know she was gluten-sensitive/intolerant so that would be sometime towards the end of last year.
I cooked it char kway teow style…
…with prawns and I added some minced meat and egg too. It sure looked great and tasted very good too, anytime nicer than the fried macaroni…
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…that I had at one outlet here of our Sarawak’s own fast food franchise.
That, of course, meant that we did not have any more pasta at home when Peter, the thoughtful and generous boss of Payung Café, gave my girl his very nice bolognese sauce, just my girl’s gluten-free ones and we had to go and buy some to eat with the sauce without finishing off her stock.
And talking about Payung Café, other than the very nice beef spaghetti that I had there the other day, they do have some really good fusion pasta dishes as well like this belimbing prawn spaghetti…
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…that I have had a few times before…
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…or this tom yam one…
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…but I would not order them when my girl is around as she can’t eat the spaghetti and we would usually have those dishes with rice instead.
On another occasion, I cooked some fried rice, kampung-style…
…for breakfast at home and had it with this ayam berlada…
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…from my favourite roadside Malay food stall at Bandong Walk here and yes, it…
…was good too. It sure can beat a whole lot of the fried rice one can get at the shops hands down, that’s for sure.
More recently, last Friday to be exact, I decided to cook this Sarawak/Kuching laksa…
…for my girl who would be coming home that afternoon after school. She enjoys it very much and being our no-meat day, Friday, I did not have any finely-shredded boiled chicken breast meat and replaced that with finely-sliced tofu puffs…
…instead. For some reason, my girl loves those. They do have those in the laksa here in Sibu but I did hear that you will not get to see any should you go for this local delight in its place of origin, Kuching.
We only stop by the shops for something to eat, usually for lunch on the way back home from visiting my mum in the morning and keeping her company and sometimes for dinner after dropping by mid-afternoon and staying till after she has had her dinner.
That day when she was discharged from the medical centre after she was admitted there for over a week, we were running late and it was way past 1.00 p.m. when we could go and grab a bite to eat. This one near their house is open daily except on Sundays till 5.00 p.m. so it was very convenient for us to go there.
My missus had their mee mamak (RM5.00)…
…which she said was very nice but I thought it was kind of expensive considering that I had an egg…
…and one chicken drumstick…
…with my fried kway teow (RM6.50)…
…for just RM1.50 more but I did see some prawns in the mee so I guess that would explain everything.
I’m pretty sure this is the same with everybody else – sometimes, we do eat out for convenience’s sake or for some reason or other while at other times, we just eat at home.
PAYUNG CAFE (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, Malaysia, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River while SARA CAFE (2.307544, 111.820744) is located among the shops at Simpang Tiga, Sibu, one of the two facing Jalan Bunga Normah 4.
PTL that your mother is back at home now. You are a good cook because all the food you cooked looks so delicious in the photos and diligent one too.
PTL indeed.
Basically, I’m lazy so I will only cook the simple stuff, not too many ingredients to prepare.
I think RM6.50 for your char kway teow with an egg & drumstick is quite reasonable which I bet I won’t get that price over here in Kuching.
Getting very expensive in Kuching, eh? I did hear laksa is around RM8.00, the regular here is around RM6.00 or 5.50, around there.
The other day I had Penang char kway teow at Megabites, Kota Samarahan, which is totally a disappointment. It doesn’t taste like Penang char kway teow at all, no wok hei smell. It has 3 thinly sliced lap cheong, 2 miserable prawns, some taugeh & egg & guess it costs RM6….***face palm***….will be my first & last time.
Same here! They always claim to be Penang char kway teow but I don’t think they are anything like the real thing. For one thing, the texture of our kway teow is different, no cockles, not fried over charcoal and so on and so forth – I wish they would just call it fried kway teow and I would not be so put off by it.
I love your fusion dishes!
They’re good, very good, take my word for it.
We eat at home a lot, as eating out can be expensive here for us retirees!
Thank goodness for our more affordable coffee shops and hawkers stalls – at least, we can eat out when we feel like it…but not at the more upscales cafes and restaurants. Once in a blue moon, some special occasion perhaps, can’t go for those all that often, us retirees.
U are good at cooking, mine, no eye see…
Presentation. My missus is much better at it, me…just so-so lah!
wah, CKT spaghetti … that’s brilliant! great fusion idea. add cockles for me please 😀
Have not bought cockles for a long long time now – they are huge ones these days, farmed, they say.
Your Sarawak laksa looks so good! I’m really craving for asian food big time after 7 weeks away.
I would feel the same when travelling abroad for a few weeks.