Dance the night away…

Mr. Chen of Hornland Dance, Peter’s partner and co-owner of Payung Café, gave me three complimentary tickets to go and watch one of the shows at the Dewan Suarah (Civic Centre) here…

…in conjunction with the Sibu International Dance Festival 2017…

…that attracted dancers from different countries all over the world, some 180 of them, to our humble little town on the 29th of August till the 2nd of September this year.

The show would only start at 7.30 p.m. so at around 6.00 p.m., we went for a simple dinner here and of course, we had their lovely clear fish maw soup…

…that I’ve always enjoyed and their special golf-sized ngor hiang/lor bak…

I did not know until Robert told me the other night that they would add lokan (clams) to the ingredients used for the filling. No wonder it is so nice, so very different from the rest.  My missus would use prawns whereas those supposedly “better” ones elsewhere, at best, would have bay ka/ikan tenggiri (mackerel) or at least, that would be what they tell you.

I asked for the midin (wild jungle fern)…

…to be fried like how they would do their long beans dish, dry and with sambal hay bee (dried prawns) but there was gravy in what was served and it was a tad too salty which we felt was due to the belacan (dried prawn paste) used.

I enjoyed what we had here that night so I ordered an omelette with bitter gourd…

…and it turned out to be really very nice! I sure would want to order that again the next time I drop by here.

I went to the counter to pay our bill after we were done and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the food came up to only RM30.80, inclusive of rice! That means that it was only around RM28.00 for the four dishes and we felt that was really cheap!

After having had our fill, we made our way to the Dewan Suarah and upon arrival, we were amazed and really impressed by the decor in the foyer…

They had commissioned Peter of Payung Café to do it…

…and looking at the decor at the restaurant, this sure came as no surprise…

…at all…

He most certainly did a terrific job…

…right down to the intricate weaving of the birds…

…using the dried leaves.

Of course, a lot of people would not want to miss the chance to have their photographs taken…

…with all the beautifully unique displays before entering the hall to watch the performances.

Yes, we enjoyed the dances, both cultural and contemporary abstract, that night but photographs were not allowed so I did not take any – if you are interested, you can click the links to their Facebook pages above to have a look. They certainly have a whole lot to share of all the events held during the course of the entire festival.

A-PLUS FOOD CENTRE/RESTAURANT (2.293355, 111.823653) is located among the shops along Jalan Kampung Datu behind the block of shops (where Fair Price Supermarket is) near the traffic lights at its junction with Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg and Jalan Kampung Nyabor.