Nice guys…

They’re all very nice guys at Payung Café…

… including Peter, the boss and Chen, his business partner/co-owner and Andy, one of the boys there, is no exception.

Well, Andy celebrated his birthday…

…two days ago on Wednesday and he sent me a message asking me to drop by for some long life noodles…

…our longevity noodles, the mee sua served with the traditional Foochow red wine chicken soup…

The mee sua was under the chicken, not visible in the photograph and boy, it really was so so so very nice! I don’t know what went into the cooking of the soup – Peter just said there were “a lot of things” and I did spot some wolfberries and red dates in it.

I told him that if he had that on their menu, I would come back again and again just for this – it was that nice and I dare say I have not had any other that is of this same standard, none that can even come close. Perhaps he could have it as their Saturday special like how their lei cha is their Friday lunch special and I hear it is doing very well.

For our drinks, we were served this…

– what they call anjung smoothie, a concoction made out of roselle, cucumber and lime and there was this birthday cake too…

There’s no mistaking who made that – the instant I shared the photograph on Facebook, somebody commented, “I see Marcus’ cake!” Yes, he’s that famous around here and even though he has been around for such a very long time (he made my wedding cake), he is still as popular today as he was way back then.

Andy did tell me that Peter would be cooking something special for the birthday celebration and for a start, we had this papaya salad…

…which was a whole lot nicer than the one we tried not too long ago. That time, I thought it was just all right and I would still prefer their pomelo salad but this time around, it could give the latter a really good fight plus Peter made it extra spicy so of course, my missus loved it to bits and enjoyed it so much!

There was this beef dish with kiwi fruit…

…that we also liked. I was thinking that perhaps, I could try cooking that at home and use pineapples instead. Other that the stronger taste, it is definitely a whole lot cheaper than those kiwis – they cost a bomb here, not something I would be buying to enjoy on a regular basis!

The ladies loved the sour chicken…

*Archive photo*

…a variation of the traditional Cantonese sour duck but the photograph I took was a little blur so I am using this one from sometime ago when I had it for lunch.

As for me, my vote went to this new creation by Peter, chicken with daun sireh (betel leaves)…

I thought that was very good and I was surprised for as far as I know, those leaves were bitter – Peter said that once cooked, the bitterness would be gone.

Gosh!!! We were so full after that scrumptious dinner – in fact, we were already very full after the awesomely nice mee sua but obviously, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Thank you so very much for inviting us, Andy and to you too, Peter for this most delightful treat to celebrate Andy’s auspicious day. Happy birthday once again, Andy – hope your day was great and may you be blessed with a truly wonderful year ahead. Cheers!!!

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.