Something extra…

This was sometime ago – Peter, the very nice boss of Payung Café, made these lovely popiah (spring rolls)…

…for his mum and he made some extra and went through the trouble of sending them all the way to my house for me. Luckily, I had not cooked dinner yet so I could just enjoy those…

…that evening.

Then when we dropped by the café the other day, he let us try this…

– a dish cooked by one of his boys, a Bangladeshi. He and his team will go round on Sundays to do some people’s gardens and there was one where they had a lot of this vegetable and they were asked to help themselves and take all they wanted and the Bangladeshi said he knew how to cook it and he did.

I don’t know what vegetable that was – they call it sak chai in Hokkien, probably a variety of spinach, maybe Ceylon spinach. My missus said that it is easily available at the market but she has never bought it as according to her, it has a certain smell that she is not particularly fond of. However, there was no smell in what we had that day – the fish (ikan sultan/sotan) cooked with the vegetable and potatoes. We thought that was really very nice and we finished all of it! Peter said that he would consider adding it to his menu since at this point in time, they do not have many fish options for customers to choose.

And that wasn’t all! He also treated us to this special dessert…

…with a lovely name – Dreamy Nite. I used to enjoy it a lot but I have not ordered it for a while now as there is wheat in it and oats too, I think, so it is not gluten free. My girl could not eat that and my missus just ate a bit as she said she was way too full after our very lovely lunch so in the end, I got to finish it off all by myself.

Actually, we went there that day as my girl said that she liked their chicken dish (RM16.00, with rice)…

…with its thick rich yogurt-based gravy but personally, I was not so fond of it as it was very strong with the smell/taste of the green peppers in it. I was thinking that she would want to order that and enjoy it for lunch but when we got there, she said she would like one of her favourites here, the lamb masala (RM19.00, with rice)…

…and in the end, we had both!

The lamb was great, as always and we were delighted that the chicken was also very nice. I noticed that they seemed to have toned down the green peppers a bit – it was still there but it was not as strong and I did enjoy it very much.

I asked for the very popular and one-of-its-kind Payung rojak (RM12.00)…

…and Andy served us one very huge serving of that!

My missus stuck to one of her favourites here, the green curry chicken (RM16.00, with rice)…

…but she was not able to put in her usual request – for it to be extra spicy as we were sharing our orders and my girl, though she can handle some very hot stuff, is not into it as much as her mum. In the end, Andy gave my missus this…

– their own-made extra hot habanero chili dip, to add as it pleased her.

Yes, the green curry chicken…

…was really good too and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch that day. My girl was absolutely delighted – she always is every time we come here as she enjoys the food a great deal and she likes the place, the ambiance and all, and the people are so very friendly that it makes her feel so at home.

We were so very full after all these, including the special treats from Peter, that we just had a light and simple dinner at home that evening.

PAYUNG CAFÉ (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.