Adaptation…

On Thursday afternoon last week, I received a call from Peter, the Payung Café boss. He told me that one of his staff members, an Iban lady, had cooked a fish, an ikan sultan, ethnic style and it was really very good so he would like to give me half…

…to try and he wanted to send it over to my house. Of course I would not let him go through all that trouble and told him I would drop by a while later to get it.

I did cook one ikan buris in more or less the same way that day and it was very good but as I mentioned in that post, I tried that with an ikan sultan that I had but the flavours of the ingredients did not go into the fish. According to Peter, the lady removed all the scales for that to happen. No, I did not eat it right away. I saved it for our late lunch the next day, Friday, after we had come home from fetching my girl from her school in the jungle and yes, it was really very nice and we sure enjoyed it a lot.

For lunch the next day, Saturday, I asked my girl what she wanted to eat but she did not have anything in mind. Knowing how much she loves pasta, I suggested taking her gluten-free spaghetti to Payung and asking them to cook it for her, served with their very nice beef bolognese sauce…

Of course the wonderful people there did not mind it one bit and of course, my girl enjoyed it so much that even though the serving was quite big, she finished it all up.

We love the special bolognese sauce – I gathered that for 2 kg of minced beef, they would use one kg of fresh tomatoes to make it and they would also add some Italian herbs and whatever else. Theirs is very much nicer than the ones elsewhere – if those people make their own too, more often than not, it isn’t far different from the bottled pasta sauces which I am not all that fond of as it is like drinking tomato sauce straight from the bottle, more or less.

My girl also wanted the mushroom soup (RM6.00)…

…and I also ordered their mashed potatoes (RM8.00) to share and if anyone is wondering, their regular beef spaghetti is RM17.00. Of course, we were given a little discount for the adaptation that my girl had that day since we brought along and used our own gluten-free pasta.

This was on the house, their fungus salad…

…a Myanmarese recipe that is new on their menu and Peter wanted us to try. My girl is never fond of fried shallots since small and I thought it was more like a vegetable dish that one would order to eat with rice, not quite like a salad but my missus enjoyed it.

Talking about my missus, she had their kacang ma chicken (RM16.00 with rice)…

…while I had their Payung fish, ikan keli (RM15.00 with rice)…

…and yes, it was very nice…

– so very lemak and very much to my liking.

That sure was a delightful lunch that we had that day but most importantly, my girl enjoyed it a great deal, a welcome break from the dreary week in her school in the jungle, a much-needed food therapy, I would say.

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.