Not so nice…

It’s my brother-in-law’s birthday tomorrow, the 26th of April. I think he’s 65, a year younger than I am…and of course, his wonderful daughter, my niece – the one working in Singapore – came home last weekend to celebrate with her parents and she invited us too.

They wanted to go here but for reasons unknown, they were closed. Probably they had gone off somewhere on a holiday. That was why we ended up here and of course we had our favourites – their honey prawn balls…

…and their sour plum chicken…

My niece wanted the sea cucumber soup…

…which was nice, just that I did not think I could find any of the coveted stuff in it, not even a little bit.

We also ordered our local wild fern – the midin, ching chao (fried plain)…

…specially for the benefit of my niece as she would not be able to find those in the island republic. I hear they export it there from Kuching but I don’t know where people there can get to enjoy eating it and besides, I am pretty sure it will not come cheap, no way.

My brother-in-law ordered this salad sotong (squid)…

…and he also wanted his favourite sweet and sour fish fillet…

…and omelette, another one of his favourites – we had that with bitter gourd added…

…which we enjoyed a lot more than if they had just fried the egg with Bombay onions. Had I known they did not have lap cheong (Chinese sausage), I would have brought along my very nice own-made wine-infused ones from my friend, Annie, in KL.

My niece commented that they did not not use enough oil and the wok was not hot enough so it did not have that much-coveted golden fringe. In fact, she thought the food here was not so nice, kind of bland and lacking in the stronger flavours of what they have elsewhere. for instance, some of the delightful dishes that they have on their menu at the aforementioned place that was not open that day.

I would say she was right in a way – the food here is rather on the mild side, not salty and no msg overdose and not oily but personally, I do enjoy what they dish out in their own subtle ways, a welcome change that we may go for sometimes. For one thing, it does seem to go down really well with a lot of people as this place is always very crowded and that night was no exception – the place was full…and thankfully, the dishes came out fast and furious and we did not have to wait long to enjoy our orders.

If I remember correctly, my niece paid over RM140.00 for the dinner, inclusive of rice and drinks so I guess it worked out to around RM20.00 each for the 6 of us. As a matter of fact, my missus did request for servings for 4 persons which makes it even worse, around RM30 per person – not all that cheap, not at all.

NICE HOUSE RESTAURANT (2.29201,111.82739) is located in the vicinity of the Tunku Osman shops, opposite Rejang Bookstore.