Not what I thought…

There is an open space in the vicinity of Sungai Antu where the Trans-Sarawak Bus Terminal was a long time ago – this coffee shop and this one are located there, in the block of shops facing it. At one time, they used it for the temporary stalls of the hawkers here while Taman Harmoni, the food court/hawker centre, was undergoing some massive renovations and eventually, they all moved back to where they came from.

Quite recently, I saw some construction going on and it looked like they were putting up some hawker stalls there. The work has been completed now and I saw a banner declaring, “For the Sibu Bidayuh Community, a project of DBNA” and that got me quite excited as I thought there would be stalls selling Bidayuh cuisine like the restaurant at the association’s premises in Kuching.

However, my happiness was short-lived as when I dropped by to check the place out, I did not see what I had expected – I don’t know how many of the people there were Bidayuhs as they were all speaking Foochow. There was a food stall where they were dishing out some dishes, getting them ready for anyone into chap fan/nasi campur (mixed/economy rice) and though they looked good, they were all Chinese, it seemed, not Bidayuh. Perhaps they did not intend it to be a place serving traditional ethnic Bidayuh delights and had rented out the stalls for the funds for the community and association’s activities here.

In the end, since we were already there, my missus and I went back here for our lunch and of course, she had the nasi kerabu with ayam percik (RM6.50)…

I ordered their nasi lemak special (RM6.00)…

…and asked for the ayam percik but the girl said they would serve that with chicken rendang…

…so I had that instead. Actually, I had that a long time ago when this place was under a different name (and probably somebody else was cooking it then) and thought it was very nice.

This time around, I thought it was good, the chicken rendang, but between the two, I felt the ayam percik was nicer. The rice was quite lemak (rich with santan/coconut milk) and not hard and dry like what I had at some places around here and some were so bad that they might as well just serve plain rice instead and on the whole, I did enjoy my order…

…that day.

WARONG CAFE (2.318841, 111.831732), formerly Sri Tanjung Cafe, is located among the shops in between Jalan Tapang and Jalan Tapang Timur towards the end of Jalan Kampung Nangka – RTM Sibu is located right across the road on the right.