Hello, old friends…

I got an invitation to lunch the other day from my dear friend/ex-classmate, Robert, as our ex-schoolmate, Michael, was back in town so there we were at our regular place…

…10 of us altogether, including a few more old friends of ours from the Class of 69.

The food was great, as always – we had their white or clear tom yam soup, the Tom Yam Goong…

…and our favourite these days, the bitter gourd omelette…

…and also the fried cangkok manis…

…which we thought Jos, the authentic Thai chef, did extremely well. It was not quite the same, very much more flavourful than the regular ones we would find here, there and everywhere – he sure can give the local Chinese restaurants a run for their money.

The beef, blanched, with lime and all the other ingredients…

…was great and we all so loved the deep-fried barramundi…

…right down to all those things used in its gorgeous presentation but it was the company that I enjoyed most of all.

Thanks, Robert, for the treat and it sure was nice seeing you again, Micheal.

FLAVOURS THAI KITCHEN is located on the ground floor of the ORCHID HOTEL, along Brooke Drive at its junction with Jalan Tunku Osman. You can use its main entrance at the back of the hotel building (facing Brooke Drive) or go through the lobby past the reception desk if you are using its hotel entrance.

I remember Elvis Presley…

I received this jar of made-in-New-Zealand peanut butter…

*Archive photo*

…from my godson/ex-student in New Zealand and I could recall my nephew from there eating that with bananas and since I had the fruit in the house, I decided to give it a try and shared the photograph…

…on Facebook.

Goodness gracious me! The response was overwhelming and there were so many comments. A coursemate of my girl who was in Wellington, New Zealand with her exclaimed with excitement at the sight of it…

…and said that she was so hooked on this particular brand of peanut butter those years when they were there.

Then there were a lot of people saying that they loved eating it that way with bread. I think my nephew did have it as a sandwich but I do not quite remember now…and my ex-student/lawyer friend, Louis, said that it was Elvis Presley’s favourite sandwich. Ah yes! That sure helped refresh my memory regarding that as I did come across that sometime somewhere but his had bacon in it.

There were others who said they loved it with jelly added – I think they call that Fool’s Gold Loaf and since I had the peanut butter and some jam (Chivers’ raspberry) in the fridge, I decided to have a go at it and went out and bought some bread, half loaf.

Now how do you like to toast your slices of bread? I am not fond of using the toaster – for one thing, I would have to take it out of the cabinet to use for just a few slices and then I would have to clean it before putting it away. I prefer toasting my bread on a non-stick pan…

…until it is lightly crusty on the outside, still soft on the inside.

I still had my Golden Churn butter in the fridge so I applied that on both slices…

…and then I applied the peanut butter on one slice and the raspberry jam on the other…

Lastly, I added the bananas, sliced…

…before putting the sandwich together…

Oh me! Oh my! It was so very nice that I just had to have another one…

…but I had to stop there as I was already so very full after the second round.

It so happened that I did have some bacon in the freezer at this point in time so no prize for guessing what I had for breakfast the very next morning…

Gosh! It sure was so so so good! I certainly would not look at sandwiches…

…the same way again!

You’re always good…

I received word from my godson/ex-student, Andrew, in Christchurch, New Zealand that he had sent me this made-in-New Zealand peanut butter and gluten-free flour for chocolate cake…

…and asked me to go to his house to get them from his mum – his parents probably just came back to Sibu from there. As far as I know, his wife, Michelle, is a regular reader of my blog so she must have read my post on peanut butter that day and also about how my girl is gluten-intolerant. That was so very thoughtful and nice of them, thank you so very very much – I only hope it wasn’t too much trouble for the parents to cart the things back all the way with them.

After getting the things, we headed to town for lunch and I asked my girl if she was keen on going back to the coffee shop we had been to a couple of times again and she was fine by it so there we were – I think this was our third time there with her and my fourth only. We had lunch here, my missus and I and then we brought our girl here once and she liked what we had so we went a second time with her and this time was no exception – the food here was, as always, very good.

No, the boss was not sitting by the side busy with his smartphone this time around – he was busy cooking, assisted by the young boys…

…at his stall and when he saw me, he smiled at me. That took me by surprise as it was not like I was such a regular customer. I guess he could recognise me from my previous visits – after all, there are not so many people this big. LOL!!!

We had the chicken roll again…

…and my girl wanted the ribs that we had on our previous visit but the boy said that there was wheat flour in it – the last time around, he said it was all right so perhaps, they had a different recipe this time, I wouldn’t know.

My girl did not want the fish again so we had siew yoke (roast pork)…

…and we had the bitter gourd omelette…

For our soup dish, I ordered what we called luak chai (Szechuan preserved vegetable/榨菜) and pork leg soup…

…and much to my surprise, my girl said she had never had that before and yes, she loved it! I guess we can always cook our own at home for her to enjoy – somehow, for reasons unknown, the mum never did.

The total for all the dishes and three plates of rice came up to only RM46.00. Not too long ago, we went to another place and had a plate of lemon chicken, not a very big serving, two plates of vegetables – sweet potato leaves and cangkok manis and the Foochow-style tofu soup with canned oysters and the total came up to over RM60.00 (inclusive of rice). No price for guessing which place we will definitely be dropping by again and which place is no longer on our list.

SYARIKAT KIONG CHUONG CAFE (2.291062, 111.827381) is located along Jalan Kampung Nyabor at the bend where one turns into Jalan Kpg Nyabor from Brooke Drive, a stone’s throw from Malaysia Hotel in the next block.

None left…

Seeing how my girl loved the dates that I bought that day…

*Archive photo*

…I went back to the shop to buy some more for her to enjoy during the month-long school break.

Unfortunately, when I got there, the guy told me that there were none left, all sold out! My goodness! They must be very popular and it was just around two weeks into the month of Ramadan.

In the end, I decided the buy this one (RM15.00)…

…also from Yusuf Taiyoob but the dates were still on the tangkai (stem)…

…and these were RM2.00 more expensive that the ones I bought before. The guy said that they also had honey added and though they did not look as moist as the ones I bought the previous time, I thought they were also very nice.

While I was there, I noticed this one…

– dates stuffed with almond…

…selling at RM18.00 a box and they were down to the very last box, so the guy said. He gave me a RM3 discount so it was RM15.00 as well, same as the aforementioned that I bought.

Well, it wasn’t one of Yusuf Taiyoob’s and it was kind of dry and hard, definitely not as nice and the almond did not save the day. Maybe that was why I was never into dates – I did eat them before but I do not recall ever enjoying them…but these Yusuf Taiyoob ones are definitely a different story altogether, no price for guessing what I will be looking forward to buying come next Ramadan.

The Taliban song…

I call him Janggut by virtue of his long beard but the very nice and friendly boss of Sri Pelita calls him Taliban.

I used to enjoy his nasi lemak when he was running a stall here and I would have enjoyed his nasi ayam penyet too if he had not used the same nasi lemak sambal for that. After a while, he closed down his stall but I did bump into him a few times having his breakfast or lunch at Guna’s place. I did hear that he operates a stall at night at the Dewan MUC but so far, I have not gone there to check it out.

Every Ramadan, without fail, he would have a stall…

at the Bandong (Walk) Ramadan Bazaar but no, he would not be selling his nasi lemak nor his nasi ayam penyet.

I did not buy his rojak nor his cucur sambal…

…but I did grab a couple of bags of his laksa Penang (RM4.00 each)…

…to try.

I heated it up and had it for breakfast the following morning and I must say that I enjoyed it very much…

…and for someone who is not really into laksa Penang, that sure is saying a lot. A squeeze of that chunk of lemon that came with it made it taste even nicer, just that I would not mind paying a bit more for some visible bits of fish in the broth.

Actually, what I had in mind when I went there that day was his sambal kacang ikan bilis (peanut and dried anchovies)…

…that I do enjoy very much. I have had good ones elsewhere but mostly, the ingredients would be kind of limp, not nice and crispy so those would not be nice, not at all. Janggut’s pretty good – very very tasty, bursting with flavours and a bit spicy too so I bought quite a lot to keep…

…and eat slowly with my rice – it sure helps to whet one’s appetite on days where there isn’t anything all that nice to eat in the house.

I’ve bought his kacang kuda…

…before, RM2.00 a cup and yes, his would be extra fragrant because of the curry leaves added and so very nice and soft – that sure saves me a whole lot of trouble trying to cook it myself and waiting for hours for the chick peas to soften and the skin to fall off. I did buy quite a lot of that too that day as my girl enjoys it as well.

Well, if anyone is into these same things, Janggut’s stall (2.313955, 111.825111) is the first one along Jalan Jasmin, off Jalan Bandong, somewhere in front of SK Perbandaran Sibu No. 3, more or less facing the entrance of the Dewan MUC…and if you are having a problem trying to find a place to park your car when you go to the bazaar, you may be able to find a good spot here and it really isn’t very far to walk to where all the action is.

Not too soon…

It certainly was a pleasant surprise that evening when my friends dropped by my house to give me these…

What? It’s the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节[duān wǔ jié]) already? That’s the time every year when we will eat these chang/zongzi (meat dumplings) but these days, they are available all year round so one can enjoy them anytime, no need to wait for the festival to come around.

Theirs is the Chinese or what we call Hokkien chang…

…not the nyonya ones that my dear friend, Richard, would make and give me every year. My mum loved his a lot so I would always give her a few from the ones that I got – in fact, Richard, always so very considerate, would set aside some specially for my mum. Sadly, she would not be around anymore this year to enjoy those – if Richard will be making any and giving me some, that is.

Needless to say, these own home-made ones would be heaps nicer than those sold in the town. Those may taste all right but other than being rather expensive these days, the meat filling is hardly visible to the naked eye. When one makes one’s own at home, one can add chunks of meat…

…according to one’s heart’s desire and one has the prerogative, like my friend’s health-conscious missus who made these, to use only lean meat. I sure do not mind a bit of fat though – it makes the chang more oily and somewhat nicer and for those of you who are shuddering at the mere thought of eating pork fat, perhaps you should read this article – it is not as bad as you think. As a matter of fact, it is ranked among the Top 10 most nutritious foods, believe it or not.

There is a bit of shitake mushroom inside too and I could taste the delightful taste of hay bee (dried prawns) and true enough, I spotted one…

…in the dumpling. Don’t ever dream of finding anything of the sort in those commercially-sold ones.

I also love it when there is chestnut…

…inside and also one salted egg yolk but no, my friend did not add that.

The last time I bought one of those sold at the shops, I could detect the salted egg yolk taste but no, I could not see any evidence of its presence in the dumpling…and mind you, the ones with salted egg yolks cost a bomb! Needless to say, you would not catch me buying any anymore, never ever.

For one thing, I’ve noticed that these days, a lot of people here are using nylon strings to tie their chang and I am not too sure what harm that may cause to one’s health. From what I’ve heard, this traditional dried grass breaks easily so it is quite tedious to use but unfortunately, we all know that plastic is bad when used to serve hot food so imagine, these strings being boiled for such a long time while one is cooking the chang.

I googled to check the date and I found out that the Dragon Boat Festival will be on the 18th of June this year, three days after Hari Raya Aidilifitri, tentatively expected to fall on the 15th instant. It is not too soon actually – we are already into the 2nd week of Ramadan and soon the fasting month will come to an end and right after the Hari Raya festivities, the Chinese will be celebrating this festival so if you intend to make your own chang…

…perhaps you should get down to it soon. Thank you so much to my thoughtful and generous friends for giving me some of theirs – I sure enjoyed them very much…and if there is anyone else who would like to let me try the fruits of their labour, rest assured that I would welcome them eagerly with my two hands wide open. LOL!!!

Morning till [the] nightfall…

This place…

…has been around for a very long time but I never bothered to drop by and give it a try. It appeared to me to be a place serving some pseudo-western dishes and a watering hole later in the night.

Sometime ago, this stall…

…made its appearance there and I did get to eat their egg tarts and Portuguese egg tarts – I think they call them Macau tarts…

…and yes, they were good.

I also bought the chicken curry puffs…

…for some friends once and I did not hear them complain. Other than those, they also had the sio pao (baked char siew buns) and a couple of others like these…

…for instance though I am not sure which one that is in the list…

They even had that celebrated Taiwanese egg cake…

…that stirred up a storm when it made its first appearance in the country and had a whole lot of people queuing up for it.

I tried their steamed char siew pao (RM2.00)…

…before and it was very nice so I stopped by that day to buy a few home to re-steam in the morning for breakfast. I think the ones here that were selling for only RM1.50 initially had gone up in price to way over RM2.00 by now and I did not like the egg tarts there.

I ordered one of their steamed meat paos (RM3.20)…

…that day and frankly, at that price, I expected it to be much bigger. The filling was so-so – it sure did not get me jumping up and down with delight and at that price, I think I would much sooner stick to the much nicer char siew ones.

I asked the people there and they told me that the stall would open 7-ish in the morning and would stay open till past nightfall at around 8 at which time, people would go there for drinks and there is a kampua mee stall inside – if I am not wrong, they said that it opens at night so those there for the booze could have that as well should they feel like having a bite to eat. I did not ask if they still serve those pseudo-western dishes anymore or not.

It’s a nice small place, not crowded and I do think it is ideal for meeting friends to sit and chat. The kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) that I had was good and I love the blackboard chalk-drawn mural…

…on the wall but do be forewarned that I did stop there one afternoon to buy the tarts and they were not available. Perhaps they were all sold out that day.

MY BISTRO CAFE & BAR (2.311574, 111.846440) is located right beside Delta Mall among the shops at Pusat Pedada, the first shop at the corner in the block to the right of the mall if you are facing its back entrance.

Next to me…

I think I did mention a while ago that this beef noodles shop has taken over the one right next to it…

…and despite the fact that the ones before did not last very long, I hear that they are doing really well with lots of people dropping by, even at night.

I was out early that morning and I felt like having their beef noodles, our favourite in town, so I ordered the special (RM8.00)…

…with all the tripe and tendons…

…and the meat that all went so well with the chili dip that came with it.

We have not been here for a while now as the noodles…

…are not gluten free. My girl is not keen on the idea of substituting it with kway teow (flat rice noodles) and besides, we are not sure if they add any soy sauce, light, if not dark, and that too would not be gluten free. Way back then, when we used to drop by here, normally, we would have the kampua mee kosong (plain noodles, dry, without meat) to go with a bowl of the lovely beef soup and kampua mee is not gluten-free either.

There is a chu-char (cook & fry) place at the back and according to a friend that I met there that morning, the stuff that they dish out is pretty good as well, the Foochow fried noodles and all the rest. Other than that, there is this dim sum stall…

…by the side in front but it was closed when I got there. The guy came a while later and started setting up his business for the day…

According to him, they are open every day but for half the day only on Sundays and Mondays.

My girl loves these or nee (yam puffs)…

…but the guy said that they did add a bit of wheat flour as the binding agent so I did not buy any in the end.

Then, the guy showed me these…

…and said they were gluten-free, no wheat flour was used in the making and I decided to buy some to try.

They’re Chinese pearl meatballs with sticky rice (珍珠丸子)…

…selling at RM4.80 for 5 so that works out to less than a ringgit each. I thought they were quite nice, like sio bee/siew mai minus the non-gluten free skin and coated with glutinous rice instead…

…though I would not say that they swept me off my feet. It seems that this is something auspicious that people make for special occasions like Chinese New Year.

According to the guy, his wife is a China national so all that he has at his dim sum stall would be pretty authentic.  I certainly would love to drop by there again to try whatever else he has in store…but of course, parking in that area can be such a pain especially on working days  so I would not know when I would get down to doing that.

AH SIAN BEEF NOODLES (2.293063, 111.826106) is located along Jalan Tuanku Osman in the block of shops right in front of the Public Bank, Tuanku Osman branch, right before the tyre shop and below the Kasturi Restaurant at the other end.

Two days in a row…

When we were at the Bandong Ramadan Bazaar on the 2nd Day of Ramadan, I did walk past this stall…

…and the very nice and friendly lady caught sight of me. She could still recognise me even though we hardly ever get to meet except at this time of the year. She asked if I wanted her nasi kuning ayam berempah but I said it was Friday and we were not eating meat that day. Smiling away very pleasantly, she replied, “Tak apa! Datanglah esok!” (Never mind, come tomorrow!)  and that was what I did the very next day and of course, that meant that we were there two days in a row!

I did not take note of the price the previous day and when I saw that it was still RM5.00, the same since 2015, I must say that I was very surprised considering that everything has gone up in price by leaps and bounds since then. They seemed to have “downsize” somewhat though – the chicken rendang and the sambal options were no longer available so all one would get here would be their nasi kuning (yellow rice)…

…and their ayam berempah (chicken with spices)…

…and this tofu and long beans combo…

…plus some sambal cili (chili dip).

When I ate it that evening, I was kind of disappointed as it did not taste as nice as before and looking at my old post, it seemed that they had some sambal tempeh then but not anymore. I added some of the tempeh left over from the day before and somehow or other, that brought it to a whole new level and I really enjoyed it after that.

This stall next to it…

…seemed to enjoy brisk business but I did try their nasi kak wok once and no, it did not sweep me off my feet. However, it sure looked like they had a wide range of options one could choose from…

…now so perhaps, the next time I drop by this bazaar again, I would buy something from them to try.

While I was there, I saw somebody selling buah kurma (dates), boxes and boxes of them displayed on a table outside his little shop and they were all the celebrated Yusuf Taiyoob ones…

My friend, Merryn, seemed to love them so much and would feast on those come Ramadan every year. Even my girl knew of it – she said she saw the commercial on tv, the one with the girl whispering, “Yusuf Taiyoob!!!…Yusuf Taiyoob!!!“ I bought the moist-looking ones, those with honey – the rest were all on their tangkai (stems) and looked kind of dry so they did not appeal to me. I tried them after dinner that evening and yes, it was very nice and my girl loved them too so I packed some from the box (500 gm/RM13.00) for her to take to her school in the jungle and enjoy them there.

In the meantime, my missus went to this stall across the road from the nasi kuning ayam berempah and the nasi kak wok ones selling sotong bakar (grilled squid)…

…and ikan bakar (grilled fish)…

It looked like they only had ikan pari (sting ray) but that was fine with us – my girl likes it…so the mum bought a slab for her to take back to her school to eat in the course of the week.

The next day, on our way back from my girl’s school, we did pass by this Ramadan bazaar around 10 miles from town but it looked very crowded – there were so many cars parked till very far away alongside the road so we did not bother to stop by – after all, my main intention was to bring my girl around to see if there was anything she fancied and since she had gone back to the school for the week, there wasn’t much of a point then. Maybe when we go and pick her this Friday and if they are open already by the time  we are on our way back, we will go and see what they have in store this year.

THE BANDONG RAMADAN BAZAAR (2.314192, 111.825581) is located around the shops at Jalan Bandong and all along Bandong Walk, somewhere around the primary schools and the surau in the vicinity.

The quiet side…

After the disappointment on the first day of Ramadan – there wasn’t anything that tickled our fancy at the bazaar we went to and my girl and I did not buy anything at all even though my missus did tapao some sambal petai udang (stink beans with prawns) and sambal terung (brinjal/egg plant) which were very nice but very expensive and she got only a little bit of each, very little considering that she paid at least RM10.00 for one – we went to our preferred one on the second day, the one that we would go to every year.

It was a Friday so I asked my missus and my girl to look for some nice stuff that the latter would like for dinner, some ikan bakar (grilled fish) or sotong bakar (grilled squid) perhaps – it was our no-meat day so we were abstaining from all the alluring meat delights that we saw at the bazaar.

In the meantime, I walked around slowly looking at all the things they had in store at every stall…right up to the very far end of the bazaar, the quiet side which did not seem to get a lot of attention and was not so crowded. There, at the very last stall in the line, I spotted one with a very young girl and an even younger boy, probably the brother, sitting there waiting for somebody to stop by. Poor things, I thought! So, of course, I went over to have a look at what they had to sell and I decided I would buy something from them just to help them a bit in their undertaking.

In the end, I bought this sambal buah (RM4.00)…

…which they made out of unripened mango. It was very nice, with the right level of spiciness but very very sour so my missus added a bit of sugar to counter-balance the overly-sourish taste and it was just nice after that…

We sure enjoyed it with our rice for dinner that night and finished it all in one sitting.

They were also selling umai, the Melanau “raw” fish delight, daging masak hitam at only RM5.00 a tub (I saw some selling the same at RM7.00 at some other stalls but of course, they may have more inside, I wouldn’t know) and chicken curry too. I decided to buy their fish curry (RM6.00)…

…which turned out to be very nice too but it was a bit salty. I guess it is kind of difficult for those people to cook at this time of year when they are not able to taste their cooking to see if everything is all right.

My missus added a bit of water when heating it up and it was not too bad after that. The gravy went very well with rice and the fish…

…was good too, The girl did tell me the name of the fish but I am no good at those so it did not ring a bell.

I got this tempeh (RM2.00)…

…from another stall thinking that my girl would like it – she enjoys tempeh very much but unfortunately, it was in dire need of a lot more ingredients other than the few ikan bilis that I could see in it as it was, at best, just salty and not very tasty, definitely not anything I would want to buy again.

At another stall, I saw this kuih bungkur (RM2.00 for a pack of 3)…

…which were smaller than the regular ones, usually sold singly and knowing how my girl loves this, of course, I had to buy a few packs home.

I was not too comfortable with how they had used the stapler…

…to staple the banana leaves together – normally, they would use a toothpick or a lidi (skewer) but I guess as long as one is careful in removing it and getting it out of the way, it would not matter all that much.

Being made from ground rice or rice flour, this lovely pudding…

…with gula apong (nipah palm sugar) at the bottom makes a very nice light dessert that we could enjoy after a meal.

Then, at another stall, I saw this tofu fa (RM2.00)…

…with gula Melaka (palm sugar). Usually, at the Chinese stalls and shops, they will use sugar syrup which, I feel, is not as nice. Having said that, the texture of the tofu fa in this one is not that silky and smooth…

…but it was all right and I did enjoy it very much.

So that was it for the 2nd day of Ramadan. Hang on to see what’s in store on the 3rd day. LOL!!!

THE BANDONG RAMADAN BAZAAR (2.314192, 111.825581) is located around the shops at Jalan Bandong and all along Bandong Walk, somewhere around the primary schools and the surau in the vicinity.