End up here…

The other day, we dropped by one of the malls…

…because I was thinking of trying out a place there with a peculiar name , on the 1st Floor, that sounds like what someone would say when they cannot pronounce the name Beatrice.

Yes, it was open but no, there was not a single customer at the time. I hear it can be very crowded round lunchtime. The employees were there, idling around and none came to greet us and encourage us to take a seat and suggest what we should try there. We did look at their photographs on display – they had the Sarawak laksa, nasi lemak and a whole lot of rice sets (rice with a dish by the side).

My girl was not all that keen and that was why we ended up at this place…

…right round the corner.

Being inside a mall, it is air-conditioned so it is more comfortable than their main outlet. However, it is a very small place and can get extremely crowded, not that the main one (their Pedada outlet), though very big – two shop lots at least, is any better actually as they do draw quite a crowd on any day.

Of course, we had our favourite, the Sarawak laksa (RM5.70 now, down from RM6.00 because of the 0% GST)…

…but when it was served, I thought it did not look as good as what we are used to at the other place…

*Archive photo*

Other than being kind of oily, obviously, they did not sieve the broth well so I could see all the “impurities” in it…

…Besides, they were so miserably miserly here with the belacan (dried prawn paste) and gave us just a teeny-weeny pinch of it. Thankfully, it tasted great and yes, we did enjoy it.

I also loved the ang tao peng or iced red bean (RM3.30)…

…that I had, very generous with the gula Melaka (palm sugar) and santan (coconut milk) with the beans done to perfection, soft and mushy but still whole…

…just the way I like it and there were a whole lot of it underneath all that shaved ice.

I noticed the absence of their usual ethnic Dayak employees here that day and the ones they had were definitely not the friendliest of people. One came to take our orders and while we rattled through what we wanted, she just keyed in everything on her tablet in stone-cold silence and left, leaving us to wonder whether she got it all correct or not. What put me off was when she started talking to her colleague – boy, was she loud and she sounded like she was quarrelling or something! I was feeling somewhat uneasy with all that noise…and all things considered, next time, I would much sooner go to the other place instead, not here.

MEDAN MALL (2.292803,111.842068) is located along Jalan Wong King Huo and the Sibu Thomson Corner outlet there is in one corner on the 1st Floor.