It’s a steal…

When we say, “It’s a steal,” what we mean is it’s a bargain, so cheap that it’s almost as if we have not paid anything for it.

Well, last Monday was a public holiday here and we decided to go out and spend some quality time together. We made our way to the supermarket that we seldom frequent as it is out of our way on the other side of town. That wasn’t a very good idea as the Merdeka Sale is on right now and there were so many people grabbing things like there was no tomorrow or they were getting them for free.

I just browsed around, my head spinning with the crowd and the commotion all around and it was then that I spotted a section in one little corner of the place – they were selling those things that were supposed to be given away as free gifts and now that the promotional period was over, they were trying to get rid of them, cheap.

My missus has this glass thing with an airtight lid…

…that I always find very convenient to use for the sambal belacan (dried prawn paste dip) or the acar (pickle) or maybe a slice of the long kiam hu (salted fish) with a calamansi lime cut in halves when we have guests over for lunch or dinner at the house. I particularly like the fact that it is glass, not plastic except for the lid.

That day, I saw this…

…over-proof and much bigger than the aforementioned, maybe twice the size and on the box it said that it was worth RM30.00 but they were selling it for RM12.90 only and there were only two of them so of course, I grabbed both. I must say that it sure was a steal!

Talking about bargains, this came dirt cheap…

…at 99 sen only, believe it or not. My girl bought a couple of boxes for me to enjoy not too long ago and even then, it was already going for a little over RM2.00 a box as the expiry date was approaching. This was a day before the expiry date and as long as it was still good, I would not mind nibbling on them, one at a time…

These German-made chocolate chip cookies were very nice with a whole lot of the lovely chocolate chips in each of them – none of our local made ones can ever come close.

Anyway, going back to our outing that Monday morning, I just loitered around with my loot and when the ladies were done, we went for lunch here…

…on our way back to town.

They have a new boy working there now, Jonathan. As a matter of fact, he’s not exactly new – he was there some years ago when he was just a little boy and according to Peter, the boss, he showed up one day and asked to come back – the very nice and friendly boy with a pleasant grin, very hardworking and efficient and able to work independently and what impresses me most of all is how he is multi-lingual, very proficient in Iban, Malay and Foochow and Mandarin and he can speak English quite well too.

I saw that they had something new on their menu, the tom yam chicken with rice…

…so I asked him about it. He said that it was intended for those allergic to prawns but would love to have tom yam so I ordered that to try.

Peter took it upon himself to cook it for me and I would say that the tom yam soup…

…was really very nice and my missus loved it too! However, personally, I would prefer prawns…or for that matter, sotong (squid) or fish instead of chicken.

My missus had their butter chicken with rice…

…and my girl had the chicken chop…

…with a special request for mashed potatoes instead of the slices of garlic bread by the side as those would not be gluten-free.

As always, we enjoyed the food and when I went to pay, Jonathan told me that the total, inclusive of drinks, was RM67.00. I gave him RM70.00 and told him to keep the change but he simply refused to accept the tip. Gee!!! That was nice…and even though it was only RM3.00 actually, others elsewhere would definitely jump at it without any second thought. He’s such a good boy, that Jonathan!

PAYUNG CAFÉ (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River.