I forgot…

That day when I was blogging about the gluten-free stuff available here, I forgot that my girl did buy a box of this…

…when she was in KL sometime ago and she did use it successfully to make not one but two pizzas…

…which we did enjoy very much.

Anyway, this time around, when she saw that it was available here now, she grabbed two boxes…

…right away and last weekend, she used one of them to make a pizza…

She only made one this time around so the crust wasn’t exactly thin…

…but all the same, it was very nice with the toppings – bacon, spinach, lots of cheese, white cream and even an egg…

She was of the opinion that the texture of the crust was similar to that of focaccia bread and since she enjoys that kind of stuff, I said that she could just make the bread next time to enjoy creating her own sandwiches with it and she said she would do that…soon.

Same thing all over…

…again, or almost, that is!

We were in the vicinity that day so we dropped by here again for lunch. I did try the kampua mee and the liver soup from the stall here but out of the blue, for reasons unknown, the lady decided to call it quits. The corner was vacant for quite some time until a young guy took over…

All this while, I’ve been wanting to drop by and try but so far, I have not got round to doing that and when I do, one thing’s for sure, I will not be ordering this, No. 22…

…not even if the price had been a lot cheaper, thank you very much!

In the meantime, we had been here a few times because we did enjoy the food from the chu char (cook and fry) stall there very much and because we had to stick to what would be gluten free, we would order the same things all over again, more or less each time we were there.

That day was no exception, of course, and we had the fried or chio/ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret)…

…which I thought was not all that fresh that day but the ladies did not complain and we did finish it completely all the same.

Yes, we had the siew yoke (roast pork)…

…again and the steamed Szechuan vegetable pork leg soup…

…that we found was nicer here than the same thing that we had another place in town and yes, it was very nice as well this time around…

…and my girl particularly enjoyed the soup.

This was something new – we had not had it before…their leek fried with egg…

…and yes, it was very nice. When I ordered that, I had expected it to appear as an omelette dish but I guess the cook did not have that same thing in mind.

The total for all the dishes came up to RM52.00 which I thought was a little on the high side especially since it is just a coffee shop, not a very nice place, not air-conditioned and all and so far, it had always been 40-something, almost 50 and never over…but as long as the food is nice plus the servings here are rather huge and we do enjoy it very much, I guess that is all that matters.

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

On the other end…

I dropped by here that day to buy the yam puffs (RM2.50 each)…

…that my girl likes a lot and since she was home those few days, she could enjoy them for breakfast or for tea. They are very nice and I like the fibrous exterior, the char siew filling is like what is in their steamed buns – I do like theirs a lot, RM2.00 each.

Incidentally, if you are thinking of dropping by for these, they are usually available around 10-10.30 onwards and they get sold out real fast. That day, I was there around noon and there were only 5 left so I sapu-ed (swept) them all. I hear that they get sold out very quickly and that was why there were times when we dropped by later in the afternoon, there were none available.

In the meantime, since I was in the vicinity, I decided to check out this new place…

…in that block of shops at the other end to the right. It started off as a bakery here at that chicken rice place that we like a lot and do frequent quite often but they have taken over its present location, formerly occupied by a furniture shop, and moved there and they have extended their business to include a coffee place so you can actually go there and order something to eat and drink your coffee – if I am not wrong, they have free wifi here.

They had a lot of doriyakis, the buns made famous by that Japanese cartoon character, Doraemon and I bought one (RM2.50)…

…to try. Yes, it was very nice even though they were not very generous with the cream cheese filling…

…but I thought that was quite enough for me to enjoy it as a whole.

This…

…looked good – I did not know what it was. I could see the chocolate and what I thought was coffee dust on top and I was thinking that was a variation of the Mexican coffee bun but it turned out to be their dirty mochi bun (RM2.50) with whatever filling they had inside…

…and yes, it was very nice but it was so very messy to eat. I did enjoy it more than the croissant version that I bought from here once. I liked the texture of the Korean mochi bun more. I shared half with my missus and yes, she liked it a lot too!

The coconut tart (RM1.80)…

…was really good, a tad nicer than my favourites here but those cost around RM2 something only for two and are much bigger so they are definitely cheaper.

I thought the egg tart (RM1.50)…

…wasn’t anything to shout about plus the pastry was a little hard but the Portuguese egg tart (RM2.20) was really good. I expected them to use the same pastry but no, the one they had for the latter, even though it wasn’t the usual layered Portuguese egg tart pastry, was crustier/crumblier and very much nicer and I enjoyed the custard egg filling with the caramelised top a whole lot more.

I certainly would want to drop by again to see what else they have to offer but since everything is not gluten-free, I wouldn’t want to go when my girl is home as she can only see but mustn’t touch, poor thing!

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 and C & C GALLERY is located at Lot 62 in that same block of shops on the other side/end to the right.

Somewhere down the road…

I had to send my girl every morning to her meetings and one morning, I decided to stop by this food court…

…somewhere along the road leading to the secondary school, the meeting place.

We’ve been here a few times before and yes, we did enjoy some of the stuff we had but we have not gone back for a while now. That morning, only the two food courts were open and a branch of the dim sum place but only this one seemed to be enjoying brisk business so I went to have a look at what they had in store.

They had a makeshift stall…

…selling all kinds of buns (and curry puffs too)…

…and some of these kuihs…

…and packets of nasi lemak as well. They did not have that before on our previous visits or maybe they only have it early in the morning for breakfast, I wouldn’t know – I was never here this early.

I tried the steamed meat pao (RM2.00)…

…and it was quite good – I like paos with egg in it but I thought the char siew pao (RM2.50)…

…was nicer and it also had egg in it, something rather unusual for these char siew buns.

There was a young girl there at that same time (not the one in the above photograph) and for reasons unknown, she kept poking at the paos on display in a tray. The Iban lady was quite pissed off and gave her a piece of her mind, “You cucuk cucuk, nanti orang tak mau beli lagi lah!!!” I must say there is a lot of truth in what she said – in fact, I was glad that my orders came from those in the steamer…not from the tray and I really cannot understand why people do that – many will squeeze the fruits and vegetables and may or may not buy and spoil them. Sometimes we find bruises, for instance, in tomatoes – obviously, somebody has got to them before we do. Tsk! Tsk!

I also ordered the lor mai kai (RM4.50)…

…which was good as well…

…but at that price, I probably would not want to go for it again. I wouldn’t say it was anything that would get me coming back for more.

The coffee (RM1.60)…

…was good and cheaper than a number of places around town.

I don’t know when I will be going back there again as we seldom frequent that part of town, in the other direction, unless there is a reason for us to do so.

ECO-DELITE FOOD COURT (2.330846, 111.855645) is located at the shops on your left along Jalan Ulu Sg Merah, a short distance from the roundabout if you are coming along Jalan Ling Kai Cheng and take the right turn from there.

It’s late…

In my previous post, I mentioned that we had to go and get our girl from her school in the jungle and it was rather late already when we got back into town.

She did not have her lunch and was starting to feel really hungry so we stopped by here…

…for a bite to eat. It certainly is a convenient stop for us as it is on our way back to the house.

It was rather late already but it was a blessing in disguise as I had heard of people grumbling about having to queue and wait for a table and at around 3.00 p.m. in the afternoon, even though there were quite a lot of people around still, we had no problem grabbing a table…

Somebody did tell me before that to avoid the crowd, it would be best to go once they open their doors at 11.00 a.m. or at 5.30 p.m. to avoid the peak hours.

It was too late for their affordable set lunch sets (RM9.50 only with a complimentary drink, available till 2.30 p.m. only) so my missus asked for their so-called signature grilled chicken chop (RM15.00)…

…and of course, she could only manage one of the two slabs of the meat…

– no prize for guessing who had to finish off the other slab. I thought it was all right, very nice with the mushroom sauce that came with it.

My girl stuck faithfully to her grilled New Zealand lamb shoulder (RM26.00) that she had on our two previous visits and this time around, I decided to give their smoked duck pizza (RM19.00)…

…a try.

Yes, I would say it was very nice, very rich with the whole lot of cheese…

…that went into the making and the thin crust was really great. However, even though, they were quite generous with the bits of duck, I could not detect any special taste at all – it just came across like ham or bacon, one of those.

I  was still a bit full from what I had earlier that morning and I had to deal with my missus’ extra slab of chicken so I could only manage a few slices of the pizza and had to ask them to pack the rest for us to take home. I think it was around 4.00 p.m. by the time we were done so we just had a very light dinner that evening – what was left of the pizza that we took home.

WOW WOW WEST Sibu (2.296407, 111.885216) is 24 & 26, Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman – on your left along the road leading to the Sibu Airport, past the traffic lights junction where you would turn left to go to the Sibu General Hospital but before the next junction where you would turn right to go into Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce.

We’re on our way…

We had to go all the way to our girl’s school in the jungle on Tuesday morning to get her and bring her home as she has some official business to attend to here yesterday and for the rest of the week.

We were early so on the way, we stopped by Selangau bazaar for a bite to eat and we dropped by this place…

…with a somewhat optimistic-sounding name. This is located in the new buildings at the far end of the place – they now have a big branch of that popular supermarket in the green building on the other side in the photograph and yes, on previous occasions, I did notice that there were quite a lot of people eating there.

The coffee…

…was great but it was RM1.80 a glass, the same as many places in Sibu but we do have some that are a little cheaper around here.

The selections at the Muslim stall…

…looked good but it was a bit too early for rice so I went to the kampua mee stall directly opposite…

…instead.

I saw the lady preparing something and asked her what it was. She said it was their chap-chap (mixed) soup with all the innards and everything so I told her I would like that with a bowl of kampua mee kosong (no meat) but she suggested that I should just go for the special instead for only RM7.00. Well, whatever that was, I decided to just go ahead with it.

My missus had no idea what she would like to have so I got a bowl of the kampua mee kosong (RM2.00)…

…for her so she could have that and share my bowl of soup. Of course she wanted hers tossed in chili sauce and yes, she did ask for some sliced chili in soy sauce as well – that went well with the aforementioned soup…

We could dip everything in it to eat but I was sort of surprised that it had intestines, stomach, kidney…everything except liver!…

It was very nice and the best thing was that it came with a bowl of kampua mee…

…with meat for only RM7.00 altogether.

I saw the prices at the stall – RM3.00 for kampua mee, RM4.00 for kolo mee (with minced meat added, I guess) so the soup worked out to only RM4.00 a bowl. I believe that would be at least RM5.00-6.00 here in Sibu and they do not give that much ingredients here so I reckoned that was kind of cheap.

After having had our fill, we headed to my girl’s school.

The sour and the sweet…

I’m not into things that are sour, drinks in particular but then again, I am not fond of things that are too sweet either.

However, there are some sourish dishes that I do enjoy. The ladies love our Foochow chao chai hung ngang…

…using the fermented vegetables but personally, I am not all that crazy about it. I don’t mind it as  as soup dish for our meals though – the sourish taste will certainly help whet one’s appetite.

My masak kunyit (cooked with turmeric) prawns…

…or fish is sourish too with the slices of asam keping (dried tamarind) added in the cooking and I sure enjoy that a lot and our terung Dayak (Dayak brinjal)…

…is sour too except that these days, for reasons unknown, sometimes the ones we get from the market are not sour. I get really pissed off at times when the chili that I buy is not hot and spicy, the bitter gourd is not bitter and the chives lack the fragrance and taste.

Of course, I do enjoy the sourish tom yam soup…

…here too and their lovely belimbing prawns…

…and in the Cantonese/Hakka cuisine, there is their traditional sour duck…

– the favourite of my ex-students from Machan, Kanowit. We would always have it everytime we had a reunion – they would get somebody to cook and they would bring it to the gathering.

It is available at the shops sometimes…

…and I did have it before here and there but no, Sibu being a Foochow town, it is not commonly available.

Well, it so happened that Peter, the Payung boss, tried his hand at cooking it using spare ribs instead of duck but at home, of course. The café is pork-free so no, you will not find it in their menu, no way. He thought it was very nice so he gave me some…

…to try.

I think he had some sawtooth coriander in it and luckily, we do enjoy it now and will add it in some of our own dishes at home as well. He said that if it was not sour, I could add some calamansi lime juice which I did and yes, it was very nice after that. The sauce went absolutely well with rice. I sure enjoyed it very much but as it was, it was all lean meat and I was thinking that perhaps it might be better with pork leg/trotter as in that black vinegar pork leg dish that I do like a lot – I sure wouldn’t mind a bit of the fat and skin and tendon.

Anyway, thank you so much, Peter – that sure was so thoughtful and generous of you.

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

Not what I had in mind…

I loved the sambal (dip) here so much that day so I went back there again in the hope of enjoying some more of that.

I had the fried kway teow on my previous visit and this time around, I asked for the fried bihun (rice vermicelli) instead…

…kudos to the lady once again for not using a plastic plate like a lot of places around here. Unfortunately, it came without the sambal nor did I get any of the nice chicken soup that was served with the kway teow the last time around. I tried asking her and she did not seem to know what I was talking about.

I also ordered one fried egg to go with the noodles and sadly, it was a bit overdone…

…and did not have the nice golden frills all along the edges.

The bihun (RM3.50)…

…tasted great though, a little spicy and I only had to fork out an extra 50 sen for the egg.

On the whole, I did enjoy it but it definitely was not what I had in mind and it kind of left me a bit disappointed. The next time I drop by here, I shall have the photographs ready and for sure, I will ask her for the sambal…and the soup!

UNCLE LAU CORNER (2.328131, 111.840397) is located back to back with Udak Kitchen which is to the left of Everwin, Sg Merah along Lorong Sungai Merah 2C, off Jalan Teng Chin Hua, across the road from the St Teresa’s Catholic Church and the SIB Church next to it.

You treat me so good…

I sent word to Andy that we would be dropping by…

…for lunch that day and when we got there, that nice guy had reserved a table specially for us with fresh flowers and the lovely pua kumbu tablecloth…

Of course we didn’t want to sit there as it wasn’t any special occasion and we did not want to dirty the tablecloth and they would have to wash it later so we took a table without any table cloth (they usually have that for dinner, not for lunch) but with those lovely fresh torch ginger flowers, no less…

…but of course, that special treatment did not go unnoticed – they sure treat me so good here.

They gave me these apple mangoes from Peter’s own garden…

…but they’re not ripe yet so I have not eaten them at the time of writing.

In the meantime, they have made this fresh batch of their super-duper hot chili sauce…

…selling for RM15.00 now, up from RM12.00 that last time but of course, these bottles are bigger than the previous cylindrical plastic ones.

My girl wanted the chicken chop…

…with the special chicken sauce and it was done perfectly well and we thought it was extra nice that day.

Like what we did a few times before, we requested for the two slices of their garlic bread to be left out as it is not gluten free and had it replaced by their mashed potato instead. It never occurred to me that it was not really a fair switch – the mashed potato probably cost around the same as their garlic bread dish…

…with four or five slices plus the sauce…but they did not mind doing it upon our request – I heard that others had tried asking for the same but sorry, they were not accorded that same privilege. Still, I do think it would not be so nice to do it all the time so perhaps the next time, we would just order the chicken chop as it is and we can eat the bread (would be lovely to dunk it in curry) or just ask them to omit it…and we will have the mashed potato as a separate order to go with the meat.

I had their Bangladeshi lamb curry…

…that I had not ordered for a while because my girl has this preference for their lamb masala that is just as nice and not spicy at all. This curry may be spicy sometimes depending on the chili that they manage to get from the market – some days, the chili is not hot at all or as what one seller told me once, they would be good only for the colour and for decoration. Well, that day, it wasn’t spicy so Andy gave us a bit of their aforementioned chili sauce and they went so well together – it certainly was so good with it.

It looked like I was given a lot more than their regular serving with just three chunks of the meat – there were at least 4 or more that day plus some bite-sized boneless pieces as well…and there were quite a lot of the potatoes too. I so love potatoes in curry.

The green curry…

…that my missus had was very nice as well and it was spicy! I asked Peter why the colour was not red and he said that they use green chili for the dish.

To go with our meat dishes and rice, I ordered their version of the Thai som tam – the papaya salad…

– I saw Andy making it and the strips of the petals of the torch ginger flower that he added helped enhance the taste and bring it to a whole new level. We did enjoy it a lot, I must say.

That sure was a delightful lunch, as always and it so happened that my friend/ex-student, Alex, dropped by for lunch too with his missus and new-born baby girl and when I wanted to pay, I was informed that he had picked up the tab already – thank you so much, Alex! We gotta bump into each other a lot more often. LOL!!!

Incidentally, I have heard of people trying to locate this place but in vain even though I always give the address, the GPS and a description of the location…

*Photo from Google Maps*

Yes, the shop sign is blocked by the thatched roof in front, part of the decor of the place but there is one at the back that you can see quite clearly if you are coming down the lane to the right of that leading hotel in town at the back and there is another sign by the side now – just that it is not lit so it may not be all that visible at night. Nonetheless, it is there to the extreme left of that block of shophouses (the one with what look like four Roman columns), right behind the hotel.

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

We have it all…

Not too long ago, it was so difficult to get gluten-free stuff here in Sibu. We might stumble upon some but those would be few and far between and not all were necessarily nice but we were at their mercy, so to speak, take it or leave it! Most of the time, we were dependent on those given to us, family and friends from Kuching, KL or overseas.

My girl was so excited when she went to KL and there were so many there that she did not know what to pick and cart home so of course, she was so happy to see these…

– the same brand as the nice stuff she bought in KL at the supermarket in town that stocks up on all the imported stuff.

Yes, she bought two boxes of that as she missed eating pizza so much, never mind bread or thin crust – both are not gluten-free so now, she is going to use that to make her own to enjoy.

We did bring our own gluten-free pasta to the cafés and restaurants time and time again and asked them to use instead of the regular ones but except for here, all the rest would charge accordingly, the full price, never mind that we were not using their non-gluten-free pasta. However, we never had any gluten-free lasagna sheets and she sure missed eating that. Needless to say, she grabbed a box of these…

…the instant she caught sight of it on the shelf.

She did try making her own bread – most were disastrous while some were ok, quite nice but none was anything like bread as we know it. This time around, she bought a box of this…

…to try – hopefully, it will turn out o.k.

Her attempt at making corn bread came to naught so I bought her this box of crispy corn bread…

…once but she had yet to give it a try. Of course, there are those taco shells that we enjoyed very much and I did buy a box to keep in the house to enjoy anytime we feel like it.

We have had quite a variety of gluten-free biscuits and cookies – some good, some not so and the bottom line is they are not quite the same, the texture and everything probably because of the flour used. So far, the best would be this Australian one…

…which we thought was nicer than the regular ones, same brand.

Well, that day, my girl came home with these cookies…

…from that same supermarket but we have yet to try them. However, we’ve opened one of these two…

…, made in Australia, and much to our delight, we thought they were really very nice…

Personally, I do think these could give those celebrated Tim Tams a run for the money!

And talking about money, it goes without saying that these things do not come cheap at all but at least, we can get them here now, no need to fly to Kuching or KL and wherever…and anyway, my girl does not spend on anything at all the whole week while she is confined to her school in the jungle so she can well afford to pamper herself and spend on these when she comes home on the weekends, something good for the body and the soul, this shopping therapy, they call it.

TA KIONG EMPORIUM (2.2933,111.82713,783) is located at No. 42-46, Jalan Tuanku Osman and opens daily from 8.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m.