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.