A good year…

On the eve of New Year’s Eve, Melissa’s coursemate and his family dropped by my house to pass me this really awesome serunding daging (beef floss)…

…that he had just brought back from Terengganu after the long school holidays back home. Yes, it was very nice and very spicy too which made us love it all the more, thank you so much, Bubu. It is always so nice and thoughtful of you to bring us a little something whenever you go back home.

These came in on New Year’s Eve…

…just in time for the New Year, bringing my total for the year to 5, thank you so much to Merryn and family and also to Ozzie, my friend in Singapore, who sent hers all the way from Hokkaido in Japan while on holiday there.

That morning, we left the house at dawn to go to my girl’s school in the jungle. The road was pretty much the same, for better or for worse – some parts were a bit better, other parts were worse than the condition they were in over a month ago. When we got there, my girl had to go for their staff meeting so the mum and I spent the time cleaning her quarters from top to bottom. In keeping with our Chinese/Foochow custom, I cooked our traditional Foochow red wine chicken soup to bring along and eat with mee sua (longevity noodles) for lunch – my girl had it with bihun (rice vermicelli) instead.

We left around mid-afternoon and had the misfortune of having to go through torrential rain all the way on the horrendous Pain-Borneo Highway. We got home rather late and I had to rush to the car wash…and wash the engine when I got back so I did not get the chance to rest or have my forty-winks. That was why I did not go for the Thanksgiving Service and Fellowship/Pot Luck Gathering at our regular church that night – I might dose off halfway and I went to the one in the morning instead…and they had a little ceremony after the service to usher in the New Year 2019…

After that, I decided to go in search of some very nice mee sua in town even though I already had that the day before. I did not bother to go back here as my favourite is no longer available and the substitute is not all that great and I don’t know if this one has moved some place or not after that coffee shop closed down. The one here was a tad too sour for my liking the last time I had it so I went here…

…in the end as I could remember I did have some nice mee sua here a long time ago – I forgot that the last time I had it, I was somewhat disappointed.

Well, the kopi-o-peng (RM1.80)…

…wasn’t great – it was just so-so. There are a lot of places in town that serve very much nicer coffee at that same price or less.

The mee sua (RM7.00)…

…has gone up in price by a ringgit and the instant it was served, I knew right away that it would not be to my liking.

The soup was what we say in Hokkien, lor-lor (murky) and yes, there was enough red wine in it just that it wasn’t the top quality kind that we would get to enjoy here. The chicken was well-marinated and tender enough and there was one whole hard-boiled egg and a shitake mushroom…

I keep telling my friend, Peter, the boss of Payung to serve it as a special…say, for lunch on Saturdays, like their lei cha on Fridays and because their red wine is absolutely the best, made by his sister, approved by his mum – the matriarch in the family and since they use the more expensive pua-chai kay (I bought one for our mee sua that day, RM60 a bird), they can give two pieces of the meat and more noodles and soup in a  bigger bowl and charge double, RM15.00 perhaps. Because it is so very nice, I, for one, would keep going for it and there will be others, I’m sure…and their friends who may not be thus inclined can always order something else from their regular menu. How about that for a business proposal, eh?

As for this one that I had, at best, I would say it was all right…and at least, I had mee sua on New Year’s Eve and also on New Year’s Day in the hope that I would be blessed with longevity and a good year ahead. I must say, however, that despite what I felt about it, it certainly seemed very popular as there was quite a crowd and many were having this same thing. It would be such a shame if there isn’t a place right here in Sibu, basically a Foochow town, where one can get really very good Foochow longevity noodles or mee sua.

UNCLE BAKERY (2.304785, 111.849142) is located along Lorong Pahlawan 7B/3, directly facing the Sibu Bus Terminal, a few doors to the right of Medan Hotel/Bus Terminal Food Court.