Same…

I find it somewhat interesting that many words in Tagalog, the Filipino language, is the same or similar to those in our Sarawak Malay dialect or the Iban and Melanau languages. Perhaps our close proximity as neighbours has something to do with it.

A man, for instance, is lalaki in Tagalog and lelaki in our language. Manok is chicken in Iban or Melanau and it is the same in Tagalog. A pig or pork in Melanau is babui and they call it baboy in the Philippines but I do not think what we call ulam…

…is the same as what they call by that same name over there. Wife is sawah in Melanau (rice field in Malay) and asawa in Tagalog and I am sure that because of the very popular Filipino song, everyone knows that anak means child, the same as in Malay as well as in Iban and Melanau (aneak).

They call noodles pancit there and that sounds quite similar to our pian sip (meat dumplings)…

…so I guess pancit canton can be literally translated as Cantonese noodles and when I saw this…

…at a supermarket the other day, I did not hesitate to grab a pack (RM3.30 for a pack of 5) to try.

My missus loves their chili sauce, this brand…

…especially because it is extra pedas (spicy) and before they came out with their line of chili sauces, their kicap manis (sweet dark soy sauce) was a hit, great for cooking our Sarawak’s own daging masak hitam, they say. Well, it looks like they have come out with their own instant noodles now as well.

Inside each packet, there are the noodles, a sachet of seasoning and the dark soy sauce, the chili sauce and the shallot oil, packed separately, in another sachet…

I quickly cooked one and served it with one hardboiled egg and a generous sprinkling of spring onion from my garden on top…

I would say it was nice, more or less like the favourite Indonesian instant mi goreng (fried noodles) but I do not have the slightest inkling as to whether or not it is in any way the same as the pancit canton in the Philippines.