One of my ex-Kanowit students went and worked at the Yien King Restaurant in Sibu after she left school and there, she met this chef from Ipoh, Perak, a humble and quiet guy, she said, and they fell in love and got married. Eventually, they moved out to Kuching and ventured out on their own.
Today, they are successful owners of this restaurant there…
…and she so very graciously invited us…
…to dinner at her restaurant on my 2nd night in Kuching.
This was really nice, the coffee pork…
– stewed pork spare ribs with a light hint of coffee. I sure enjoyed that very much and also this kway teow midin…
…flat rice noodles with wild jungle fern. We can’t get this in Sibu except upon special request, I heard – only at places where there is a fried noodles stall and a chu-char (cook & fry) place in the same shop so there will be kway teow and midin too.
The fried bihun…
…did not arouse as much excitement but it was very good as well and so was the fried tofu with minced meat sauce on top…
I heard something like these…
…were Vietnamese rolls with chicken and fish inside and yes, they were very nice.
The prawns…
…were truly superb, something like a cross between Vietnamese-style prawns and our local assam (tamarind) ones. Later, my ex-student realised that they had forgotten to serve the buns with it but we insisted that we did not want those as we were way too full to eat them.
That night, it was this steamed tengalan…
…a very expensive freshwater river fish, over RM100.00 a kilo, that stole the show. Another ex-student of mine brought it all the way from Kanowit and I really loved it! It was so fine and smooth and sweet and personally, I liked it more than the super expensive empurau aka wang poo liao or the semah or the tangadak and I particularly loved how it did not have those tiny forked bones found in abundance in the other three.
We sure enjoyed chatting and catching up with one another’s lives – so far, I’ve met Rose once earlier this year and Gerard in church here in Sibu a couple of times and my ex-colleague, Juliana, also retired like me. The rest, I had not seen for 40 years ever since they left school after Form 3 to go to another school across river and it sure was great to see them again.
That certainly was a memorable get-together and an awesome dinner, thank you so much, Moi Fah, for the kind and generous treat and Ah Lee for the out-of-this-world fish.
XIN KWONG CHIN SEAFOOD (1.518368, 110.366323) is located at Lorong Bayor Bukit 9, Taman Supreme, right next door to Porkies. Opens 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m till 10.00 p.m.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 