It was not natural…

This was on Saturday, November the 2nd, All Souls’ Day, 2019. The sky was threateningly dark when I got up that morning but thankfully, my prayers were answered. It was still cloudy when we left the house but it did not rain all the way to the memorial park…

…and back, praise the Lord.

To be fair, I noticed that there was some improvement in the so-called highway, much better in parts compared to when we went there that day on my mum’s birthday. I did hear that it could get quite bad on rainy days, flash floods and all, and yes, it has been raining quite a bit lately. After having performed our filial duties of offering flowers and prayers, we headed back into town and went for brunch before going home.

The previous Saturday, we headed here for the only-on-Saturday nasi kerabu but it was closed so we went here instead. “Minggu ini tak ada lah, uncle!” the young girl said, “Minggu lepas ada!“

“Minggu depan ada?” I asked and she nonchalantly replied, “Tak tahu!” Honestly, I am amazed by how these people do business…and they always complain why others do better and are so rich. Anyway, that day, we just had their nasi campur instead and personally, among all the Malay eateries in town, I like the selections here most of all.

This time around, we went back to that other place but no, we did not get our hopes up to high even though they did put a notice on their Facebook page saying that they would be closed till 30th October and yes, it was just as we expected – CLOSED again…for reasons unknown so we did not have a choice and headed to the latter again and YES, they did have nasi kerabu that day!

My missus and my sister went for their nasi campur and they did have some really nice selections that day such as their chicken liver…

…my favourite and also the balitongs…

…and their very popular ulam…

…but my mind was made up.

It had to be nasi kerabu or nothing and while my girl had their chicken…

…I had the fish…

It did not matter so much that the chicken was so red like char siew or the tandoori chicken at the Indian places BUT THE RICE WAS SO BLUE! It was pretty obvious that they did not use the blue butterfly pea flower and had resorted to those bottled not-natural colouring. Gee!!! If they do not have access to the flower and are not willing to fork out the money to go and buy, they can always come to my house and help themselves to the blooms…all along my back fence!!!

For one thing, I’ve noticed that if I eat anything using such artificial colouring, it will all come out in the end. Sometime ago, I feasted on the kek lapis Sarawak that I bought, the very nice Evergreen… and I had the shock of my life when I went to the washroom the next morning and IT WAS GREEN in colour!!! That got me very worried as it was still green the following day but thankfully, by the 3rd day, it was back to the usual normal colour. Guess what colour it was this time, anybody?

The total that day was not all that cheap, over RM40 for the 4 of us inclusive of drinks. The nasi kerabu was RM15.00 altogether and my missus and sister did not really take much from the nasi campur selections. I wish they could be more transparent in their calculations and itemise everything clearly – frankly, I did not even see them coming round to see what one had taken and loaded onto one’s plate.

LA’ZZATY CUISINE (2.307198, 111.828479) is located along Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg on the left if you are coming from town, right after the SHELL petrol station, at its junction with Jalan Nibong. The Sibu Buddhist Temple is on your right on the other side of the road.