Bad timing…

That day, I had to buy something at the neighbourhood shop round the corner in the next lane so I left the house a little bit early. Unfortunately, my timing was bad and it did not take very long for me to do that. In the end, I had a lot of time on my hands – it was way too early to go and pick up my girl after school.

These days, with the SOP and everything, teachers have to be on duty to keep an eye on the kids and wait for their parents to pick them up one by one and of course, there are some who will take their sweet time, never mind that the teachers, after a long day, are tired and famished and because of this, it may be quite late before they are able to get away.

In the end, I decided to stop by this coffee shop for a drink and something light – I had no intention of having anything heavy as after I had picked up my girl, we would go straight home and have lunch.

They did prepare the things required for the SOP…

…all placed on one of the tables – DIY (do-it-yourself) and that was what I did. Much to my relief, my temperature was 36.4 °C. At most of the places that I went, it was always 35 something and that got me kind of worried. Am I suffering from mild hypothermia?

I was thinking of having a small bowl of pian sip (meat dumplings) but the kampua mee people were already cleaning up and closing down for the day. They suggested that I ordered from the chu char (cook & fry) people at the back which I did and I asked for a plate of tomato kway teow (RM4.50)…

I had not had this here before and I sure was glad that I asked for it. It was really very nice – I liked how the tomato sauce was diluted somewhat so the gravy did not taste so concentrated like tomato sauce straight from the bottle and there was a lot of meat, plus some char siew and yes, I was delighted to see so much green vegetables in the dish. Some places can be really stingy with it!

I enjoyed it a lot and would not mind ordering it…

…again the next time I drop by here. Of course, I would not say it was “something light” – I was so full after that but I did eat a bit for lunch that day, just in case… Hehehehehe!!!

AH KAU CAFE (2.316346, 111.839861) is located along Jalan Ruby, off Jalan Lim Han Swee, in the same block as Kim Tak Mini Supermarket, to the extreme left.

Waste my time…

I saw this video clip on Facebook in which the guy was praising the Sarikei paos (steamed buns) to the skies and I noted that they would be available at a supermarket here. I made my way there the very next day but I saw the pathetic-looking steamer there by the side, EMPTY!

I asked the not-very-friendly young boy at the SOP counter and he grudgingly replied that they had not had any for the past few days already. I asked him when they would be available and he curtly replied, “Tak tahu!” (Dunno!) So kurang ajar! (No manners!)

That is why I hate these big(ger) supermarkets – the people are so impersonal, not amicable and cordial like the nice people I would encounter at my neighbourhood shops. Of course, I was already so put off by the fact that I had wasted my time going all the way for nothing and getting that kind of treatment from those useless buggers, I sure would not be all that keen to go back to that supermarket again.

Anyway, I thought that since I was there already, I might as well stroll over to this coffee shop round the corner to see what they had in store. No, for reasons unknown, they no longer sell pao(s); only their sio bee is still available. I used to love their giant toa pao (big bun) so much – too bad they do not make and sell those anymore.

I spotted these sandwiches (RM3.90)…

…and I thought that thick piece of grilled chicken…

…looked so enticing.

However, I must say I was rather disappointed when I ate it because I did not like the egg and mayo mash – it was kind of sweet, a somewhat peculiar taste. Perhaps it was the mayo they used, dunno what brand that was. If it had been just mashed hardboiled egg, maybe with a bit of butter and cheese, I would have loved it a lot! As it was, I thought it was, at best, quite all right but I could have gone for a plate of kampua mee and enjoyed it a whole lot more and still have change!

I did not ask how much the popiah was but the guy said it was very nice so I grabbed two to try and lived to regret it. The filling was different from mine – no sengkuang/mangkuang, just cabbage, carrot and long bean…

I could detect a hint of the kacang tumbuk (crushed peanut) and no, despite what the man said, it was not spicy at all.

I didn’t ask for the price of the curry puffs…

…either – I just grabbed all the three they had left as I thought they looked quite good. The filling was great, very nice but I thought the pastry needed a bit of work. It was quite nice but it could be improved.

I also bought these huat kuih (RM1.20 each)…

– they were probably 10 sen each in my childhood days and a whole lot bigger and nicer. I like to steam these and apply butter on them while piping hot and popping them into the mouth as the butter melts – that is so good! For one thing, I notice that the ones these days are way too fine, probably the result of the use of machines/appliances. Needless to say, the ones way back then were so much better.

They had a whole lot of other things for sale at this coffee shop but those would have to wait till the next time I pass by there again.

LOK MING YUEN CAFE (2.293215, 111.836281) is located along Lorong Chiew Siik Hiong 1 in the Fortune Commercial Centre, behind Rejang Medical Centre. Across the lane from its back entrance is Sushi Tie, the Japanese Restaurant.

My Vietnam…

I love ASEAN cuisines, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Filipino. Unfortunately, we only have some places selling some Indonesian delights and a Thai restaurant that people say has gone downhill since the Thai chefs went home.

No, we do not have any Filipino restaurants here even though many Chinese restaurants in town serve that crispy pata and they call it Philippine pork leg and yes, we have had a Vietnamese place once and a stall in a coffee shop too, but they did not last very long.

That was why I couldn’t wait to check this place out in Miri but unfortunately, I did not think it was all that great. Thankfully, we went to a really good one in Kuching but the way things are going these days, I don’t suppose we will ever get to hop over again to go and eat there.

Well, it so happened that my missus picked up two packets of this…

…at the supermarket at the mall round the corner from my house. Boy! Was she excited when she cooked one to try!!! She loved it so much and she told me straight away in no uncertain terms not to blog about it so they would not be sold out (like what happened to the Aussie wagyu that day) and she would be able to rush over and buy some more…which she did and she came home with around a dozen packets of the beef and some of the chicken.

One can easily guess from all that in Vietnamese on the packet that it is made in Vietnam. Phở bò means beef (flat) rice noodles (kway teow) and Hà Nội is Hanoi in Vietnamese, the capital of Vietnam.  The chicken one is phở gà Hà Nội.

Inside the packet, you can find the noodles and three sachets…

Inside the red one is something like chili sauce and the gỏi rau, translated to mean vegetable salad, looked like dehydrated spring onion, fried shallots and fried garlic to me. I guess the xương hàm in the big sachet is the seasoning in liquid/sauce form, unlike most where it is usually in powder form and there are small bits of meat in it.

I boiled the noodles in a bit of water, emptied the contents in all the sachets into the pot, added a few Thai basil leaves from my garden and poured everything into a bowl. I served it with a few slices of beef (Aussie wagyu, no less) and some of the chili (from my garden) that I pounded with ginger and lime, garnished generously with chopped spring onion (also from my garden)…

Yes, I really must say it was so so so good despite being nothing more than just instant noodles.

According to my missus, they’re only RM1.90 a packet…

…and the chicken one is also very nice. I certainly will give that a try one of these days.

DELTA – THE MARKETPLACE (2.311968, 111.847043) is located in the basement of the Delta Mall, Taman Seduan 8, Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai.

One day…

I abstain from meat for just one day every week, Friday and I must say that it is quite problematic looking for things to eat outside especially at 6.00 a.m. in the morning when most of the shops would be closed. Kampua mee without meat would be all carbs and may be somewhat plain and not that appealing.

Much to my delight, my regular Malay kueh stall at Bandong opens real early every morning for the benefit of those stopping by after their morning prayers at the surau nearby to buy something home for breakfast.  They have their very nice nasi lemak, of course and I can just avoid the add-ons like their chicken curry or beef rendang or I can go for their fried kway teow (RM2.50)…

…or mee goreng (RM2.50)…

…instead. These used to be RM2.00 only though during those days before COVID-19. They would wrap them up using a plastic sheet into a bungkus but I guess you get less when they do it that way. I noticed that morning that they had fried bihun and even halal kampua mee too!

If you are not into rice and noodles, you may pick something from the array of kuehs. They have so many things for you to choose and that morning, I decided I would try their bread pudding…

I bought this before and I did like it very much but this time around, it looked kind of different. I thought it was all right – I prefer the regular ones that they used to sell before.

I was about to grab a pack of their pulut panggang that morning when I spotted the ketupat lemak…

…beside it, so so so good with kaya (c0c0nut jam) or condensed milk so I bought those…

…instead and yes, they were very good – I do not have to go all the way to the tamu in Permai where the Chipsmore old lady (now you see her, now you don’t) said she would sell hers twice a week…depending on your luck.

I sure am glad that I can always drop by here on Friday every week, otherwise I would have to cook myself a bowl of instant noodles at home…or buy a loaf of bread ahead of time to make an egg or tuna sandwich in the morning, sorry, no ham, no bacon, no sausages! LOL!!!

Buns…

My good friend/ex-classmate, Robert, kept telling me to drop by this coffee shop…

…near Longbridge Road, directly opposite Catholic High School, for the special own-made bread there but I never did. If I remember correctly, that was sometime last year, long before the COVID-19 outbreak. For one thing, that area is terribly congested and looking for a place to park the car is quite impossible plus I am not really into bread.

However, the other morning, I was manoeuvring through the back lanes and alleyways in that area as many were jammed and the cars were brought to a standstill and I happened to drive past that coffee shop. I caught a glimpse of the buns in the display cabinet…

…and that reminded me of what Robert had told me. I went one whole round and came back again but via another lane and managed to park my car at the back of the row of shops on the right of Longbridge – the coffee shop is right across that lane to the left.

I spoke to a nice young girl at the shop and she told me that they use special ingredients to make those buns – I did not quite catch all that she said but I remember that as she went on and on, she did mention “expensive butter”…

*water for their cats in the “expensive butter” tins, placed around the coffee shop*

I asked her how the buns would be served if one were to eat them there and she said that there was a guy who was not there at the time and he would use the buns to make burgers from RM12.00 up, depending on the ingredients added. In the end, I just bought two (RM5.00 each)…

…home to try.

The next morning, I cut the bun and toasted the halves till nice and crusty on the outside and then I buttered both halves on the inside and added a slice of mozzarella cheese each and placed them back into the oven to toast till the cheese had melted.

I fried an egg (perfectly done, of course, with the yolk still runny) and grilled some slices of smoked bacon and placed them on a bed of lettuce on the bottom half, sandwiching everything inside with the top half…

…and ate.

Yes, it was very nice but owing to its size, it was quite a struggle to finish all of it on my own. I made an identical one for my girl for her breakfast and she could only manage to finish half of it.

I would love to drop by again when the guy is around and try one of his burgers using these lovely buns.

TAI SHAN LAI CAFE (2.285856, 111.832134) is located to the left of Lanang Road (heading towards town), right past its junction with Longbridge Road, across the road from the main entrance of Catholic High School.

Not always right…

Well, I must say that the things growing in my garden do not always turn out right. I have not had much luck planting chilies, for instance. I think I did get to eat a few once and another time, for reasons unknown, all the green chilies just dropped from the plants.

It is the same with the ones I am currently nurturing. I think there were some seeds among the kitchen waste that I buried and they sprouted and flourished and grew really well. So many chilies appeared but eventually, I noticed them starting to rot even before they ripened. That left me with no choice other than to pluck them and get rid of them.

There was this solitary one…

…however, that turned out really well. Hopefully, there will be a few others coming soon.

My cangkuk manis/mani cai is another thing that I plant that has never been doing all right. At best, I may get a handful of leaves for my masak sayur rebus but it does look a little bit better…

…lately.

That day, I managed to pluck quite a lot…

…not enough for a dish by itself but I could have fried it with some baby corn or pumpkin or sweet potatoes.

In the end, I used it for my fried bihun with those canned clams in soy sauce…

…for our lunch that day and I threw in that aforementioned chili, sliced thinly, as well.

Ah well!!! As they say, something is better than nothing! LOL!!!

Tainted blue…

My friend, Peter, the boss of Payung, dropped by my house that day to pass me the nasi kerabu that he cooked himself. He did call me earlier to let me know but I said I could go and get it myself, no need to trouble him to come all the way but the nice guy insisted.

He said that he ate it somewhere but he was not impressed so he went asking around the people at the market and one knew of a Kelantan lady who was willing to share with Peter the tips on how to cook that Kelantan culinary delight.

To be honest, I did not get my hopes up too high as except for one place here, all the rest that I tried failed to make the mark. I looked at what Peter gave me…

…and I liked how the rice was very lightly tainted blue. Some of those that I had had the displeasure of eating before were so horrendously blue and because what came out over the next few days was that same colour, I was pretty sure it was all artificial colouring. I really wonder why they cannot use the flower – if they do not have any, they can come to my house and pluck – all along my back fence!

There was an assortment of vegetables including kangkong and cabbage , herbs like mint and flowers such as the very fragrant bunga kantan (torch ginger flower) and they were all cut so very thinly, till real fine. What I always thought was kerisik (toasted grated coconut), a must-have with nasi kerabu was, according to Peter, a combination of kerisik AND serunding ikan (fish floss). Gee!!! I didn’t know that before.

Other than those, there were the fried ikan bilis (dried anchovies) and the salted egg. I did not see any air budu (salted/fermented fish sauce) nor sambal chili, just one type of sambal. My guess was he mixed them altogether, all-in-one, so to speak and Peter gave me quite a lot of it.

Usually, when we eat this at the shops, we would have something by the side to go with it – we love ayam percik but it could just be fried chicken or ayam berempah…or a fried fish but there wasn’t any in Peter’s nasi kerabu. What I didn’t know at the time was Peter’s nasi kerabu did not need any of those…unlike the nasi lemak at so many places that needs the curry or the rendang or whatever to camouflage the lack of lemak-ness in the rice and how plain and ordinary it is.

I had that for dinner that evening and like what one must do when eating this, I mixed everything together thoroughly and ate. Boy!!! It sure swept me off my feet – I never expected it to be so so so good and I really enjoyed it! I sent word to Peter right away that he must make this their weekend special and rest assured, without fail, I would be the first in line!!!

Thank you so much, Peter! Bravo! Bravo! I must say that you did a really good job!

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.

My choice…

Well, I wouldn’t say I had much of a choice. At 6.00 a.m., most of the coffee shops would be closed and at the few that may be open, if you’re lucky, you can get a hot drink and kampua mee as chances are they will tell you that the water has not started boiling yet so you will have to go some place else.

I decided to drop by here once again as this is the only one that starts real early and at 6.00 a.m., all the stalls, except the chu char (cook & fry) place at the back, would be in full swing, even the roti canai stall. That sure is a surprise as those people usually do not start so early.

Usually, I would order the sambal kway teow from this stall…

…there as it has always been good, never fails to please – spicy with its lovely char (fry) fragrance plus the nice taste of the sambal and that is only RM4.00 a plate.

This time around, I wanted to try the Penang char kway teow (RM5.00)…

…because I had that at the coffee shop across the road and it was really very good and had a whole lot of prawns but that was RM6.50 a plate. Unfortunately, when I ordered that, the lady said she did not have any prawns that morning. Oh dear! No prawns, no cockles, just lap cheong (Chinese sausage)? What kind of Penang char kway teow is that?

Nonetheless, I went ahead with my order as I couldn’t go any place else anyway and I was quite sure it would be all right especially with the lady’s super spicy chili dip…

This is so good really and goes so well with whatever the lady dishes out. She said that it is a recipe handed down from her father – she used to help him make this when she was young.

The kway teow…

…was pretty good but I think I would stick to the very much cheaper sambal kway teow here and if I want some very nice Penang char kway teow, I would go to the coffee shop across the road as it does have an edge over this prawnless one. Of course, that one is RM1.50 more expensive and it will have to be much later – I shall not be able to drop by there THIS early in the morning, that’s for sure!

KOPITIAM FANTASY, otherwise popularly known as Tiam Tiam Lai (2.292435, 111.835066), is located among the shops in the Jalan Chew Siik Hiong area of shops behind the Rejang Medical Centre, facing Jalan Mahsuri.

Yesterday’s gone…

Way back in the 50’s and 60’s when I was still little, sometimes my dad would send me to buy some tauhu chui (soya bean milk) and tee peang (40 sen each nowadays, 50 sen at some places)…

…from a guy at the junction of Market Road and Island Road – my dad’s shop was right around the corner at Old Street. The freshly-made soya bean milk would be sold in recycled glass (beer) bottles – plastic was unheard of in those days and I do remember him selling Chinese fried or koi (yam cake) too.

This man would set up his stall that looked something like this…

*I don’t know the source of this photograph – got it from a discussion forum and it was shared by someone in the group*

…on the pavement against the wall of Yu Chiong – the shop is still there to this very day but of course, you do not get to see the stall anymore. If I am not wrong, there was a cobbler there once but no tauhu chui and tee peang stall.

It seemed at the time that the two would always go together as they would use soya beans to make the tauhu chui and then use the pulp to make the tee peang…

…but I do not seem to see this correlation between the two anymore these days.

In Singapore , these Fuzhou delights are called oyster cakes for the obvious reason that they have oysters inside, among a whole lot of stuff – I saw a recipe that called for pork, prawns and so on. I have never tried those but there are those who have and they say that those aren’t quite the same and aren’t as nice – our Sibu tee peang is better.

We do not have those here but, yes, we have the ones with meat filling (RM1.50 each). Those first made their appearance here sometime in the 80’s or 90’s, I think, when somebody would fry them on the spot at his stall set up on a trishaw at the Tiong Hua Road end of the Sarawak House overhead bridge and people would show up by the droves to buy those from him, present company included.

Of course he is not there anymore but the ones with meat filling are also available at the shop where I got the kosong ones featured above or you can get them from that handsome boy stall at the pasar malam (night market) and I think there is a stall as well at the central market in the morning, frying and selling these. There is a corner shop at Rejang Park that sells these too but they only have the kosong ones, not those with meat filling.

Yesterday’s gone and all that is left of the street hawker’s tauhu chui & tee peang stall is the memories of it in my childhood days. In time to come, nobody would know it ever existed and hopefully, in time to come, there will still be people making tee peang…

…as nice as the ones we grew up enjoying and loved so well over the years.

SWEE HUNG (2.316161, 111.840441) is located along Jalan Ruby, in the block of shops on the right – next to a hair salon at the extreme end.

Wasn’t like that…

I don’t know why we seldom cooked ang tao (red bean) – most of the time, we would have let tao (green bean or mung bean) to ciak liang because they are believed to have cooling properties.

After I got married, it became even rarer as my missus has some kind of allergy, dunno if it is psychological or what but everytime she eats anything with or tao sar (black/red bean paste), she feels giddy so she would never touch those red beans. As a matter of fact, she is not really a fan of the green ones or anything with mung bean paste either.

Talk about being incompatible, I, on the other hand, love anything with mung bean paste like those tau sar peah and how I enjoy eating those big and plump ang koo kueh with lots of mung bean paste filling inside and everytime I drop by here, I would order their ang tao peng (iced red bean)…

…my favourite in town – they’re very generous with the santan (coconut milk) and the gula Melaka (palm sugar) and I love how their beans are always perfectly done, so soft and mushy and yet, still whole and not all lumped together like some kind of paste.

Now, sometime in the midst of the MCO partial lockdown, I went and bought a packet of red beans but if I remember correctly, it wasn’t like that at all before. There were very red in colour, very beautiful…

…while the red beans that I used to know were of a dull red colour and bigger.

I guess there are different varieties. They use the bigger ones…

…at that popular cendol and ang tao peng place in Kuching. and I am fine with those. If I am not mistaken, the ones in Penang are even bigger…

…and I am o.k. with those too as long as they are not the salty variety – some places use those huge kidney -shaped red beans that I do not quite enjoy.

Anyway, back to the red beans that I bought, I had a bit left so I soaked them in water and put them in the slow cooker with some pandan leaves, knotted…

…and added brown sugar to the soup according to taste.

After hours of slow cooking, they were ready but somehow or other, they were not as soft and mushy…

…as I would like them to be. Even the taste was a bit different, not like the ang tao way back in the good old days. While I was eating it, I was telling myself that I might as well be eating let tao and I would enjoy it  a lot more.

Ah well! At least I’ve managed to finish the whole pack! One thing’s for sure, I shall not be buying anymore ever again – after all, I am the only one in the house eating it so if ever I feel like it, I can simply go to the shops for a bowl, the whole works, and be done with it.

The SIBU THOMSON CORNER (2.296517, 111.840710) is located at Pusat Tanahwang, right across the road from Sacred Heart Secondary School, Oya Road.