Such a long time…

This restaurant…

…is now the oldest in town after some other people took over the other one and I hear they have a new menu, not quite the same old school dishes as before anymore.

I did mention the other day that they are making curry puffs for sale now so I dropped by in the hope of grabbing a few to try. Unfortunately, the lady told me that they are made to order and if I would leave my contact number, they could call me when there is an order and they could set aside some for me. I decided not to take up the suggestion because of the traffic congestion in that area and parking is near impossible. Now that the lockdown is more or less over, things have gone back to normal around here.

Anyway, since I was already there that day, I decided to grab a pack of 20 of their Sibu Foochow sio bee (meat dumplings)…

Gosh!!! It had been such a long time since when I last had any, the lovely ones from here. We did not have them at our anniversary reunion lunch in April last year nor when I was there with some ex-schoolmates/classmates more recently in February this year. I think it was in September last year when my cousin and hubby and her son were here from Brisbane, Australia.

Yes, we really enjoyed the ones I brought home that day so so much! I did not take note of how much I paid for them that day – I remember at one time, it was RM1.60 each, probably more than that now but I would say it is value for money as it is clearly a cut above all the rest, the cheaper ones with prices ranging around RM1.00 each.

Another thing that I had not had for such a long time would be our pulut panggang, glutinous rice with santan (coconut milk) wrapped in banana leaf and cooked slowly and painstakingly over hot charcoal. For a long time, the best would be the Haji Luguk ones or what we call Kate panggang and the last time I bought any was in December last year when I ordered a lot to cart over to Kuching to give to everybody when we went for my cousin’s daughter’s wedding and even then, I only managed to get them via special order through the nice lady at Bandong.

That morning, I dropped by the Malay kuih stalls at Simpang Tiga to see if they had any and the nice and pleasant guy there told me that they have stopped making already. No love lost, I’d say, as it seemed that since the old man died, the quality had gone down the drain. Of course, I bought some, still RM1.00 each…

…and cheaper than the Hj. Luguk ones by 10 sen.

The guy asked me where I went for so long and I told him I was here in Sibu all the time, didn’t go anywhere. Obviously he could still remember me as I used to drop by quite frequently when my parents were still around – their house was 500 metres up one of the roads from Simpang Tiga and he had not seen me for such a long time.

I had the pulut panggang…

…that I bought with brown sugar as there was neither kaya not condensed milk in the house (my missus likes eating it just like that) and yes, these were very good – no need to go and look for the Hj. Luguk’s ones anymore.

Incidentally, I’ve tried the other tub of Häagen-Dazs ice cream that I bought at Ta Kiong that day, the cookies and cream (RM38.90)…

…and no, it sure did not get me jumping with delight, not like the mango raspberry one.

When I removed the seal, I found it was hard like any other ice cream so I had to wait quite a bit and by the time I could scoop some out to try, I noticed that it was already melting – just like the vanilla in a cup one that I bought to try that first time at Bukit Bintang in KL and ended up finishing it like drinking milk. It wasn’t anything sensational, just vanilla ice cream with those bits of (Oreo) cookies – at that price, I sure would not want to buy it again, thank you very much!

New Capital Restaurant 新首都酒家 (2.288619, 111.830057) is located at No. 46, Lebuh Tanah Mas, off Jalan Kampung Nyabor, in the block of shops opposite the Sarawak House/King’s Trioplex/Premier Hotel at the very far end on the right while the KAMPUNG HILIR MALAY KUIH STALLS (2.306488, 111.818695) are located near Simpang Tiga at the end of Jalan Kampung Hilir, with the SEDC HAWKER CENTRE behind it and the MDS MART facing those hawker stalls and TA KIONG EMPORIUM (2.2933,111.82713,783) is located at No. 42-46, Jalan Tuanku Osman.