Yesterday was the 3rd Anniversary of my dad’s demise so the four of us – my sister came with us – made our way to his resting place to offer flowers and prayers…
Because of the MCO lockdown, we could not go on his birthday nor on Father’s Day and we did not go on Mother’s Day either. The last time we went was in early March before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on my mum’s 2nd Anniversary.
Gosh!!! The road was bad, to say the least – it was quite all right the previous two times and we sure are thankful that we do not have to go that way week after week anymore now that my girl is no longer in the school in the jungle. We came back into town using a different route – this road is definitely a whole lot better just that when driving on these middle-of-nowhere roads, it feels like it is never going to end and you just go on and on and on.
Like what we would usually do everytime, we stopped by some place for lunch before going home. This place…
…has been around for a year now and when it first opened, word had it that it was not good so I never bothered to drop by to check it out. Lately, I heard that it has improved a great deal and my foodie friend on Facebook has been sharing Instagram photographs of what he has had there and he was praising the kampua mee there to the skies so I simply had to drop by and give it a try.
It’s a very nice place, clinically clean and of course, at this point in time, you will have to go through the SOP upon entering. I love this collage of old photographs of Sibu…
…on the wall in the inner section and of course, I was impressed by how the tall and handsome young guy who took our orders and served us (and the ladies there too) could speak really good English. no problem at all communicating with them to find out all that we wanted to know, unlike some (western) restaurants here where we would have to struggle in our languages to make one another understood.
The kampua mee with braised pork (RM4.50)…
…was very good, very fragrant with the fried garlic and shallots but I thought the price was a bit steep for I felt it was not really exceptional, very nice but not anything that would stand out above all the rest and for one thing, those would be much cheaper but of course, this is a very much classier and nicer place and air-conditioned some more, not some coffee shop.
They are currently celebrating their 1st Anniversary – Gee! Have they been around that long? – so there are some special offers like for instance, you can get this plate of half a steamed chicken…
…and this one of their braised duck…
… also half of it, for their promotional price of only RM38.00 (Usual price: RM20+RM30, RM50.00)
All throughout the MCO partial lockdown, I was drooling over the photographs of these dishes in their sponsored posts on Facebook and I was so tempted to go out and buy to take home and enjoy…but I never did. Finally, I was able to try them and I must say I was not disappointed. My girl is never really into steamed chicken but she enjoyed this one here very much, even the breast meat! The duck was all right, nice but a little tough and I think I prefer it roasted plus my missus’ phak lor ark is a cut above this one here even though she does not eat duck.
The rice was good – I would rank it among the better ones in town (RM2.50 a bowl)…
…but the soup was a little bland. My missus said that was because unlike other places, they did not add msg to their dishes or not that much and she thought that was good.
Because my missus does not eat duck, I also ordered this plate of braised three-layer pork (RM12.00)…
…and it was very good too. They had stewed eggs as well but I had to give those a pass this time around as I had ordered so much already and we would not be able to finish everything – as a matter of fact, we asked for around half of that plate of duck to be packed for us to take home.
The total came up to RM64.50 for the four of us which we felt was very reasonable – I often had to fork out that much for the three of us at some chu-char places around town and most importantly, we enjoyed our lunch, service was prompt and very good and the people were very nice and friendly. I saw they also have cooked-to-order dishes on their menu and they look pretty good in their menu. We certainly would want to come back again…soon.
TING KEE CHICKEN RICE (2.292362, 111.825681) is located at No. 85, Jalan Kampung Nyabor, to the extreme left of the block of shops directly across the road from RH Hotel.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
The steamed chicken looks juicy and so is the duck. Quite a big portion of rice. Most places would use a small plastic soup bowl to scoop the rice. No chilli dippings for the steamed chicken?
Yes, like many chicken rice places – they give you a jar of the usual chicken rice chili dip and the little saucers for you to help yourself. You can catch a glimpse of it peeping out, beside the bowl of kampua mee.
That sounded scary when you mentioned about driving with no end in sight.
The braised three-layer pork looks yummy. :p
That’s the feeling you get when you drive along the jungle roads here, nothing but trees on both sides but if you keep track of the time, it does not take that long – it’s just feels like forever. Not like when driving from KL to Melaka, oil palm plantations all along the way. The only thing here is if your car breaks down halfway and there is no line – you cannot contact people to get help. Otherwise, my workshop guy is very good – never mind how far, he will come to the rescue.
Yes, we loved the pork and the chicken. The duck was good too but I would prefer to be a little bit more tender.
my grandmother passed away in january this year, and in times like these, when everything is uncertain in terms of health, it feels like a blessing in hindsight that she went peacefully before some hospitals became swamped with patients and travel became difficult, even for medical appointments … guess sometimes we have to have faith in the higher power, as she did, as a lifelong religious person…
Yes, it is not a good time to pass away, so many restrictions right down to the number of people allowed to attend the funeral and those going to pay their last respect to the deceased. Sad, very sad.
Does the pain ever go away? I am still deeply grieving the loss of my dear dad.
The memories remain.