Take your place…

I have lost count of the number of people who have taken over this stall after the lady, who was here for a very long time, dating way back to 2008 even, moved to Kuching.

I did like the bai gu mee (pork rib noodles) that I had there when another lady took her place but she did not last very long. After that, somebody else took over and perhaps there was another one, I’m not too sure, before this one…

It appeared to me that she has quite a lot on her menu…

…but of course, whether it is nice or not, that’s another story altogether.

I would give her the double thumbs up for her effort in putting up this banner on the other side of the big coffee shop, the seating area to the left so as to draw people’s attention to her stall in the section on the right hand side that is kind of secluded and quite hard to notice as not many would go that way.

I saw somebody having her lor mee but I did not feel like having that so I ordered the beef noodles (RM6.00)…

…instead. I did not like it so I shall not deliberate further on it, period.

I also asked for one of her bak chang/meat dumplings (RM3.50)…

…to try and I was quite disappointed that it was served cold. I had expected her to heat it up before removing the wrapping (leaves) and serving it.

However, I found it to be really nice, with quite a lot of meat, all lean…

…with the pleasant hint of the taste and fragrance of hay bee/udang kering (dried prawns) and if you’re lucky, you may spot a few bits of shitake mushroom inside. I love how the lady adds a layer of fat in each dumpling so it is more oily, not so hard and dry like most. I would say it was nice enough for me to want to buy some home to store in the fridge and heat up to eat and enjoy whenever I feel like it.

Unfortunately, there were only two…

…left so I grabbed both of them. She did say that she would make them every day so I guess I can always come back another day to buy some more – after all, my house is just around the corner.

MEI LE CAFE (2.313147, 111.846968) is located along Jalan Gambir, a stone’s throw away from the Delta Mall, straight ahead from the first turning to your left as soon as you turn into that road from Jalan Pedada, now Jalan Datuk Wong Soon Kai.

Better than expected…

I went back to the food court but of course, I did not get my hopes up too high. I did not think there would be any kueh pai tee at the stall there and I was right. I wish they would remove that photograph on display at their stall if they have no intention whatsoever of selling it or at least, they should put up a NOT AVAILABLE sticker on it and remove it on those very rare occasions when they actually do have it for sale.

I was not in the mood for anything heavy, no noodle dishes for me, thank you very much and I thought that since I was there already, I might as well give their nyonya egg skin popiah…

…a try.

You can read up on the nyonya popiah egg skin online and this one says, “First of all, the popiah skin is different. For the ones that you find at food centres, the skin is made from flour and water. The nonya popiah skin is an egg skin; meaning, we add egg into our skin batter, which transforms the texture and taste of the skin. The skin is so good you can eat it on its own.“

This one comes from somebody sharing her grandma’s recipes, “Poh Piah is one of my absolute favourite dishes. I grew up eating it with springy egg skin, instead of the papery white wrapper. It’s hard to find egg skins these days. Grandma taught me to make the egg skins and when I was in my teens (a very long time ago!), I got to practise on the few occasions we held poh piah parties at home. It takes a lot of patience standing around the hot stove, making them one by one in a pan just like you would crepes. The thinner the skin, the better.“

Gee!!! I didn’t know all these and all this while, I thought what we’ve been making is nyonya-style popiah! I was half-expecting the skin to be something like that of kuih ketayap/dadar gulung or what we call kuih lenggang here but no, it…

…is not the same. It is almost…and I mean, almost like fresh popiah skin but no, it is not exactly like it, not so dry and perhaps, not so paper thin either. Having said that, I was glad to find that it was not chewy or rubbery unlike some of the frozen ones or even the fresh ones and there was no offensive flour smell. All in all, I did think it was pretty good, a whole lot better than expected.

This is RM3.00 each but throw in just 50 sen more and you will get prawns…

…in the filling.

Generally, the filling is like the shredded sengkuang/mangkuang stewed in oyster sauce till nice and mushy in the popiah that I used to buy at the stall right outside Popular Book Store in Jalan Petaling a long long time ago – everytime I was in the vicinity, I would surely stop there for one or perhaps two of the very nice wrapped-on-the-spot spring rolls.

With my request for it to be extra spicy…

…there was a hint of the spiciness but I think I can handle a lot more than that.

I must say that I really enjoyed it and no, they will not make the skin for sale…and be forewarned that this is best eaten there. If you buy it home, the heat from the filling inside will moisturise the air in the container, making it wet and that will render the skin soft and soggy – it will not be nice anymore, after that.

玛莉娘惹料理 MARY’S NYONYA CUISINE is located at the GRAND WONDERFUL FOOD COURT (2.309601, 111.845163) along Jalan Pipit, off Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, on your left just before the Petronas petrol station a short distance from Delta Mall. You can also go in via Lorong Pipit 4, turning left into the lane at the junction where Starbucks Sibu is located and go straight ahead from there.

Hardly…

I hardly ever venture to this part of the town anymore these days now that my girl is no longer teaching in her jungle school beyond Selangau Bazaar. At that time, I used to go quite frequently to send my car for servicing, change the engine oil and what not and if I had the slightest suspicion that there was a problem, I would be at the workshop there in no time at all and of course, when problems arose time and time again.

These days, I would go and change my car engine oil and everything every six months or so even though I have not driven up to 7,000 km. and since I do not go through those horrendous road conditions on the horrifying Pan-Borneo Highway, I do not have much of a problem with my old Wira. However, there were some screeching noises in the early morning when I started the engine and it got worse and worse so I took it to get it fixed.

While they were working on the car, I roamed around the shops in the vicinity and stopped by this one…

…that has been there for as long as I can remember. There used to be a very nice Chinese chu-char (cook & fry) stall at the back and I did hear of people going all the way here from the town centre just to eat the guy’s noodles. However, eventually it closed down – I think I heard something about the guy having some health problems or something.

This coffee shop opposite the workshop was doing so well and they extended it in 2018 but now, they have closed down that part and gone back to its original size. The outlet of that Kuching franchise, the so-called Singapore Chicken Rice, has closed down already but the branch of the beef noodles shop in town is still going strong and yes, this one is still around as well.

Anyway, going back to that aforementioned coffee shop, I decided to have something from this Malay stall…

…that has been around like forever and it sure looks like it is doing very well.

I noticed that a lot of people were having their kampua/kolo mee but this was on my no-meat Friday so I asked for the nasi lemak instead and got this bowl of complimentary soup…

I always like the ones at most of the Malay stalls and shops – they will give you their sup tulang (bone soup) or some very nice chicken soup. Don’t expect anything half as nice at the Chinese kampua mee stalls – most of the time, theirs is like plain water with a pinch of salt and a few bits of chopped spring onion  added.

I wanted the special but I did not want the fried chicken that would normally come with it. I saw some nice deep-fried ikan kembong in the display cabinet and I told the lady I would want one of those instead. She said those were left over from the day before and refused to serve that to me. Left with no choice, I had the biasa/regular (RM4.00)…

Like those times when I had it before, the rice was all right, not anything to get excited about. I could detect a slight hint of the santan (coconut milk) which, of course, means that at least, it is better than at some other places where I had the displeasure of eating their not-lemak-at-all nasi lemak…and mixed with the lovely sambal, the fried peanut and ikan bilis (anchovies) and the salted fish, I would say that it wasn’t too bad, not at all.

I ordered a cup of coffee, small and when it was served, the Malay/Muslim lady said, “Khuai er!” (RM1.20) Don’t be surprised! There are many of them around these days that are conversant in Mandarin…like how many in my childhood days could speak Hokkien or how people in the upriver towns of Kanowit, Song and Kapit could speak Iban and those downriver, Matu, Daro, Oya, Dalat and Mukah, could all speak Melanau really well.

HANYAN CORNER (2.327462, 111.840756) is located along Lorong Sungai Merah 2C, off Jalan Teng Chin Hua, in the area of shops where the RHB Bank branch is located, to its right.

Maybe tomorrow…

I noticed a stall at this food court that looked rather interesting. All the dishes featured in the photographs did not look familiar and appeared interesting. Unfortunately, everything was in Mandarin so I could not tell what they were and it was my intention there and then to go back there and find out.

Unfortunately, when I dropped by the other morning, the stall was open but there was nobody there (and in case anyone is wondering, it so happened that he went to the washroom at the time). That was why I went to this stall…

*Photo from their Facebook page*

…instead.

I had their Penang char kway teow, without cockles, which was decent but no, I did not go back there to have another go at it. I went browsing through their Facebook page and saw that they had kueh pai tee (top hats)…

*Photo from their Facebook page*

…so of course, I would like to give theirs a try. I cannot remember the last time I had any – that was such a very very long time ago, probably in 2012! You can imagine how disappointed I was when the lady told me they did not have it that day but they would be available the following day, Friday. I probably would not go back for those in case they had meat in the filling.

She told me that she makes the pai tee shells herself but no, she does not make them for sale. She suggested that I could try her popiah…

*Photo from their Facebook page*

…but since she does not use popiah skin, be it the freshly-made ones or those frozen stuff sold at the supermarkets, I really was not so keen.

The lady came from Penang, it seemed – I read that somewhere in their Facebook page…and she kept speaking Mandarin to me. Of course, I refused to be dragged into it and kept speaking Hokkien to her. After all, who in Penang cannot speak Hokkien? I have Malay friends there who can speak the dialect so fluently they will put many to shame…and if she is a true-blue nyonya, she should be able to speak the Peranakan mixture of Hokkien and Malay and what have you.

Their mee jawa (not among the photographs in front of the stall) was not available either so in the end, I decided to try her Penang kway teow sup or as what we usually call it, kway teow th’ng (RM5.00)…

Much to my delight, it was really very nice! Though a tad oily, the soup was absolutely delicious! It was not like those slightly sweet ones that I had had before at the franchise places like here, here or here – this one had its own taste, a class of its own (and of course, it’s ONLY RM5.00 compared to the prices at all those places) and I so loved the taste and fragrance of the fried garlic in it.

I did not like those frozen supermarket fish balls though. The fish cake slices were all right…

…so the next time I have this, I will ask for more of those or more minced meat balls or perhaps I shall request for a poached egg instead and yes, I sure would not mind having a go at it again the next time I drop by here.

GRAND WONDERFUL FOOD COURT (2.309601, 111.845163) is located along Jalan Pipit, off Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, on your left just before the Petronas petrol station a short distance from Delta Mall. You can also go in via Lorong Pipit 4, turning left into the lane at the junction where Starbucks Sibu is located and go straight ahead from there.

Give me a reason…

We used to go very regularly when they were based at this shop in Sg Antu here, not far from my house. The problem then was they had it once a week, on Saturdays only, and they were not that regular – sometimes, we would go all the way there only to be told that they did not have it that day and ever so often, the shop was closed! Eventually, it never reopened and I did not know why.

Of course, I was delighted when I saw a lot of people posting on Facebook and sharing photographs of this nasi kerabu place at the Permai Food Court, somewhere opposite the Sibu General Hospital, some 5 miles away from town and of course, it is not convenient for me to go all the way to enjoy what they have on their menu, unless I have a valid reason to go that way.

Well, my girl and my missus had to go to the hospital that day for some prescriptions so I dropped them off and headed straight to the food court. Yes, the stall was open…

…and I decided to try their nasi Arab ayam bakar (RM7.50)…

…which I thought was all right, something along the same line as nasi biryani and the chicken was very well-marinated and bursting with flavours and I rather enjoyed the two together. I thought the curry, or whatever that was, was not that great, kind of sweet – all right as a “soup” of some sort but I did not like the rice when flooded with it. I was not all that crazy about the pickles either and what looked like mayo and the sambal was extremely hot/spicy. I guess it was all right if one is looking for something different for a change but their nasi kerabu ayam percik (RM6.50)…

…still tops my list of favorites here.

I asked for three packs to take home for dinner and other than that, they have a lot of other options such as nasi dagang Terengganu, nasi tomato and so on. My girl said she has never had nasi dagang before – I did try that once and I loved it. Perhaps I shall buy that for her the next time I drop by here.

PERMAI FOOD COURT (2.297141, 111.896163) is located among the newer shops to the section on the right of Jalan Permai, somewhere opposite the Sibu General Hospital, off Lorong Ulu Oya 11, off Jalan Ulu Oya, to the right of the Permai Hotel there.

Pierced…

I went back to that shop near my house to reciprocate for their kindness and honesty in returning my RM100.00 note to me.

I bought a pack of the black vinegar pork trotters (RM30.00) that I tried before and yes, I did enjoy that. The lady boss asked me to buy the ribs from Kuching again but I did not feel like having another go at it. Another time, perhaps!

Then she asked me to try this…

…something that we had not tried before, she said.

The packaging looked kind of Japanese – that was why I was surprised to see it labelled “Thai pork stick” and yes, there were some Thai characters as well so I assumed it was a product of Thailand. I was doubly surprised when upon closer scrutiny, I realised that it was actually made in Miri…

…right here in Sarawak.

I wrapped the tray with aluminum foil and lined it with kunyit (turmeric) leaves. The slices of meat are pre-marinated and pierced through with skewers, not unlike those Japanese yakitori. I placed a big Thai basil leaf under each slice and arranged them nicely in the tray…

…after which, I added some more Thai basil leaves on top…

I reckoned that if they were supposedly Thai, they should taste Thai in some way.

I grilled them for 30 minutes on one side before turning them over to grill some more on the other side and after another 15 minutes or so, they were done…

Yes, they were very nice – we all loved them very much, just that they did not taste exotic, not anything like one would expect from a Thai dish. Instead, we thought it was a little bit like a cross between bak kua and char siew and yes, the meat was nice and tender.

At RM29.00 for a pack of 10 sticks, it worked out to RM2.90 a stick that was about the size of 3 regular sticks of satay. I would say it was not expensive and of course, most importantly, we did enjoy them very much. I definitely would go back and buy a few more packs to stock in our freezer and the next time we cook, I would not stop at just those Thai basil leaves but would go all the way instead – serai (lemon grass), sawtooth coriander, the whole works! If it’s Thai, it must taste Thai, not Chinese! LOL!!!

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 and on the other end, to the left is the Kim Won Chinese Medical Store and Mini-supermarket.

Combine…

I blogged about this place…

…before, way back in 2017. I would not say it is the best in town but yes, it is good enough – my brother-in-law and my missus love his Penang char kway teow (fried flat rice noodles) but to me, there are a few other places that may be just as nice and perhaps even nicer.

I asked if they had cockles in their Penang char kway teow but they said no. In the end, I decided to go for the kway teow/mee kahwin (RM5.00)…

…a combination of the flat rice noodles and the yellow noodles or as its name says, the marriage of the two.

No, there were no cockles, just a whole lot of those tiny prawns and some lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and no, they were not the pek hay (white seawater prawns) that I bought the other day. These hard-shell ones are much cheaper but they are all right, nice too and anytime nicer than those farmed ones that some people around here use for their Sarawak laksa or whatever. I can’t say I was thrilled by the combination though – perhaps, I should have stuck to just kway teow but with the lovely chili dip that came with it, I would say that I quite enjoyed it.

I saw the popiah stall by the side but it was closed. I loved it…

…a lot but it used to open only on Saturdays and Sundays only. I quickly asked the nice lady at the kway teow stall if they are still running their business and she said yes, except that they only open on Sundays now, not twice a week like before. Hmmmm…I certainly would make my way back here one Sunday just for this!

101 FOOD COURT (2.291330, 111.841751) is located in the vicinity of the shops around Medan Mall, Jalan Wong King Huo, back to back with Jiali Cafe along Lorong Tong Sang 4, two or three doors to the left of Wan Li Sheng Rou Mee.

Have fun…

No wonder we cannot find it easily here in Sibu. Chee cheong fun (猪肠粉), a rice noodle roll, is a Cantonese dish from Guangdong Province in southern China and Hong Kong, commonly served either as a snack, a small meal or as a variety of dim sum and Sibu is a predominantly-Foochow town.

We can get it in the morning at this restaurant here among all the dim sum selections that they serve and way back in 2016, we could get it here. If I remember correctly, the guy was from West Malaysia, probably not a Foochow. Unfortunately, it did not last too long and eventually, it called it a day. After that, we did not have any chee cheong fun stall anywhere, or not that I know of.

Well, it so happened that I was in the neighbourhood the other morning and I decided to drop by here…

I went around the whole place and I spotted this stall…

…and of course, I wanted to give it a try but I did not know which one to order…

From what the lady was telling me in Mandarin, the first one at the top (A) was prawn and the second one (C), char siew and I told her those two were the ones that I wanted.

This looked like (C) or maybe (B)…

…but there did not seem to be anything inside.

The other one…

…that I thought had prawn inside, had bits of char siew, of that I was pretty sure.

Whichever one they were, both were really very nice, nicer than those from the guy who was here before. The rice noodle roll was so thin, so fine and translucent, so silky smooth, almost like our pian sip (meat dumpling) skin and the sambal that came with it was so good it brought the taste to a whole new level. One bone to pick would be how they were not so generous with the sambal – the next time I drop by here for this, I certainly would ask for more!

I handed the lady a RM10.00 note and I was surprised when she gave me back RM2.00 change. Obviously what I had weren’t (A) and (C), most likely (A) and (B).

JIALI CAFE (2.292140, 111.841524) is located among the shops behind Medan Mall, Jalan Wong King Huo, a few doors away to the right of JUNCTION CAFE,  facing the road leading to the Medan Hotel there.

Finders keepers…

With Sibu in the yellow zone now, I decided that I should go out once again to stock up on food in the house. I planned to go to the Sibu Central Market after I had dropped off my girl at school but I changed my mind and headed to the one beside the Dewan Suarah (Civic Centre) instead.

I bought two big 2-inch thick slabs of phak thik poh (tripletail fish or patipok or kuku laut in Malay, 打铁婆，松鲷 in Chinese), literally translated as the blacksmith’s wife, a very nice fish and two pretty big ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret). The total came up to RM104.00 and I asked the guy to round it up to RM100.00 but he said he could give me a discount, RM102.00 and yes, I did have RM2.00 loose change and I passed that to him with a RM100.00 note We had one piece of the phak thik poh for lunch and dinner that day – we had that at a restaurant before and we sure loved it and we had not had it since.

Having said that, I think I prefer ngor hu (threadfin/午鱼) – we still have that in the freezer. I bought one whole fish from the fruit and food shop in my neighbourhood –  they said it was small, just over RM100 only for it and they wanted to sell it at one go. I went ahead and bought it but it sure wasn’t small – we have been eating it bit by bit for quite sometime now and there are still a few slabs left, four, at least. I thought it was expensive at the time but considering that we have been able to stretch it so far for so long and enjoying it to the max, it sure is worth it!

Much to my disappointment that morning, there was not a single prawn at all the fish and seafood stalls at that market. One of them had a tray of some miserable farmed ones but no, thank you! The texture is completely out and one can easily taste the difference!

On my way home, I stopped at the aforementioned shop to see if they had any. No, the lady boss said, they did not have any then but she called somebody and she told me that they would send some 10 kg over at around 10.00 a.m. She took my handphone number from me and told me that she would call me when they arrived…which she did and I went over quickly and grabbed a little over 2 kg…

…of those lovely crustaceans.

The son was packing them for sale – usually, they would sell these prawns in packs of RM30-40 but he said I could just take what I wanted in a plastic bag and pay according to the weight – RM60.00 a kg. and that was what I did.

I went and picked the BIG ones…

…and the boy kept telling me not to do that – if I picked all the big ones, they would have to charge accordingly, a different price. They did not do that, of course – they’re very nice people there and all in all, I took slightly over 2 kg, a little over RM120.00. I paid the boss two RM100 notes and he gave me the change and I went home happily after that.

I counted 20 extra big ones…

…22 big ones…

…and 18 medium-sized ones…

…60 altogether so that roughly worked out to RM2.00 each, so much cheaper than the RM28.00 for a plate of 4, RM7.00 each that we had here that night, so shockingly expensive!!!

Of course, as soon as I got home, I had to go through the chore of getting them done before putting them away in the freezer. I would cut away the legs…

…and those four peculiar-shaped ones…

…in front below the head but leaving the rest intact. Then I would cut off the tip of the head and remove the black sac…

…inside. That is bitter so if you do not remove it and you happen to eat it in the head, it may spoil your enjoyment of the prawn.

Lastly, I would cut a slit along the back to remove the vein…

…and that was it, all done…

I put all of them in a plastic tub…

…and filled it with water before putting it in the freezer to freeze so eventually, all the prawns would all be frozen in a  block of ice.

My friend, Peter, the boss of Payung, told me once that it would be better to leave the shell intact or the prawns would shrink badly in the process of cooking so you would not have very much left to serve. I managed to put together two plastic tubs for freezing, one with the XL prawns and the other with the L ones…and I also have another tub of the L ones that I managed to buy a couple of days earlier – the last one available that day.

As for the M ones, I removed all the heads and shell and deveined them to keep in sets of 3 for use when frying vegetables. Just 3 would be enough to give your dish that special sweetness to bring it to a whole new level. Like I always say, you just can’t go wrong with prawns!!!

Now, while I was busy with the prawns, the lady boss called me again to tell me that I had dropped a RM100.00 note in their shop and asked me to go over and collect it…which I did. They found it on the floor so they checked their CCTV and saw that it was mine. It’s not so much the money but the fact that there are people who are willing to go through the trouble to find out whose money it is and go through the trouble of returning it!!! I’m sure many will not be bothered to do so and will just keep it, finders keepers, losers weepers!

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…and on the other end, to the left is the Kim Won Chinese Medical Store and Mini-supermarket.

So blessed…

I guess you would be so blessed if you were to come here…

…to eat as you would get not one, not two…but EIGHT blessings! LOL!!! I’ve been to the coffee shop on the other side facing the Lovers’ Bridge across Sungai Merah a few times and I did walk over here to have a look but I never got round to coming here to eat.

Incidentally, this one at the end of the block, below the gym, had closed down for quite sometime now and this café has moved here. There’s a new coffee shop here where the Malay satay shop used to be while the latter has moved back to the Bandong area of shops now.

Anyway, back to that coffee shop that I went to the other morning, I heard that they do have some nice stuff there but when I got there, I could not remember what they said I should try. I saw “bubur kuali” at the 2nd stall and I thought that was fried porridge. I’ve seen people blogging about it but I have not seen it being sold anywhere here so of course, I wanted to try.  Unfortunately, the lady said it was not available and luckily too as actually, it was not what I thought it was – as a matter of fact, it was our very popular local Foochow delight, the dianmianngu, which I do not really fancy. Duh!!! Is that what they call it in Malay?

I went back to the kampua mee stall…

…in front and I thought the RM8.00 Sarawak laksa with the big prawns looked rather enticing but it was sold out, the laksa and good grief!!! I saw the photograph of the RM12.00 one and it had a whole lot of pork intestines and liver!!! That is sacrilegious! Absolutely ridiculous! I am sure whoever created this culinary delight, the pride and joy of Sarawak, would be turning in her grave to see what they have done to it here – yes, I’ve seen it at a number of stalls in some coffee shops here. What on earth are they thinking? Tsk! Tsk!

I ended up ordering their stewed pork ribs that was supposed to go with bihun or yellow noodles but I wanted kampua mee (RM6.00)…

…instead. It did not cross my mind at the time to tell them that I wanted the kampua mee, plain and it turned out that the lady tossed the noodles in the stewed pork ribs sauce. In the end, it did not taste like kampua mee, not at all…but thankfully, it was quite nice and yes, the ribs were good.

However, if I were to compare, the pork rib noodles I had here was a whole lot nicer but unfortunately, that stall has since closed down – I think somebody else has taken over but no, I have not gone over to see what he/she has in store.

8-BLESSING CORNER/8福美食访 (2.325631, 111.839722) is located back to back to Yisen Cafe, Lorong Sg Merah 2D4, that faces the Lovers’ Bridge across Sungai Merah.