Pay the price…

My girl loves these homemade Sibu local Foochow-style sio bee (meat dumplings)…

…that the mum bought from the neighbourhood shop round the corner.

They were more expensive than the rest, she said – RM1.20 each. Well, for one thing, they were big, round and plump so that alone would justify the price but more importantly, they were really very nice, a cut above all the rest – even the celebrated ones here or here which, I feel, need some better quality control because I had had them on days when they failed to impress.

These tasted great and inside, there were little crunchy cubes of I-dunno-what…

…water chestnut or mangkuang/sengkuang (turnip) perhaps but my missus insisted it was cabbage.

Seeing how my girl enjoyed them so much, I went back to the shop to buy some more…

They were not RM1.20 each. I asked my missus and she said she said RM1.50 – I remember that was the same price as what we would pay for those celebrated ones at the old school restaurants but no, they actually cost more than that! I had to fork out RM20 for a pack of 12 so that would work out to over RM1.60 each.

I thought they looked similar to these…

…that we bought from here before to try and they were very nice too. If I remember correctly, they were RM1.30 each but that was a very long time ago. Perhaps I can go back there and grab some so I will be able to compare.

In the meantime, we will just have to pay the price and stick to these. At least they are worth it, anytime better than paying for something cheap to find that they are not worth the calories and ending up throwing them all away. Truth be told, there are a whole lot of those horrible ones here, there and everywhere all over town.

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.