Thank you, thank you…

Last Friday, early in the morning, I went over to my favourite fish and seafood stall close by. We did not feel like eating the kilat and the prawns nor the slab of salmon that we had in the freezer and I was hoping there would be some nice sotong that I could buy for my girl.

She loves those squids a lot but unfortunately, that morning, they only had those small ones. They are such a chore to clean, I told the boy, and after cooking, they will shrink so badly that there would not be very much left. He agreed with what I said and did not insist on my buying those that they had. They are not in season yet, he replied.

In the end, I decided to buy one HUGE or chio/ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret) to cook and eat that day. I did see it the other day but I did not buy any. The lady said this variety, RM25.00 a kilo, could be steamed but no, I think we would prefer it deep fried. There were those small ones but I bought so many the last time and we would fry one for lunch and another one for dinner again and again and after we had eaten all of them, I felt we had had enough of those for a while.

This was just half of the or chio…

…so you can imagine how big it was, definitely more than a kilo, definitely more than enough for two meals, lunch and dinner.

In the meantime, I spotted some fairly big ikan terubok (toli shad), around 600 gms. each, going for RM25.00 a kilo too. If it had been any bigger than that, it would not fit into my Tatung pot nor my mini counter-top oven. I did not see any on my previous visit so my guess was these were new arrivals. I asked for a few and I cooked one…

…with the intention of sending it to my aunt in the kampung to enjoy but as soon as I got home from my marketing, it started pouring cats and dogs and did not stop till afternoon. Left with no other choice, I changed my mind as I did not fancy going out in the nasty weather and we ended up eating the fish ourselves. I suppose I can take another one from the freezer some other day to cook for her.

I sure hope the rain did not ruin their business for the day that day – they only open when there is fresh supplies till 1.00 p.m. and that was the time when the rain stopped that day. I really pity these people on days like this.

We had the or chio…

…on Sunday instead – my missus served it sweet and sour as our girl loves fish that way and despite its size, the meat was so good, smooth and very fresh and sweet. We absolutely enjoyed it to the max and I certainly would want to buy a few more to keep in our freezer should I happen to drop by the stall again.

Back to that morning when I was there, the nice and generous lady was filleting some fish to make fish paste (for making fish balls) and she gave me all the bones to make fish stock. That would be very nice for soup, she said, very sweet. I took them home and my missus saw that actually, there was still a lot of meat stuck to the bones so she patiently used a spoon to scrape it all off and made fish balls with it and together with the stock, she cooked this awesome dish of creamy tom yum…

Boy! That was so so so good!!!

No, that wasn’t all! The lady also gave me this green papaya…

…and said that I could cook soup with it. I think I did that before and yes, it was nice but I had something else in mind.

I overheard my girl asking the mum to make some som tam (Thai papaya salad) sometime ago and I did see the latter buying some of the fruit but eventually, they ripened and they peeled them and ate, no som tam. Perhaps the fruits were not green enough, already starting to ripen so they were not so suitable for the Thai salad dish.

Yes, we did have som tam…

…in the end that day and that too was absolutely out of this world which prompted my girl to make a special request for the mum to make some yum woon sen or seafood glass noodles salad…

…this coming Friday. Yes, we have those big prawns in the fridge and lots of tang hoon (glass noodles) in the pantry. Hopefully, I can get some nice fresh sotong over the next few days.

In the meantime, I really must give a BIG shout out to say thank you, thank you to Madam Lau, for the freebies. With this kind of PR and customer service, of course, you will see me going back there for more, that’s for sure.

The fish stall is located to the right of CCL FRESH MINI MARKET against the wall at that end of the block to the right of the Grand Wonderful Hotel (2.309601, 111.845163) along Jalan Pipit, off Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, if you go in via the entrance where San Len Tyres is located, just before the Petronas petrol station a short distance from Delta Mall.