Take it home…

Last Friday, the ladies in the house wanted to go to town to buy some things so I offered to drive them which was a good thing because they would not be able to find a parking space. Now that we’re in Phase 4, there were jams everywhere, so many cars all over town, rampant illegal parking in every nook and cranny and I saw long queues at the banks – I guess they were giving out some of the taxpayers’ hard earned money again. Tsk! Tsk!

I parked along a yellow line in an inconspicuous back lane and waited in the car – that is not illegal and I was not obstructing traffic in any way. Once the ladies were done, they came back to the car and we were on our way out of the busy town centre.

Since we were out and about already, we decided to stop by some place for lunch and everyone agreed to go here, just round the corner from the town centre. Even so, I had difficulty finding a parking space but after going round a couple of times, I managed to locate a vacant space, just that we had to walk a bit to the restaurant.

Yes, they still had their chap fan (mixed rice) but no, we did not want to go for that. Occasions like this nowadays when we would get to go out and eat are few and far between so we would prefer to go for something a little bit more special.

I ordered this platter of prawn fritters and their own made egg tofu, deep-fried (RM16.00)…

I would love to order their mini-ngor hiang (meat rolls) too but it was a Friday. Another time perhaps!

I liked their prawn fritters because the batter was nice, very crispy and tasty but in the past, there was hardly any prawn inside, just the tail stuck to one end. That day, much to my surprise, there was one whole prawn…

…inside, coated with the lovely batter. We sure enjoyed them and the tofu too!

I wanted the midin (RM10.00)…

…because we haven’t had it for quite sometime now. They do not seem to be selling it at the neighbourhood shop and vegetable stall in the next lane from my house anymore, just paku (wild jungle fern, another variety) sometimes.

I asked for it ching chao (fried plain with garlic) but it came with a bit of sauce. I was quite positive I could taste our traditional Foochow red wine in it – probably the cook in the kitchen got a bit mixed up but it did not matter at all as it tasted great too, cooked this way.

My girl wanted the cangkok manis fried with egg (RM10.00)…

…and it came, looking very nice but like a mountain! Wow!!! That certainly was a whole lot for two persons.

The boss did say that he would cook for two so I was expecting the servings to be smaller. In the past, such plain vegetable dishes used to be priced at RM8.00 only at most places here. It looks like the prices have gone up but that is perfectly all right as long as they taste great.

He kept insisting that those three dishes I ordered would be enough but I was craving for his claypot yam with a choice between tofu, prawns or fish. We already had the first two in the aforementioned dish so in the end, I picked fish (RM30.00)…

Initially, I was reluctant to pick fish as I expected them to use those cheap frozen fish fillet (dory) that I am not fond of. Much to my surprise, they had slices of pek chio/ikan bawal putih (white pomfret) in the claypot and I was not surprised at all that it did not come cheap.

Gosh!!! That was HUGE!!! It took a bit of time to come out and we were already so full from eating the other dishes (with rice) so we just had a small bowl each and asked for it to be tapao-ed for us to take it home. The total for the food came up to only RM66.00, a little cheaper than what I had to fork out here that day but it was no less satisfying, that’s for sure.

I guess now that Sarawak has gone into Phase 4 and there are very few cases – single digit, if any, daily, things are starting to pick up once more and have more or less gone back to normal. We sat at one of the tables outside on the pavement at the very far end and by the time we were leaving, all the tables were occupied including those outside in the shaded area. Thankfully, they were placed far apart so physical distancing was not a problem at all. There was a big Iban family at the next table and the sweet and sour tilapia that they had looked very good and oooo…they were having braised/stewed pork leg!!! Drool! Drool!!! LOL!!!

A-PLUS FOOD CENTRE/RESTAURANT (2.293355, 111.823653) is located among the shops along Jalan Kampung Datu, behind the block of shops (where Fresh & Pay Supermarket is) near the traffic lights at its junction with Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg and Jalan Kampung Nyabor.