With my own eyes…

I dropped by that place in the vicinity of the Dewan Suarah (Civic Centre) here in Sibu to see with my own eyes how they made the yew char koi that my sister was talking about when she gave us a few to sample that day.

They were very nice and friendly people, a couple and a younger lady, probably the daughter or somebody and they did not mind it at all when I asked them a lot of questions nor did they bat an eyelid when I took so many photographs from left, right and centre.

This is the dough for the yew char koi…

…and the lady used this contraption to cut it into strips…

…five at one go. This is something new to me – I’ve never seen anybody using that before.

They probably needed a wider plank to use as their work surface because it did not cut right through the edges so the lady had to cut them one by one with a dough cutter…

I do not know what she brushed on the strips…

– I did not ask, probably water or oil and after doing that, she placed the strips of dough, one on top of another…

…before she made a dent right through the middle, lengthwise, using a chopstick…

Having done all that, she took the strips one by one and I saw that she stretched the limp and rubbery dough first…

…before dropping them into the hot oil. All this time, I assumed that the 3-inch dough would rise to the occasion by itself in the hot oil to become a foot long! LOL!!!

I’ve never seen this being done before – they fried the yew char koi in the vigorously boiling hot oil first after which they moved them to the not-so-hot oil next to it…

…to simmer until they became a very nice golden colour.

Finally, they removed the yew char koi from the oil and placed them on a rack to cool and to let the excess oil drip onto the tray below…

I bought a few (RM1.20 each) to take home and enjoy that day and while I was there, I also saw them making something else, something that I had never seen before.

This was the dough that they used to make them…

…covered with a whole lot of sesame seeds and some brown stuff – I think that was cinnamon powder. I could taste it when I ate it.

The lady cut it into strips and stretching each strip a bit, she made a loop out of each of them and tied the ends together in a knot before dropping them into the hot oil…

…to cook.

They looked a little bit like pretzels (RM1.00 each)…

…but no, they certainly were not pretzels.

I shared the photograph on Facebook and somebody said that at all those places in the peninsula where they fry yew char koi or what they call yew tiao there, they would definitely have this too but not here in Sibu or not that I know of. I went and googled and found out from this website that they are called horseshoe fritters or ox-tongue pastry. Elsewhere, they call them ma kiok (马脚) or horse’s hoofs.

They tasted like our ma ngee (horse’s ears/butterfly fritters) but they were not so sweet, only slightly so and with the hint of the cinnamon in them, I would say that they were a cross between those and ham chim beng. Talking about ham chim beng, I saw some very nice ones at the stall and the deep fried or koi (yam cake) looked really good too. I certainly would want to buy those to try the next time I stop by.

Incidentally, it looked like the coffee shop/restaurant had called it a day. There was this stall in front, a lot of things inside the shop but no tables and chairs for customers to sit and eat and the kitchen at the back is now a shop in its own right with its own entrance at the side, occupied by some people selling freshly slaughtered chickens.

KIM CHUO FOOD CENTRE (2.310950, 111.830541) is located among the area of shops in the vicinity of the Dewan Suarah, Sibu and the Civic Centre market beside the Sarawak Energy/SESCO customer care office (to the right), opposite the ShareTea outlet there.