Fever…

The ASF (African Swine Fever) struck a few of the smaller towns here in central Sarawak around Chinese New Year time but unfortunately, steps taken to contain the disease and stop it from spreading have failed to control it and just the other day, the authorities here announced the closing down of the abattiors/slaughterhouses here for two months.

Word has it that the meat they sell here in the meantime comes from Kuching but frankly, I do not trust those people and personally, I would rather refrain from eating pork.

It so happened that the other day, I dropped by my neighbourhood fruit & vegetable shop in the next lane from my house as I felt like buying some steamed paos (buns) to heat up for breakfast in the morning. The aforementioned outbreak did not cross my mind at that point in time so I was kind of surprised to see that they were selling kay pao (steamed chicken buns)…

…the one with the purple dot, instead of the ones with pork. I did not care that they were more expensive, RM2.30 each compared to RM2.20 for the pork ones – I just had to grab a few to take home and try and much to my delight, it…

…was, in my honest opinion, nicer, not by a mile but I could detect a very slight difference in the taste of the filling and I liked this one that much more. by just a bit.

I discovered that there was a bit more egg in these chicken ones too, not a lot but the wedge did look a bit bigger, probably one-eighth instead of the previous one-sixteenth.

Actually, last Sunday morning, I went back to that coffee shop at Rejang Park where I bought the very nice chai pao (steamed vegetable bun) in the hope of getting some more. Unfortunately, I saw TAK ADA (don’t have) stickers stuck all over the steamer. They only had the meat ones and I did not like theirs as much so I left without buying anything.

They do have the vegetable ones here too but I never bought any to try so that day, I decided to do just that and grabbed two to take home (the ones with the green dots). No, they were at best, just all right…

…not so nice and rather peppery. The filling was mostly long beans and did not even look as colourful and alluring. I’m afraid I don’t think I would want to buy these again.

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.