In some small way…

My sister gave us these bak chang (meat dumplings)…

…from here to try.

Incidentally, if anyone is thinking of hopping over there to buy their fried stuff, the yew char koi/yeu tiao (Chinese crullers) and their ma kiok (horse’s hoof), they are now doing it on Fridays and Saturdays only. If I remember correctly, they used to do it on Saturdays and Sundays.

The bak chang (RM3.50 each) was nicely wrapped…

…tied with a string, not the traditional dried grass. I am fine with either one of the two, as long as it is not those raffia or nylon strings – I wouldn’t know what would seep into the water and the changs while being boiled for hours to cook.

The dumplings were symmetrically conical…

…with a lot of meat…

…inside.

Of course what’s most important would be the taste and probably for want of some ingredients, five spice powder perhaps, it did not taste quite the same as the rest, the regular ones. I must say that it was nice in some small way but I would not mind it one bit if it could be a little less salty. Personally, I still prefer the ones here, especially the ones with peanuts in them but those are RM4.50 each.

My sister also gave us these ang tao changs (red bean dumplings), RM2.00 each…

…and yes, I must say that I liked it a lot!

For one thing, I loved how the glutinous rice was not translucent and yellow or orange in colour as the result of the addition of alkaline water (kee) to red bean dumplings to make the rice QQ and jelly-like. That is not something to my liking, I’m afraid.

Other than that, the addition of that little piece of pandan (screwpine) leaf…

…gave it that lovely fragrance, not unlike some of those very nice nyonya kuihs made with glutinous rice.

It is a little bit sweet and of course, glutinous rice is starchy, notorious for the hidden sugars, so you will not find me running back for more, not when I am sticking steadfastly to my low-sugar diet, thank you very much.

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.