Fusion…

I guess I can safely say that all the western ones here in Sibu are what they call fusion cafés and restaurants, none that is strictly focussed on one specific kind of cuisine e.g. an all-Italian restaurant perhaps.

In other words, you may be able to order some very nice pasta or pizza at one place or a lovely piece of steak or lamb chop at another and yet, you can find some more familiar options on their menu like mee mamak or chao chai hung ngang, for instance.

I was watching a programme on TV the other day and they were picking the best ever fusion dish in, I guess, KL and it got me thinking – a fusion dish? Yes, I can think of a few nice ones that I enjoy right here in our little town like the tom yam spaghetti…

…here or their just-as-nice belimbing (buloh) prawn spaghetti…

…too.

Another fusion dish that I enjoyed is the daging masak hitam kampua mee combo…

…from this place here. They also serve their sizzling seafood kampua mee which seems to go down pretty well with some of their customers but no, it did not really tickle my fancy.

Once, they tried the fusion of our Foochow bagel, the kompia, with spicy cheese chicken…

…but I don’t think they still have that on their menu anymore.

On the other hand, the people of this local franchise use the chu nu miang (the bigger, softer and slightly sweeter version of the kompia) instead of those regular bread burger buns to make their own fusion burgers – I tried the fish…

…but I think they have beef and whatever else too. They must be doing pretty well as they have been around for quite a long time already and to this very day, you can still see their stalls…

…at many coffee shops all over town.

Well, moving on from those, quite recently, we went and checked out this fairly new place in town and we asked for their babi bakar (grilled/barbecued pork) to be served with their aglio olio…

…at a special price of RM32.00 for the two together. You can order them as two separate dishes but we chose to have the fusion of the two. It turned out that the meat tasted like very well-caramelised char siew (barbecued pork) and was really very nice – we truly enjoyed the two together (even though the pasta could have been cooked a little longer that night).

I don’t know if the stall at this coffee shop is still around or not but at one time, the tom yam kampua mee…

…did draw a lot of attention and yes, I did go and try it too.

I thought the Bovril minced pork pasta…

…here was quite nice as well just that I am not too sure as to whether it qualifies as a fusion dish or not, considering that Bovril is made in England and pasta is Italian.

This fusion dish definitely swept me off my feet, their creamy tom yam giant freshwater prawn spaghetti served in a coconut…

It was so good that I simply had to go back there again for more. Unfortunately, they closed down all their outlets here including the one where this was available to focus on their business interests in Kuching and Bintulu. They did reopen another place here later and word has it that the menu there is still the same, dunno if they have this or not, but I have yet to go and check it out. Gotta get down to doing that one of these days.

There may be some more fusion dishes around town that I enjoyed but I can’t think of any right now. Perhaps if there are more, I shall have something to feature in another post. We’ll see…

PAYUNG CAFÉ (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, Malaysia, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River and NOODLE HOUSE (2.291406,111.829162) is located somewhere in the area immediately behind the Sibu Central Police Station at No. 2B, Ground Floor, Lorong Laichee 1, accessible either from Hua Kiew Road or Laichee Lane while OINKS Sibu (2.286075, 111.847044) is located at Sublot 7-01, Ground Floor, Hann’s Commercial Centre, Jalan Wong King Huo. and SE7EN CAFE (2.280045, 111.840458) is located at No.38, G/F, Jalan Aman, right next to The Pallet BBQ Steamboat & Buffet.