Take a break…

This is one of the regular places that we would go to for our lunch or dinner but it was closed for over a week because of the Gawai. Most of their waiting staff members are Iban ladies so of course, at this time every year, they let them take the week off to go back to their longhouses to celebrate.

Well, we were out for dinner last Friday and I decided to drive past to see if it had reopened after taking a break. Much to our relief, it had and there were ample parking spaces right in front. I guess we were a bit too early – it was only 5 something but there were already two or three tables of customers inside! I don’t know now but before the pandemic, if you go at the usual time, around 6 or 7 something, there would not be a table available for you unless you made a reservation early as most of the time, it would be full.

Yes, it was our no-meat day so we had the honey prawn balls…

…one of their signature dishes, and yes, it was as good as always.

My girl did not want one of her favourites here, their salad calamari – deep-fried batter-coated sotong (squid) served with mayonnaise so we had those fried with dried chili and Bombay onions…

…instead. It tasted great but I thought the sotong was too big and a little hard. That is why when I buy squids, I would go for the medium-sized ones. The small ones would be too tedious to clean and would take ages so I never bought those.

The braised own-made tofu…

…was so good even though we asked them not to add the bits of chicken in the dish. The tofu was so so so smooth and soft – whoever handled the slices to deep fry them for the dish must have been a very gentle and delicate person. I am sure they would be a mess if I were the one doing that!

For the vegetable dish, we asked for the midin, ching chao (wild jungle fern, fried plain)…

I guess they fried it with ginger as we could see the very thin strips of the root among the ferns.

Of course we enjoyed that delightful dinner – the total came up to RM50.00 only for the four dishes. Yes, it was a bit more expensive than what we had here and here but this is a full-fledged restaurant, clinically clean and comfortably air-conditioned and all, not some coffee shop nor a stall in one of those and personally, I would say that the dishes served here are a class above those there.

NICE HOUSE RESTAURANT (2.29201,111.82739)…

…is located in the vicinity of the Tunku Osman shops, opposite Rejang Bookstore.