Shrunk…

The other day, my missus cooked some phak lor sa chan bak (braised five-spice pork belly) but we did not manage to finish all of it so the next morning, I suggested eating it with kompia for our lunch that afternoon. Of course, she was all in favour of the idea – she likes eating kompia that way too so off we went to my favourite kompia shop in town.

My missus ended up buying some of their chu nu miang too and to my horror, they have shrunk so much…

…that they are now almost the same size as the kompia. They used to be at least double the size and they no longer look like what they used to before even…

For the uninitiated, the chu nu miang is what I call the female version of the kompia with its smooth appearance and its slightly sweeter taste and its softer, more cushiony texture. Thankfully, they still taste the same, just as nice as before and yes, they are still selling them at 3 for RM1.00.

They already increased the price of their kompia in mid-2019 to 2 for RM1.00 (50 sen each) and it still costs the same though I am quite positive that they are getting a bit smaller too. The prices of virtually everything have increased so they might as well do the same with their kompia and chu nu miang instead of shortchanging their customers with those miserable shadows of their old selves.

Well, we had our fill of these…

…for our lunch that day and when I shared the photograph on Facebook, it started everyone talking about the ones they had a long long time ago.

Yes, this is one of the ways by which they serve kompia here and the most popular ones…

…at the old lady’s stall at Tiong Hua Road, would date all the way back to the late 60’s. At one time, the kompia became so thin that they just served the meat on top like that instead of cutting them into halves and stuffing the meat in the middle and serving them in the delightful garlicky phak lor sauce.

If I am not wrong, my school moved into the neighbourhood in 1967 and over the years, all the students would frequent this place. Nowadays, they would come home from far and wide and they would not miss the chance to stop by the stall to eat these…with the special reddish orange-coloured serng boi chui (asamboi drink) to wash them down.

The young girls of St Rita’s Primary School, however, have fond memories of Ah Hua who used to sell this in the vicinity of their school a long, long time ago. Those girls are now grandmothers, believe you me and when they come to Sibu, they would make an effort to drop by Ah Hua’s stall at the hawker centre on the 1st Floor of the Sibu Central Market for old times’ sake and yes, he still sells kompia served this way.

I do know for a fact that they also have it this way at this shop in Rejang Park – if there are others, I’m afraid I have no idea where else you can get to enjoy eating kompia like this. Of course, they sell it at a lot of places all over town in all kinds of ways and my favourite would be the deep-fried ones stuffed with stewed pork belly here. The oven-toasted ones can be very nice too, you can take my word for it.

SENG WAN BAKERY (2.307484, 111.836558), the kompia shop…

…is located at the Rejang Park shops/commercial centre facing the Rejang Park Market, back to back with Quality Cake & Bread Factory.