They are my distant relatives…but by marriage, from my maternal aunt’s hubby’s family. We were very close when I was in college in Kuching in the mid-70’s and I was often at their house at Kenyalang Park.
When I got married in December 1981, I got one of them to be my best man but that brother of theirs who was the closest with me at the time had since passed away owing to some illness. Except for those few times when I did bump into some of them at my auntie’s house for some gathering or for prayers, the last time I saw them was exactly forty years ago in 1982 when I was back in college for three months for the KIBM (Kursus Intensif Bahasa Malaysia) course.
After the pandemic, another brother managed to get in touch with me via Facebook and kept asking me to hop over to Miri to visit them – of course, in my condition, I am not really into travelling anymore these days and I was delighted when he sent word that he would be stopping by Sibu and would like to meet me for dinner.
Initially, this old school restaurant came to mind but parking there is virtually impossible (always full) and I jolly well could not park far far away and walk to the restaurant, not anymore these days. That was why, we ended up here that night – my friend and his wife, a cousin (who was just a kid when I was hanging out with all of them) and an older sister and her hubby plus my girl and the mum, eight of us altogether. There are always ample parking spaces around there in the evenings and I can park right in front of the restaurant’s door!
I did not order anything special, just the usual dishes we would order everytime we were here like their pandan chicken…
…for instance and their butter scotch prawn balls…
I forgot all about their very delightful Thai-style mango chicken that we enjoy a lot and ordered their salted egg spare ribs…
…instead and their own-made tofu with mayonnaise…
I asked for their fried mee sua…
…which turned out to be kind of plain that night and for our vegetable dishes, we had their cangkok manis fried with egg…
…and their midin (wild jungle fern), ching chao…
Nobody said anything about the food but we did manage to finish everything so I guess it was all right. One did mention that he had not come across cangkok manis cooked with egg in such a manner in Kuching and yes, he liked it a lot like this.
The total for the food came up to RM175.00, RM198.00 with the drinks. I guess that was reasonable and most importantly, we had such a wonderful time catching up with one another’s lives after forty long years. It sure was great to get to see them again, thank you so so much to all of them for coming!
RUBY RESTAURANT 红宝石餐厅 …
…is located at No. 71, Jalan Kampung Nyabor, right next to HOME COOK CORNER (2.292756, 111.825335), with the AmBank Tunku Osman branch in the very next block.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
As always, food looks great. My kind of comfort food. Most importantly, price reasonable and everyone enjoy the food.
Reasonable, eh? So many dishes for so many people. I heard that they went to Venue the night before, dunno how many dishes, how many people but they said it was very cheap! I went there a few times before, nice!
All the dishes look delicious except that I have not eaten cangkok manis fried with egg and the midin. Always good to meet up with old friends over a meal.
Midin, I’m not surprised but I saw people selling it at the weekend market at Seri Kembangan, Pasar Borneo. They also have dabai there!!! You can watch the Youtube video on it. They have all the ethnic favourites that we have here.
Not sure if they have cangkok manis…but the stunted sayur manis from Sabah is available everywhere! It’s the same, just much smaller. You will find a bit of it added to a bowl of pan mee…including those served at your side.
I saw my relatives much more as a kid. As we grew older, though, the time together is less and less.
I guess as time passes, our priorities change. Perhaps we need to refocus – many do not know their own siblings’ children and their children’s children. They are all like strangers!