Bangla Desh

My West Malaysian friends teaching in Sibu dropped by here…

…quite frequently on Fridays for the biryani kambing (mutton biryani rice) – they sure seemed to enjoy it a lot. I wouldn’t know, of course, as I never went to give it a try myself, Friday being my no-meat day. Incidentally, they only have biryani rice, kambing and ayam (mutton and chicken) once a week on Fridays, it seems.

Well, it so happened that I was driving past that area the other morning and I decided to stop by and check the place out. There was this guy there, making the roti canai…

…and a few Malay ladies doing the serving and the cooking. I asked him where he came from and he said Bangladesh to which I responded, “No wonder you chose that name for your shop!” For the uninitiated, Dhaka is the capital city of that country. He said that he married a local and I was impressed by how he was able to converse fluently in Malay, unlike our YB’s and wannabes around here. I cringed with embarrassment when I heard them speak in Malay (or English, for that matter) during their campaigning for the recent general election and to think that they have lived here all their lives!!! What a disgrace!

I ordered one roti canai, kosong (RM1.80)…

…to try and it was all right. I must say that I loved the curry gravy…

…that came with it. If the mutton curry that comes with the biryani rice is anything like this, I dare say it must be very good.

I did have a look at the dishes for the nasi campur (mixed rice) though but I was not impressed. They had nasi lemak too so I asked one of the ladies if it was very lemak. Unfortunately, she said it wasn’t, just a bit. I did see the guy at the next table having it and it sure looked good but if it is not lemak, I think I would just give it a pass. The lady with him had their Sarawak laksa but I did not get to see what it looked like. There wasn’t any fragrance that I could detect so it did not get me all excited either.

The couple were Chinese and so were most of the other customers there that morning even though there are a lot of coffee shops in the area and they could have gone to any one of them. I guess this one has its following and they would come back again and again.

I also asked for their mee goreng special (RM10.00)…

…and this was what I got.

The noodles were quite ordinary, not really nice and I wonder how they fried the egg to get it to look like that. Obviously, it was not done the traditional way with a lot of oil in a wok and it did not look like they used the ring either. The chicken was marinated with kunyit (turmeric) – I did not think it was great but this has got to be the worst, the calamansi lime…

…so withered and dry already. Luckily, it was still all right on the inside and I did manage to squeeze a bit of the juice out all over the noodles but no, I’m afraid it did not manage to save the day.

The only nice thing was the complimentary sup tulang (bone soup)…

…which was more or less like all the rest that they will give you at such Muslim-friendly eateries.

The final blow, of course, would be the price – RM10.00 for that is pushing it a bit too far. My favourite mee goreng special here is only RM6.50 a plate with one fried egg, done the way I love it and one very nice fried chicken wing plus a bit of the old lady’s very nice daging masak hitam. and her fried noodles are, without fail, so delicious everytime. Honestly, if I can get all those for so much less, I see no reason to make my way here for what they have to offer, not at all.

Dhaka Café & Catering (2.279303, 111.839490) is located along Jalan Aman, the first shop in the row of shops on your right if you are coming from Lanang Road or the last one if from Jalan Wong King Huo.