Unplanned…

Actually, we did not plan on dropping by here that day. There is a new Indian restaurant in town – well, it is fairly new, that much I would say, but so far, we have not bothered to go and check it out because it is located in that area in the town where the sinking swampy land problem is really very bad and it would be a problem for me to get onto the pavement from the road even PLUS the restaurant is on the 1st floor! I’ve seen photos of stuff that they serve there on Facebook and my ex-student went not too long ago. He said it was good, worth a try so we decided we would make our way there…slowly but surely.

Well, we did manage to get up there…somehow but the place was full!!! There were three sections, one with the traditional tandoori oven and it looked like they would not be having any customers in there. In another section, there was a huge table for a big group of people and in the main section, there were a few huge dining tables, around 6 to 8 of them, 8-seaters, at least all of them. I thought that was such a waste of space – there was a couple and a kid sitting at one and they could easily have occupied one end of the table and some other customers could have sat on the other end.

There was one table with only four customers and it looked like they had finished eating but they were showing no sign of leaving the place, not that they were enjoying themselves there, eating the food and engaging in one another’s company. All the rest at the other tables were all sitting there in stone cold silence, waiting to be served. Nobody came to talk to us, not even to apologise and say that they were full so we just left! Never mind how nice the food is there – I already have a bad impression of the place! Period!!!

Well, since we had our minds set on having something Indian for our lunch that day, in the end, we headed to our usual haunt and my girl wanted the tandoori chicken paratha (RM15.00)…

…that I had the other day. She did try a bit of mine and yes, it was very much to her liking. It was served with this bowl of potato curry and some brown sauce/gravy in another bowl…

I liked eating the paratha dipped in the latter a lot more than with the potato curry that day. My girl said it was some mutton/lamb sauce, probably curry and yes, when I tried, it did taste like it!

She also ordered the mixed vegetable curry (RM13.00)…

…to enjoy with the paratha.

I had the biryani rice with chicken korma (RM21.00)…

…myself that day. Since I’m off red meat, I can’t have the mutton/lamb masala so I decided to go for the chicken instead but in the end, I picked their korma to give it a try and I got one chicken drumstick…

…plus two huge chunks of meat, probably from the thigh and yes, it was very nice and of course, so was the biryani rice…

I sure enjoyed eating that and yes, the lovely gravy went so well with the rice. By the time I was done, there wasn’t any trace of it left!

My missus, as always, chose something from their Indonesian menu and had their ayam bakar berempah (RM16.00)…

I had that before and yes, I thought it was very nice.

My missus loves the urap (Indonesian kerabu, the blanched vegetables with spicy grated coconut)…

…that they serve here, never mind what dish it comes with and yes, the grilled brinjal with peanut sauce…

…is something to look forward to as well and of course, she was delighted to see how generous they were with the freshly-cut cili padi in soy sauce that they gave with the dish.

That certainly was a delightful lunch though all the time, I was wishing that they would move some of the tables onto the shaded pavement outside, not that I am so into al fresco dining but in the broad daylight outside, I would be able to take very much flattering snapshots of what we eat there everytime we drop by – this place is way too dim to give the nice food that they serve any justice!

THE CAFE IND (2.290813, 111.829294)…

…is located along Laichee Lane, right behind one block of shops facing the main road (Jalan Kampung Nyabor) where the Bank Simpanan Nasional, Sibu branch is.