Big shot…

The first time I dropped by this café was towards the end of 2011. I guess I was not too impressed at the time and I never went back again. In June the following year, 2012, my friend, Annie in KL, came home to Sibu and her mum took her there. She was wondering why I had not featured it in my blog – I guess she missed that earlier post of mine. She liked it a lot, it seemed and because of that, I decided to go there again and there has been no looking back since.

To this very day, this is one of the few places that we would go to again and again and again. My girl loves the biryani rice from the authentic North Indian chef, Ravi so everytime she feels like having that, no prize for guessing where we would head to. In her opinion, the biryani rice at the local Indian as well as the Malay shops and stalls is more or less like their yellow rice or nasi kuning or nasi minyak or whatever they call it, not quite like the real thing.

The dishes from their Indonesian menu are very good too. My missus, who is not so into Indian cuisine, has her favourites and will order those same few dishes over and over again everytime we drop by.

This was on Sunday that day when my girl said she would like some biryani rice so there we were, like so many times before. Business has been pretty good lately unlike before when many did not even know there was a restaurant behind the Bank Simpanan Nasional branch here in Sibu…and sitting at one of the tables with his family enjoying the food was this big shot, the so-called “Mayor” of Sibu, the Chairman of the Sibu Municipal Council!

He said he went there after seeing all my posts on the place, probably on Facebook – I don’t think he follows my blog but I did hear somebody mention something about his son wanting to go there. If I am not wrong, the boy has migrated overseas or is pursuing his studies abroad and is currently home for Chinese New Year. Of course, I asked them whether my reviews were reliable or not and they said yes – they thought the food was really good. I guess that means that they will be coming back again for more.

I ordered the lumpia (RM14.00)…

…the Indonesian popiah (spring rolls) from the Indonesian menu that day to share and yes, they were very good.

Unlike the popiah which is more vegetable, mostly sengkuang/mangkuang (turnip), this is mostly meat…

In fact, I thought it was more like our ngor hiang (meat rolls) except that instead of the bean curd skin that we use to wrap those, they used the popiah skin for these. I thought they were much nicer than the Vietnamese deep fried spring roll that we had here but those were cheap and at a coffee shop, with not much filling inside.

At the same time, I asked for their Indoneisan mee tek-tek (RM16.00)…

…which was somewhat disappointing. It was nice, just that it wasn’t anything exceptional, a little bit on the sweet side and I was wishing the whole time that they had given me a calamansi lime to squeeze the juice all over the fettuccine like what I did here and it sure helped enhance the taste of the noodles I was having that day.

I was somewhat put off by the added ingredients too which turned out to be nothing more than slices of fish cake and a couple of imitation crab sticks…

…made to look like the claws. It tasted exactly like those long cylindrical ones that never tickled my fancy! Other than those, there was a plain omelette, rolled up and placed by the side…

This was a far cry from their mee nyemek…

*Archive photo*

…with all those prawns, sotong (squid) and what not. That was really good and of course, you simply can’t go wrong with all that seafood in your dish, can you?

Incidentally, that last photograph was taken outside in natural daylight. They took in all the tables and chairs on the shaded pavement outside during the pandemic but they have not bothered about them since. Hence, the photographs that I have been taking lately are not nice at all, yellowish and not very clear because of the dim lights inside. As a matter of fact, I did not bother to take any photographs of what the ladies ate that day. They were having those same dishes that I had featured many times before…and they would not look great in the snapshots taken inside, anyway.

My girl had the Indian mutton masala biryani (RM27.00)…

*Archive photo*

…while the mum had their Indonesian ayam bakar berempah (RM16.00)…

*Archive photo*

With the escalating prices of everything, lamb and beef (and pork) are all much more expensive these days so it came as no surprise at all to see that they have increased the price of what my girl had.

This…

…was new! They had those by the side in my missus’ ayam bakar berempah. Frankly, they might as well don’t bother as it was purely for decoration. Those rice crackers were bland, quite tasteless…and came across like styrofoam/polystyrene.

Incidentally, if anyone is home for the Chinese New Year holidays and is thinking of dropping by here, this place is open every day as usual, around 11.30 a.m.-2.00 pm and from 6.00 p.m. onwards but it will be closed on Monday (23rd), their weekly off day.

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.