The other way round…

Early this year, we wanted to go and check out the new Japanese restaurant in town but unfortunately, the queue was so very long that we decided to go to this place opposite instead. Well, it so happened that we felt like going for the grilled pork and the gourmet sausages at the latter the other day and this time, it was the other way round. It was closed for the long Gawai Dayak weekend and since we did not feel like going anywhere else, we just went to that Japanese restaurant opposite in the end.

On that previous occasion when we went to that international Japanese franchise chain (the other franchises here are Malaysian), we felt that what we had was pretty decent, not anything to get us rushing back for more. Nonetheless, we decided that we would like to give it a second chance – probably we did not order the right items then and besides, we noticed that there was quite a crowd there for lunch, almost full (it was a Saturday). Thankfully, we did not have to queue to go in.

They did not have any unagi at that other Japanese place we went too not long ago, my girl’s favourite, so she wasted no time at all in ordering their unadon, 100g/small (RM33.00)…

…while I went for their unatama don, small (RM25.80)…

Obviously, she got a lot more unagi in hers but it was just the fish plus the sauce with rice. I felt that mine was nicer because there was egg and a whole lot of other stuff – the seaweed, the mushroom and the onions and what not together with the fish and the rice in the lovely teriyaki or whatever sauce.

My missus ordered their kaisan ramen (RM18.80)…

…which certainly looked very good with all that seafood and an egg as well. Yes, she liked it but no, I did not bother to try and just took her word for it.

We shared the rest of our orders which included this spicy cheese spider roll (RM21.80)…

…with the soft shell crab in it, the chuka lidako sushi (RM13.60)…

…with those red cuttlefish that the ladies seemed to enjoy a lot.

My girl wanted the yakitori (RM7.80)…

…which wasn’t as well-charred/grilled as what we had at that other place and I insisted that she tried their gyosa, shrimp & vegetables (RM14.80)…

…because she loves those dumplings a lot. They turned out to be just so-so, nothing to shout about. We’ve had nicer ones elsewhere.

For want of a vegetable dish, I asked for their yasai tempura (RM7.80)…

…which we also ordered the previous time we were here and yes, we did enjoy the assortment in that dish.

We had a BIG pot of iced green tea (RM4.50) and the total came up to RM171.55 (inclusive of 10% service charge and 6% government service tax). Well, service was great, very efficient and friendly enough but no, I did not leave a tip because I used my credit card to pay…and anyway, they have already charged those in their bill. I would say that we did enjoy our lunch a lot more this second time around so for sure, we would be going back there again.

SUSHI ZANMAI…

…is located on the ground floor (Sublot 8-01, 9-01, 10-01) at the Hann’s Commercial Centre, Jalan Wong King Huo.

Early morning…

The ladies went out early one morning last week and it was only 8.00 a.m. when they stopped by here for breakfast. That took me by surprise as usually, such classy joints do not open till 11 or 12.

It has been around for a very long time – I do not remember exactly when it started but if I am not mistaken, I think it was a small place in one corner at the Sibu Heritage Centre initially before it moved to its previous location soon after. There, it grew by leaps and bounds and now there are branches everywhere – Kuching, Sarikei, Bintulu and Miri!

Despite its very impressive track record, I have never been there myself as I am not into branded coffee…or any coffee, for that matter. I’ve sworn off the stuff (and cigarettes) for quite a while now and I was thinking that there wouldn’t be much there other than cakes and buns, all the sweet stuff that I have to keep a distance from since I’m on a no/less sugar diet as well. I asked my girl and she said that there are a lot of other things available, even a Big Breakfast. Of course, I am curious as to how BIG their BIG is – I have not had one that is really BIG here (the last one was in Plan B in KL) so perhaps, I shall drop by one of these days to check it out.

Anyway, back to what the ladies had that morning, the mum had the kopi-o…oops, I mean the Americano (RM8.00)…

…while my girl had the strawberry yogurt (RM14.00)…

She said it was all right, like yogurt, strawberry flavour but she wasn’t too impressed by the cheezy chicken breadroll (RM20.00)…

…that she picked. I supposed that was why she could not finish all of it and took two pieces home. I gave it a try and yes, I thought it wasn’t anything to get excited about either, just some chicken (breast) and hardboiled egg inside and lots of cheese shavings on top.

The mum had the pita roasted beef (RM23.00)…

…and she liked it. My girl did say that on one occasion, she was here with a friend and her friend had that and she liked it too. I would have asked for a bit to try but somehow, she didn’t.

So there you have it, the breakfast that the ladies had! The bill came up to a whooping RM65.00 altogether.

THE COFFEE CODE ROASTERY, SIBU (2.304285, 111.831179) is located at No. 1, Jalan Bintang Selatan, off Jalan Merdeka via Jalan Bintang Selatan.

All day, all night…

This place has been around for a while now and I did see friends sharing photographs of what they ate there on Facebook. I never dropped by to give it a try though because I saw somewhere that they only opened at 4.00 p.m. in the evening. Well, the other day, my girl went with my sister, her godmother, for lunch and according to them, it opens all day from 12 noon till 9.30 p.m. every day except on Monday when they close at 9.00 p.m.

They shared their signature pork combo (RM49.00)…

…which was nice but somehow, everything tasted kind of Chinese, not like what we would get here. The own-made sausage, for instance, could do with a lot more herbs, those Italian ones so it would not come across like one of those Taiwan sausages. As for the generous serving of pork slices, they were all right but came nowhere near the very nice grilled pork chop here.

My girl loved the bacon carbonara spaghetti (RM35.00)…

…which sure is saying a lot as 99% of the times she had anything carbonara elsewhere, they did not meet her approval. I can see a lot of bacon in the photograph so perhaps that would explain the kind of high price tag.

The two of them also shared the wild mushroom soup (RM8.00)…

…with a slice of garlic bread by the side.

It was a pleasant enough lunch for the two ladies but from what I can see in the photographs here and elsewhere, they do need to work a bit on their presentation. It looks like they like to sprinkle a lot of things all over the plate for their presentation of a dish, making it look kind of messy and I also noticed that they like to squiggle strips of mayonnaise or cream cheese ALL OVER what is being served – I can’t say I am fond of that too.

My girl had this Thai lemongrass drink (RM5.50)…

…that she said was nice. I must say I was kind of surprised as she was quite put off by the bits of serai and everything else in her tom yam fried rice not too long ago. My sister just had a glass of drinking water (RM1.00).

The total for the lunch came up to RM98.50 altogether – I certainly would not say it is affordable, much less cheap but on the whole, I guess it was worth a try.

STEAKOUT (2.291961, 111.841880) is located at No. 1 & No.3, Lorong Wong King Huo 3 in the Medan Mall area of shops.

I was only joking…

It so happened that I saw one of those pages on Facebook promoting this shop in Kuching…

…that makes my favourite sio pao (meat pastry)…

…and that triggered a craving in me. I had not eaten those since that time when I went to Kuching in December, 2019 but no, I was not going over to the state capital anytime soon so I did not get my hopes up too high.

What I did then was to share the aforementioned post on Facebook and captioned it, “Anybody coming over to Sibu soon? Hint! Hint!” Of course I was only joking – I never expected anybody to respond, much less offer to go through all that trouble to get them and bring them over to Sibu for me.

Much to my surprise, out of the blue, I received a message from my friend, Yan and she said she would try to get some and pass to me when she came back to Sibu on the eve of Gawai, the 31st of May. Of course, I told her I wasn’t serious but on the morning of the day in question, she messaged to tell me that she was at Kai Joo Lane…

…and told me the unfamiliar name of a shop selling sio pao.

I remember seeing that shop before (that one’s bigger and actually looked nicer) but I never tried theirs before. Those from elsewhere that I did try had been disappointing, including the ones from some place at Rubber Road…

…that people insisted were the same, made by some people related in some way to the ones at Chong Chon.

I told her that was not the shop – Chong Chon would be another shop opposite/on the other side of the narrow lane. Later, she messaged again saying that she found it but theirs were made to order only – you can’t go there and buy, just like that…

However, she managed to persuade them to give her 10 for me…and to throw in another 2 for her to try as she had never eaten them before. Yes, she loved it A LOT and she added that she would never eat any sio pao from anywhere else ever again.

She flew in on the 7.00 p.m. flight that very night and by the time she got to my house, it was almost 9.00 p.m. already. I put 6 in the freezer to eat slowly one by one, bit by bit…nibble…nibble…so as to stretch it for as long as possible and left 3 in the fridge to heat up and eat the next morning (1 each, no more, no less) and I couldn’t resist popping one in the oven right away to heat up and eat before hitting the sack. Otherwise, I would keep thinking about it all night and not be able to sleep. LOL!!!

Yes, it was VERY good! The pastry was flaky and crumbly (not hard and crusty like the Seremban ones) with its light buttery fragrance but the filling…

…was noticeably different from what it used to be before.

In the 70’s, when there was just this couple, a man and his wife (I heard she’s from Hong Kong) at that shop, the filling was moist, like there was a bit of gravy and there were small chunks of char siew (barbecued pork) in it and a few peas. Somehow or other, the frozen peas we get here these days are as hard as stones so I guess it is best to leave those out but the filling was nothing like that, as you can see in the above photograph and definitely not like what we can get in those steamed char siew paos or the sio paos from elsewhere here…

Thankfully, the old familiar garlicky taste was still there…vaguely/remotely so I would say it was still very nice.

Now, the last time I was there, a young (much friendlier) couple was running the show, dunno if those were the son or the daughter but the Hong Kong lady was around supervising, with her no-nonsense attitude and all. In the past, the couple would just make some…

…and then they could clear away everything and set up a mahjong table in the middle of the shop. There they would sit and play…and sell the sio paos till they were all sold out. I don’t know if they still do that and how many they would make in a day – I did hear people telling me that it would be best to call and make a booking and then go and collect at the stipulated time so as not to be disappointed when forced to leave empty-handed.

Thank you so much, Yan, for being such a good friend and for going out of your way to get these for me. Ever since they closed down India Street to traffic, this little lane is not that easily accessible anymore and going to the shop to buy their sio paos is not as easy as before. I do appreciate that…a lot! You’re truly a gem, one in a million!

CHONG CHON BISCUIT MAKER 长春烧包 (1.559204, 110.343335) is located at No, 6, Kai Joo Lane

An old friend…

It sure was a pleasant surprise when I received a message from my old friend, Dr. Ong from Tanjong Malim (originally from Taiping) in Perak. He told me that he would be flying in that day, the 1st of June, Hari Gawai here in Sarawak. The last time he was here was eight years ago in 2015 and prior to that visit, he was in Sibu in 2010 as well. Of course, we were delighted to see him again and we made arrangements to go out for dinner that very night itself.

He was staying at this hotel across the parking area from this restaurant. We had dinner there on New Year’s Day and we managed to get to eat their chequerboard duck, my girl’s favourite but they were out of fish, never mind what fish, that night, so we had to miss their fried filleted white pomfret (pek chio/ikan bawal putih) with its very nice sweet & sour sauce so I told my girl that we would have our dinner there if we could get a vacant parking space – Dr. Ong could just walk across from the hotel…and yes, we were lucky! We did manage to find a place to park the car!

There was one table left but it was booked for 7.00 p.m. – we were there before 6.00 p.m. and they said we could sit there and have our dinner before they came. We quickly grabbed it, of course, and YES, we had the fish…

…that we had been craving for, one of their signature dishes here and yes, it was as good as ever. Craving appeased, finally!

But, of course, we had Dr. Ong, back here from West Malaysia, and what I had in mind actually was to let him enjoy all the things unique only to Sarawak that he had not had all these years so we started off with their kampua mee…

…which was very good, perfectly done and the Sibu Foochow sio bee (siew mai)…

Those were great too but I felt they had shrunk from their original Foochow super size by at least, 25%. They did not look as big as before.

For our vegetable dishes, needless to say, our midin (wild jungle fern)…

…was a must. Dr. Ong said they have paku over at the other side but of course, we all know that midin is much nicer and wins hands down.

Another vegetable that is very common here is the cangkok manis…

They may have this over at the other side – usually, they get a bit in their pan mee or lei cha but most likely, it’s the miniature sayur manis (sweet vegetable), grown and exported from Sabah. I did not quite like how they did it here though – I felt it was a bit starchy like they had added cornflour or something. They do it a lot better elsewhere.

The ladies did not feel like having their tauhu tear (Foochow tofu soup with canned oysters) so we had their sea cucumber soup…

…instead. There were chunks of sea cucumber in it and it tasted really great – like sharks’ fins soup. The serving was huge so we had a few rounds each.

It certainly was a pleasant dinner – good food and good company (my girl enjoys Dr. Ong’s stories)…

…but before I could pick up the tab, Dr. Ong beat me to it and insisted that he paid for everything. If I am not mistaken, the total came up to around RM180.00 (inclusive of rice and a pot of Chinese tea) which came as no surprise as pek chio/bawal putih (white pomfret) costs a bomb and sea cucumber isn’t exactly cheap either.

Thank you, Dr. Ong for the dinner – it sure was good to see you again!

The NEW CAPITOL RESTAURANT 新首都酒家 (2.288619, 111.830057)…

…is located at No. 46, Lebuh Tanah Mas, off Jalan Kampung Nyabor, in the block of shops opposite the Sarawak House/King’s Trioplex/Premier Hotel at the very far end on the right.

Stole the show…

We went back here for lunch yesterday because we heard there were a couple of nice things on their menu that we should go and try.

One of them was their burger (RM32.00)…

…for which there was a choice between fish, chicken and pork. Beef was on the list too but they cancelled it.

In the end, we settled for the pork…

…which was very good but it was served last and we were already very full by then so I guess that affected the enjoyment somewhat. Besides, to me, a burger is a burger – I wouldn’t say that it got me all excited.

So what else did we have earlier? There was this mushroom soup (RM15.00)…

…which was good as well and we loved the very nice crockery they used to serve it in. That sure was different from how they do it elsewhere.

The baked cheese rice, chicken & mushroom (RM23.00)…

…was very good too but it came across like some nicely-done, wok hei and all, Chinese fried rice topped with all that cheese plus chunks of chicken and mushroom and put in the oven to bake.

What stole the show was their barbecued pork ribs (RM45.00)…

It was absolutely awesome, bursting with flavours and done to perfection, so very nice & tender…

My girl said that it reminded her of what we used to enjoy here a long time ago – too bad it had closed down. We all enjoyed it to the max and went home singing its praises. It definitely was worth going for, unlike the very disappointing and more expensive one I had here not too long ago.

We had two glasses of iced honey lemon (RM7.00 each) and one watermelon juice (RM10.00) and the total came up to RM139.00 (RM147.35 with the 6% service tax), a little cheaper than the lunch we had here the other day.

I quite like the place, very spacious with its classy decor. There seems to be two sections and one is more Chinese, probably because they do have a wide selection of nice Chinese dishes on their menu as well. Service was prompt and efficient and with the light relaxing instrumental music, it sure has the perfect setting for fine dining. We certainly would not mind coming back again sometimes.

THE BLUE DOOR DINE & WINE (2.291959, 111.819462)…

…is now located at No. 83, Jalan Lau King Howe, right below The Win Hotel, across the road from the Waterfront Residences or the Sibu Twin Towers.

Opening day…

Ever since I saw their fish tail banners hanging from the street lamps all over town and the gigantic picture of the gorgeous roast duck in them beckoning to me, I was waiting for the place to open so I could go and give it a try.

From the name, I found out that it is an Ipoh franchise so I did not get my hopes up high – we already have a couple of Ipoh franchises here and let’s say they have been somewhat disappointing. I shared the post on Facebook and my friend, Annie, in KL said it is very famous/a favourite in Ipoh. Hmmm…that sounded promising!

Well, it had its soft opening yesterday, 31st May, so we made our way there at 10.00 a.m., the instant it opened its doors. Today is Gawai Dayak, a public holiday and with the long weekend ahead (holidays will stretch till Monday), I was afraid that there would be a lot of people flocking there, long queues by the entrance (they have placed some chairs there) in the scorching heat we are experiencing these days. Besides, it’s the early bird that catches the worm, so they say!

They’ve renovated the place – formerly, they had this here and later, they changed the concept to this. It is a bit bigger – I think they extended it to include the space outside on the right and I must say that it is very simple, not much decor to shout about or at least, not like what it was like before or at some places around town. I guess they mean business – it is all about the food (and service), no need for all those distractions.

A very nice and friendly waiter came to show us the menu – yes, they have the regular physical menus, none of that scan-the-QR-code nonsense…and he was very friendly, very knowledgeable of everything they are serving and very proficient in English. I was beginning to like the place already…a lot!

We asked for the Grand Platter, small (RM68.00)…

…so we could hit three birds with one stone. We were there to try as much as we could and with this order, we had the very nice and tender signature roast duck and the gorgeous char siew (barbecued pork), so moist, so juicy…

…and on the other side, there was the siew yoke (roast pork)…

…that the ladies voted as their No. 1! It tasted really great and the skin was absolutely perfect, so nice and crispy.

These came with the platter…

– the usual chicken rice chili dip, the sour plum sauce and another one that looked like ginger or something. I did have the chili with the Hainanese rice (RM2.20)…

…but not with the meat – when they taste so good, I would want to savour and enjoy them without drowning them in all these sauces. The rice was all right, nicer than a lot around town but no, it will take a lot more than this to get me jumping with excitement.

My missus does not eat duck so I asked for their roasted chicken, lower quarter (RM15.00)…

…for her and at the same time, we were able to try that as well and these dips…

…came with it.

We did not want the vegetable of the day – lettuce but I did see it ordered by some customers at another table. It did not look like much, quite typical of vegetables served at chicken rice places, blanched and served with oyster sauce. Usually, it is that or taugeh (bean sprouts) fried with salted fish.

We agreed to try their soup of the day though – the pumpkin soup (RM5.00) and yes, it was very good. It tasted like some herbal soup but there wasn’t any pumpkin inside, just pork that was so well-simmered, fall-off-the-bone tender…

We never cooked pumpkin like this at home – if it’s a soup, it will be like those rich and creamy ones served at the western eateries. Perhaps we’ll give this a try one of these days.

I must say on the whole, the service was excellent, very polite and cordial and very prompt – there were quite a lot of people, almost but not full, and despite that, we did not have to wait very long. I did notice a whole lot of packed lunches all lined up on the counter waiting for the delivery people to come and take them away and a number of customers sitting on the chairs outside (initially, I thought they were in the queue) waiting for their tapao (takeaway) orders.

There was only one cashier so there was a queue there when I went to pay for our most delightful brunch but it did not matter though as the young guy was very efficient and everything went smoothly and he could speak English fluently too!!! The total altogether came up to RM112.30 (inclusive of our drinks) and yes, they do accept credit cards here.

Everyone was wondering all this while as to who bought the Ipoh franchise to run this place here. I googled and found a whole lot of outlets in Ipoh and one in Subang or somewhere and now, there is this one here in Sibu. Well, this was on the serviette provided and it turned out that the people with this chain of cafés and restaurants…

…around town are the ones behind it. No wonder I saw some of them promoting this place quite aggressively on Facebook.

We certainly got off on a good start – this place opens from 10.00 a.m. till 9.00 p.m. daily (no off day) and rest assured that I will be going back again soon to try whatever else they may have on their menu that we have not tried yet, like their pipa duck, for instance.

SUN YEONG WAI 新揚威 – Sibu 诗巫 (2.302891, 111.842997)…

…is located at Wisma Liberty, Lot 4047, Block 3, STD 15, Lorong Dr Wong Soon Kai 7.

Looks like we made it…

Yes, I have recovered somewhat and I am well enough to go back to church. That was why I was there last Saturday evening for the weekly novena and the sunset service at our regular church here.

The weather was scorching hot still these days so after we were done past 8.00 p.m., I was thinking of dropping by some place air-conditioned for our very late dinner/supper. I was delighted to see that except for one table, this place was quite empty so we went in quickly and promptly placed our orders.

I had their venison on a hot plate…

…in mind as I knew my girl would love that. It was very good and both the ladies sang their praises of the dish.

I did not know what else to order and the boss suggested their braised mui choy (preserved vegetable) pork belly…

…something we never had before here. Gosh! That certainly was so good it swept us all off our feet. Obviously the meat had been stewed for a long time and was fall-off-the-bone tender and the thick gravy was bursting with flavours. I would want to order that again the next time we drop by here.

My girl wanted the Four Heavenly Kings…

…but they were out of long beans so we only had three – ladies’ fingers, baby corn and my girl’s favourite, brinjal!

The tofu salted vegetable soup…

…was very good too, very strong on the fragrance of the latter. I sure enjoyed that very much.

The bill for the food came up to RM74.00 only, very cheap by today’s standard, I must say but anyway, considering how we enjoyed all the dishes that night, we sure would be back again soon.

I did ask the boss why it was rather quiet and he said that it was getting late – everyone had had their dinner and had gone home. We had made it just in time – it seems that they close at 9.00 p.m. these days, not 10.00 p.m. like before. Gosh! We would have to rush over quickly if we want to have our dinner here after the church service then. The boss did say that it would be all right as long as we could make it before 9.00 p.m. They would not mind staying a little bit longer for our sake, regular customers.

RUBY RESTAURANT…  

…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.

I could tell…

Yes, I could tell that the fish I had (RM28.00)…

…that day was a different variety from the barracuda that they said they were using the last time I was here. That one, I could eat it just like that, no need for the tartar sauce – it was so very nice!

Of course when they asked me, I did not mince my words – whatever fish it was, I found it a bit bland, quite tasteless and I was thinking that perhaps they should add a little bit of seasoning, some salt or something. Even the texture was different. They said they did not know the variety their supplier sent them this time. That is very bad! I would change supplier if I were them. True blue fish connoisseurs enjoy very good fish on their own, no need for seasoning, no need for tartar sauce or mayonnaise. Otherwise, one might as well go for the cheap frozen fish fillets at the supermarkets…or dory! Duh!!! Next time, I shall have to ask what fish they are using before ordering!!!

Anyway, we did not drop by for lunch that day for the fish and chips. We heard from my sister who heard it from a friend that their grilled pork chop (RM32.00)…

…was very nice so we wanted to give it a try. I ordered that to share…despite the price tag but it was well worth it. They were very generous with the servings – two huge perfectly-grilled, very tender slabs with green salad and potato salad by the side and the sauce that came with it was so so good, a little spicy but we loved it! It was just RM4.00 more than the disappointing fish and chips – I most certainly would go for this next time if they are not too sure the fish they have been supplied with is really good or not.

I saw their photo of their pumpkin soup (RM15.00)…

…which was not on the menu, on Facebook – they only had mushroom soup (which was good, the last time we had that). I asked the waitress and she confirmed it was available so we decided to give it a try. I would say it was nice but my missus can do a lot better, thicker and richer. This was somewhat diluted and given a choice, I would stick to their mushroom…

I had ordered the three aforementioned dishes to share but my girl said she wanted to try their spaghetti (spelt wrongly on their menu) bolognese (RM25.00)…

…so she had that as well. They had their own bolognese sauce, not anything from the bottle or packet that would be more like tomato ketchup. My girl said that it was the same sauce they had for the lasagna that she had twice before…

…just that they had spaghetti in this one instead of the lasagna sheets.

I guess my missus did not hear that we would be sharing my orders and seeing that my girl has ordered something for herself, she wanted her own fish and chips as well. Of course, we could not finish – there was about half left of each order so we asked for that to be packed for us to take home.

The ladies had iced fresh watermelon juice (RM8.00) while I asked for this cup of lemon/lime (RM8.00)…

It was VERY sour and bitter too as they blended the skin together – I read somewhere that this is very good for health so I obediently finished the whole cup. LOL!!!

That was a pleasant and delightful enough lunch, give and take a bit here and there but the total came up to a whooping RM152.00. Ah well! As long as we enjoyed ourselves, I guess that was all that mattered!

LONDON CAFE & BISTRO (2.257899, 111.844136)…

…is located at No. 36, Lorong Pulau Li Hua 2 among the shops to your right after the bridge just before you reach the security check point.

Morning…

I dare say that this Taman Selera Muhibbah hawker centre near my house was the main attraction come nightfall every day here in this little town. You would have to park your car far away and walk all the way there and it was always so crowded, hot and stuffy and the place was kind of dark, not pleasant to the eye so in the more recent years, I hardly ever went there at all.

It so happened that sometime ago, the authorities closed down the place for a facelift and moved all to hawkers to another place much worse – those who went there had nothing nice to say. A lot of mosquitoes, they grumbled! Well, they demolished the original place and built a nice new one in its place and FINALLY, after a very long time, it reopened for business.

Of course, the crowd came flocking back and of course, I kept my distance. Lately, however, when I looked across the road from my bank opposite, I seemed to notice some people there in the morning – normally, this place would open only at night so the other morning, I decided to just walk over and have a look.

There were some stalls open but when I asked a nice friendly old lady at one of them, she said that they were not open for business. Most of them were there to prepare the ingredients and what not for their business in the night. She asked me to try my luck at one stall along that same stretch and yes, I did manage to get them to cook me this very nice-looking Foochow fried noodles, moon, served in a claypot (RM7.00)…

There was another guy at another table – it looked like he had a plate of fried kway teow (flat rice noodles) from that same stall (No. 6)…

…and I could detect the very nice wok hei fragrance as it was being served.

Yes, I would say that the noodles that I had…

…was very nice, almost like the ones I grew up eating and loved so much but not quite – for one thing, they used chicken instead of pork and yes, I would give them due credit for the amount of ingredients, something quite rarely seen around here these days.

I asked the girl from the next stall, Stall No. 6 – Simon Peter (No, not one of the 12 apostles) if I could have their ang tao peng (iced red bean) without sugar but with gula Melaka instead and she replied cheerfully that it would not be a problem at all and this was what I got (RM4.00)…

It was quite a chore trying to mix everything together in that cup but I did manage somehow and yes, it was so so so good – very generous with the red beans (mushy but still whole) and the gula Melaka but they used evaporated milk instead of santan (coconut milk). I did not mind at all but I guess one can put in a request for the latter if one wants. I sure would love to come back again for more.

As I was driving away from the place, I noticed that the kampua mee place, Siong Kee, and some other stalls on the other side were open. I think I shall stop by there the next time I am in the neighbourhood to see what they have at that side. According to my friend, Mango No. 5 is No. 46 now so it should be over at the other side as well. Personally, I was thinking that since they have rented the place, why don’t they open in the morning and around lunchtime like the hawkers here…or here? I am sure if they can serve a few nice dishes for some delightful chap fan (mixed rice) lunches, there will definitely be customers dropping by for a bite.

TAMAN SELERA MUHIBAH Hawker Centre (2.310492, 111.845999) is located at the Delta Commercial Centre, off Jalan Pedada (now Jalan Datuk Dr Wong Soon Kai), right beside the AmBank branch there.