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

Travellin’…

My girl’s coursemate in Wellington, New Zealand and Sg Petani, Kedah, Farid Bubu, enjoys travellin’ with his missus, Suzieyana and son, Faaeq and will grab every opportunity that comes along to go some place here in Sarawak and even to Sabah. Of course, they were kind of restricted during the pandemic but now that inter-district travel is allowed, they are on the move ever so often once again.

In Bubu’s own words, “The family that travels together stays forever!” Now, that is something I would wholeheartedly agree. Over the years, once our girl was big enough, we went here, there and everywhere – initially, by car mostly, here in Sarawak to Kuching, Bintulu and Miri and when she was bigger, we ventured further to West Malaysia and Singapore and yes, I do believe that our holidays spent together did serve to draw us closer together and tie our family bond.

During the long Deepavali weekend, Bubu and his family were off to Kuching and places here and there along the way including Damai Beach, Lundu and they even went to a strawberry farm a la Cameron Highlands minus the crowd and the horrendous traffic jam.

Their last trip was quite recent, to Sarikei, and when they came back, they brought us these lovely bread and buns from their favourite bakery there. This time around, when they came back, they gave us this…

…the celebrated butter cake from Mita Cake House in Kuching. Of course, I know their cake only too well.

My sister-in-law in Kuching would always buy that for us everytime she came back to Sibu and my other relatives and friends, ex-students included, would do the same too. It is something like Gardenia’s butterscotch loaf/bread at KLIA2 – anyone and everyone flying home via that airport would surely buy as many loaves as they can carry to enjoy themselves or to give to everybody here.

Yes, it is VERY nice…

…Even before you open the box, the instant you take that out of the plastic bag, you can catch a whiff of the wonderful fragrance of the cake already.

Of course, when you cut it…

…and eat, you will be bowled over by its lovely soft texture and the awesome buttery taste of the cake.

You can see it is not dry…

…at all unlike many of those wannabes from other bakeries around.

It is not cheap though, that much I know, way over RM10.00 for one like that so I always tell people not to buy for me. As a matter of fact, we can get this…

…from a bakery here in Sibu for only RM6.00 at the time, dunno now. Maybe it pales a bit in comparison but I would say it comes pretty close, just that it is very much smaller, maybe around half the size only.

Nonetheless, it sure feels great to be remembered and to receive a little something from so far away. Thank you so much yet once again, Bubu and family. May God bless and take care of you all on your travels north, south, east and west throughout the state of Sarawak. I am sure by the time you get to go back home to Terengganu, you would have gone to so many parts of Sarawak that many of us do not even know exist. *facepalm*

As time passes by…

On our first morning in Kuching, I had gone out at the break of dawn for the kueh chap at Lao Ya Keng – I had blogged about that in yesterday’s post and when my girl was up around mid-morning, we walked all the way here…

I was here once in 2011 and actually, my girl was with me at the time but it had completely slipped my mind.

Yes, the kolo mee stall was still around…

…enjoying really brisk business with a whole of of people stopping by for the noodles. It is a lot more expensive now though – the price had gone up from RM2.80 in 2011 to RM4.00 for a small bowl and RM5.00…

…for the large one.

I noticed that they served a complimentary bowl of clear soup now, something that they did not use to do before but I did not think it was all that nice this time around. The char siew was kind of dry and hard and though on the whole, it was quite all right with a very strong garlicky taste, it did not sweep me off my feet, unlike the first time we were here.

I asked my girl and she too felt that same way. I guess we shall not go through all that effort to make our way there anymore should we happen to hop over to Kuching again.

After we had had our fill, we walked back to India Street…

…and browsed around the shops in the vicinity on our way back to the hotel.

I strolled over to my favourite pastry shop at Kai Joo Lane…

…but I guess it was still early in the morning and they did not have everything in their list…

I bought a few of their meat pastry or what they call siew pau…

…but no, sad to say, these too were not as nice as when the old folks were making them way back in the 70’s. Back then, the filling was a bit moist and one could see chunks of char siew and green peas but these days, it is all minced meat and rather dry but to give credit where credit is due, it still tasted quite good and the main draw, the pastry, is still as nice as I remember it to be.

The yam puffs…

…are more expensive by a ringgit but it is very much bigger and even though they do not seem to be able to make it like how people usually do it – with a nice fibrous exterior, I thought they were very nice, perhaps even nicer than the siew pau. I regretted not buying more – I only asked for three, one for each one of us, to eat in our hotel room.

ORIENTAL PARK CAFE 国泰东方古早味 (1.558891, 110.341900) is located at Market/Gertak Lane where the now-closed-down Cathay Cinema was and CHONG CHON BISCUIT MAKER (1.559214, 110.343394) is located at No. 6, Kai Joo Lane, off India Street, on the left in Kuching.

Perfect timing…

I celebrated my 67th birthday on the 2nd of December.

This card from my maternal cousin in Cheras, KL…

…came a day or two later but as they say, better late than never. Initially, I thought it was a Christmas card but actually, it was for my birthday…

Thanks for the card, Christina or Christie, for short!

Life sure is full of delightful surprises and talking about that, this came as a surprise as well. My ex-student from my English tuition class, now an English teacher in her own right, just got back from Kuching and she dropped by my house to pass me this very nice butter cake…

…from there. Thank you so much, Christina. Gee!!! Two Christinas in a row! How about that! What a coincidence!

This came in at the same time as my cousin’s birthday card and yes, this is a Christmas card…

…from my dear paternal cousin all the way in Perth, Australia, thanks to you too, Yvette.

So how did I celebrate my birthday that day? That will be in tomorrow’s post so do come back for that!

Second choice…

I did mention in my previous post that I went out with a few of my cousins for brunch that morning when I was in Kuching. The initial suggestion was to go some place in Jalan Song for the Kuching laksa but when we got there, it was closed so we settled upon some place else instead and ended up here…

I had the Kuching laksa but I seem to have deleted the photograph by mistake. Anyway, I did not think it was all that photogenic and though it was all right, nothing to shout about, I would say that there are a couple of places even here in Sibu where the laksa has an edge over that one there. The kolo mee that I had…

…was fine but it did not sweep me off my feet – there would be some places in the city where the kolo mee would be a lot nicer.

One of my cousins had the nasi lemak…

…and I did try a bit but no, the nasi was not really lemak and of course, with all those stuff by the side, it would definitely be quite nice.

Another cousin had the ark mee (duck noodles)…

…and yes, that would get my double thumbs up! I certainly would not mind ordering that should I ever happen to drop by here again.

The kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) here was pretty good, a far cry from the Nescafe-O that I had earlier that morning.

One of them went and bought this bingka sarang…

– a variation of the kek sarang semut (ant’s nest cake) or what is called honeycomb or beehive cake from this stall…

…and it was so very nice that I had to go and buy a few pieces home.

I saw that she was also selling nyonya chang and I could not resist buying a few to try…

…but no, it was so very soft one could not even hold it and would have to eat it with a spoon plus there was hardly any hint of the ketumbar (coriander) and the only thing nyonya about it would be the blue bunga telang stains. Of course, it tasted all right but if it is nyonya chang that I am looking for, my vote would go to the ones at the Green Road old lady’s stall – those are really very nice.

After our brunch, we dropped by this bakery to collect my orders. I don’t recall them having these nice boxes of different shapes and sizes before…

It sure looks like they’ve upgraded a bit since the last time I was here last year.

My girl loves their pies so I got a few of the chicken ones…

…and also the beef…

…to take home for her to enjoy. The beef pies are a lot thicker than the very nice chicken pies here, almost double, I think…and though they come pretty close where the taste is concerned, both pastry and filling, there is a whole lot more filling inside the ones from this bakery…

…and even at RM5.00 each, RM3.50 for the ones in Sibu, I do think this is more value for money especially considering that they are a lot more substantial and beef is a whole lot more expensive here than chicken.

I did not manage to go round much this time around but I guess it is pretty obvious that I sure did not go home empty-handed.

Next stop…

After my brief tour around the shops at Jalan Gambir in Kuching, I went back to India Street where I saw this interesting stall selling all kinds of curios…

…but because it was rather congested with people walking to and fro on the five-foot way, I did not linger to really look at what they had in store.

I stopped by the mamak makan shop there, the Jubilee Restaurant, for a cold drink of water and I saw that they had pasembur or what we call Indian rojak here…

…so I ordered a plate to try. It was all right, not something I would go out of my way for but I guess we are more accustomed to our own version of the Indian rojak, aka rojak Kassim after the guy who started it all (originally at Kok Cheng, directly opposite the one-time Cathay Cinema – the daughter-in-law is there now) which is more like gado gado than pasembur. I hear he is running his stall in Kuching now, somewhere around Palm Road but I did not have the chance to go and check it out.

I noticed that they were selling some pineapple jam tarts exactly like those that my cousin gave me once at RM20 for a plastic jar of those. There was no label though and the jam did look a little dry. I remember the ones my cousin gave me were from that lane on the other side of the road so I made my way there and found the place – the One Jade Bakery…

…at Kai Joo Lane. I grabbed all that they had (RM18.00 a jar)…

…so I could give to family and friends back in Sibu and after that, I headed to the Aloha delicatessen.bakery…

…at Jalan Song…

…because once, a cousin of mine gave me the chicken quiche from here and my girl loved it to bits so my main intention in going there was to get those to cart home for her. Unfortunately, there were only two left (RM3.00 each)…

…so in the end, I decided to buy the meat (beef) pies as well, three of them (Can’t remember the price but I vaguely remember seeing RM6.00 each on the price tag)…

No, no, they were perfect but I had a hard time using the tongs provided to try and get the pies and put them on my plate and I ended scratching the “face” of one of them. In the end, I just had to use my hand! Tsk! Tsk!

Next was a pit stop at what I think is called RH Plaza, the shops in front of the hotel where I had stayed a few times before. Unfortunately, almost all the stalls were closed – maybe they all close on Tuesdays, I wouldn’t know – except for a few isolated ones so in the end, I decided to just have something from this stall (RM1.40 for 2 pieces)…

– the very nice and very crispy apam balik with a special request for extra butter and peanut (add an additional 30 sen)…

…to tide me over…

…till around 2.00 p.m. when I would go for something that I had in mind.

You’ll have to come back tomorrow to see what that is in my next post. Stick around!!!