Honeybee…

My girl’s coursemate in Sg Petani & Wellington, New Zealand, Bubu, we call him, has been teaching here since 2013. I guess he is getting on pretty well with his missus and son and also in his school. With the pandemic, he has not gone back to Terengganu for so long now but now that they have opened up all borders and are allowing inter-district and inter-state travel, I am quite sure that they will go home when the school holidays come at the end of the year in December.

In the meantime, they have been very adventurous every weekend since they are free to move around without going through all those restrictions and what not. The previous week, they had a delightful weekend in Miri and last weekend, they were in Sarikei and yes, they went back to this bakery…

…there again at this location…

…and they bought me some lovely stuff from there like what they did in December last year.

I remember they gave us the long cylindrical bun…

…the other time and it was very nice with its lovely custard cream filling. They did not give us the cheese stick then – my girl’s favourite so of course, I reserved that for her for her breakfast when she got up the next morning and yes, she said it was good.

This…

…was new too and no, there was no filling inside. It did not matter one bit though as I liked the bun in itself and the cheese, the custard and the sesame seeds coating outside plus all the raisins sure brought the overall taste to a whole new level. Yes, if I were to drop by this bakery, this is one bun that I would want to buy.

They gave us these butter milk buns…

…last year and they gave us a pack again this time around. Unlike the square-shaped ones from the bakeries in Sibu, these were rectangular, longish in shape and one stark difference would be how generous they were with the lovely butter milk filling – they gave so much of it throughout the length of each bun unlike the Sibu ones where once you’ve bitten off the little that they have inside, you are left with just the plain bun to finish off completely kosong. You can take my word for it – these are very good too, not to be missed if you stop by here.

Thank you so much, Bubu, Suzie & Faaeq – it was so sweet of you all to think of us and to take the trouble of sending them over to my house. Much obliged, indeed!

HONEYBEE BAKERY (2.130238, 111.518739) is just next to SugarBun Sarikei at No. 75, Jalan Masjid Lama.

Eat me…

No, we did not order a cake from Marcus nor did we go and buy one from anywhere for my girl’s birthday on Friday, 17th September. We’re #stayingsafe #stayingwell #stayinghome, you see.

Instead, the mum went and baked a butter cake…

…and my girl did the whipped cream icing, tinted lightly blue using the butterfly pea flowers from my garden and the mum went and plucked some of the blooms and leaves to place on top…

It did not look too bad, don’t you think?

It tasted really great, reduced sugar and my girl did not add any to the whipped cream icing but still, I restricted myself to just a few slices. Gotta have a lot of self-control these days.

For the same reason as to why we did not get her a cake, we did not go out to buy any presents for her either – we just gave her ang paos. She also got those from her godmother/aunt, my sister, that is and also my in-laws and yes, they did go through the trouble to buy her a few things as well.

That afternoon, it sure was a pleasant surprise when a car pulled up at our gate. It was her very good friend, Dayang who did give her a cake last year too and yes, we did invite her to join us when my girl celebrated her birthday at the Thai restaurant, our favourite in town.

She dropped by to give her this cheese and tomato pizza…

…her favourite at that home-based Malay eatery in the kampung serving western cuisine including pizzas and pasta. I’ve never been there before because it is a small place – I do not fancy going there to dine with my car parked by the side of the small and narrow lane but as far as I know, it is very popular – a lot of people frequent that place and they would share photos of what they have there on Facebook, all of which look pretty good, frankly speaking.

The pizza was very nice, very generous with the cheese but I prefer thin crust and I’m afraid it wasn’t.

Other than that, my girl’s friend also gave her this…

Eat me!!! That reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Inside the box was this croissant sandwich…

…from this very popular place in town, another place that I’ve never been to. Oopsss!!! It was our no-meat Friday but never mind! We made it an exception for my girl since it was her birthday and yes, she did enjoy it.

We did have a steamboat dinner as well on Saturday evening, the 18th but I may or may not blog about it as it would be pretty much the usual – we have had many steamboat dinners before so you can expect that we had more or less the same things. We’ll see!

I hope you had a decently happy and wonderful birthday, love – the best we can do at a time like this. May God bless and protect you abundantly each passing day in the year ahead. Cheers!!!

Two-way…

I saw on Facebook that Mary’s sweet & beautiful daughter, just like the mum, would be making some cheesecakes for sale for Christmas. I remember she did give me one once with lots of chocolate but no, I am not so into cheesecakes.

A few days later, I spotted another post and this time around, she would be making pies! Aha!!! I would want those! She made me an apple pie for my birthday that day and it was so good – it sure put those miserable ones at that franchise place to shame. Of course, this is partly a matter of giving and taking, a two-way thing or in Hokkien, we say oo lai oo khi (got come, got go)…and considering that they have been giving me things all this while, the least I could do to reciprocate was to show a little bit of support.

I asked for a box of each type, three…

…altogether.

There were these chicken ones…

…with its very nice filling, so generous with the meat…

…and these beef and pumpkin ones…

…which were a little on the sweet side, probably because of the pumpkin…

…in them.

Last but not least, there were those awesome apple ones…

I remember in 1994, when I was at Marjons, Plymouth in the UK, the housekeeper (who looked like Susan Boyle before she became famous) gave me a box of mince pies. She told me that traditionally, they would eat them around Christmas as because of the shape, the pie symbolises the manger where Baby Jesus lay in the stable after He was born. Silly me, I thought there was minced meat in them but no, there was fruit mince instead. Well, we can’t get those here, not in Sibu and I thought these apple pies would make a great substitute, what do you think?

I can’t remember the prices now – they were over RM30.00 per box of 4 so that worked out to around RM8.00 per pie. I paid RM106.00 for all the three boxes, freshly baked, hot from the oven.

Moving on, it was the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, when I got a call from Bubu, my girl’s coursemate. He was posted here in 2013 and has been teaching here since. He and his family could not go home to Terengganu because there are only two “government-approved flights” per week and those that they booked were cancelled over and over again so they just gave up and decided to stay here for the holidays.

I understand that if you go to the airline website, there are a whole lot of flights and you can book any one of them…just that they would not be flying! This is absolutely ridiculous!!! Besides, when they come back, they would have to go through the tests and the 14-day quarantine and these would not be free for non-Sarawakians, RM2,400 per person so for the three of them, he would have to fork out over RM7,000 altogether.

That was why they drove to Sarikei the other day and I did hear them say that they would be going to Kuching the following week, putting the holidays to good use.

They went to this bakery in Sarikei that they said was very popular and they bought me these butter milk buns…

…and this assortment…

…as well, thank you so much.

As far as the texture of the bread went, I would say that it was pretty much the same as most of the modern-day bakeries here in Sibu, not old school like the roti paun I bought at the kampung stall that day. Having said that, I must say that the filling is a cut above many that I have eaten here. The butter milk filling, for instance, is more fragrant and not so dry as some of those here. I loved the custard filling that that nice-looking cylindrical bun and the spicy meat floss on top of the one on the right was really good. I don’t think I ever came across anything like that here. The big one was meat floss and chicken sausages and whatever else, nice too but I think that would not be so hard to find here.

I wanted to give them some made-in-Mukah keropok udang that I bought the other day but I could not see any halal logo on the label so I aborted the idea in the end. I also had some boxes of the Indonesian-made pasta in the house. I’ve bought some more to keep since my girl enjoys eating the cheese bolognese one so I gave those instead. Bubu’s wife said that the son loves pasta so he probably will enjoy it.

HONEYBEE BAKERY (2.130238, 111.518739) is just next to SugarBun Sarikei at No. 75, Jalan Masjid Lama.

Try that too…

The other day, I blogged about the steamed paos that my ex-student managed to buy in Sarikei and brought all the way back for me. She got me the kaya butter and the char siew.

Way back in July, when I saw the video clip featuring these buns and I read somewhere that it would be available at one particular supermarket here, I quickly went there to see but unfortunately, there was none…and for a long time, I did not see any buns in the steamer everytime I drove past. Well, I was driving past the supermarket that day and yes, I saw the steamer filled with buns. I did not stop as I did not have the time but a few days later, I went back there again with the sole intention of buying the paos.

Yes, I bought the kaya butter ones again – everyone enjoyed those very much. My ex-student said they were RM1.20 each but that day, I had to fork out RM1.30 for one. I guess we need to pay for the transport charges plus surely the people here would want to make a bit of profit as well.

I did not want to buy the char siew as I wanted to try the chicken mushroom ones (RM1.80 each)…

The char siew ones were nice but the filling was not quite like the kind-of-sweet regular char siew pao filling and it turned out that these chicken mushroom ones…

…did not taste anything like any that I had before either.

Yes, it was nice – I liked how the meat was in chunks, not minced but there was no egg inside. I love the egg in steamed paos! The skin was as good as usual but personally, I prefer those homemade pork ones at that shop near my house even though they are not as generous with the filling and theirs are actually RM2.00 each!

I guess I shall be going back to buy some more but I’d probably be sticking to the kaya butter ones  – they’re really good.

GRACE’s ARK 恩典芳舟, the bakery (2.122346, 111.521718) is located at No. 33, Jalan Entiba in Sarikei. The steamed paos are available in Sibu at the DORAEMON SUPERMARKET (2.293838, 111.836819), located in the area of shops around Jalan Chew Siik Hiong, off Jalan Langsat and SWEE HUNG (2.316161, 111.840441) is located along Jalan Ruby, in the block of shops on the right – next to a hair salon at the extreme end.

All the way here…

Last Saturday, Christina, my ex-student in my English tuition class, now a TESL grad and an English teacher in her own right, went all the way to Sarikei to be the one of the bridesmaids at her friend’s wedding.

While she was there, she remembered that I went looking for the Sarikei steamed paos (buns) which, according to the Youtube video that featured it, would be available at a supermarket here but no, I did not manage to get hold of any despite having gone there a few times. Now, that thoughtful girl took it upon herself to go looking for them there and bring them all the way here…just for me.

She got me the meat (char siew) buns…

…which were nice but the filling did not taste like char siew as we know it.

It had a taste of its own…

…and I think I could make out a hint of some Chinese wine or something like that. What I particularly liked was how the meat was in chunks, not minced meat used to cook and make the filling or worse, those where they use minced meat to make meat balls and stuff those in the paos. When you bite into the bun, there is the likelihood of the meatball rolling out and dropping onto the table…or worse, the floor, leaving you with just the skin in your hand.

Christina also bought me their signature buns, what the lady in the video clip said were their kaya butter buns…

Well, I could not taste any kaya but the filling…

…was very nice. Most people would make something on the dry side, probably a combination of butter and milk, for the filling, and call them butter buns. This one is very much nicer.

Yes, I would say they were nice and one thing that makes them stand out above all the rest, including the ones we have here in Sibu, is the skin, It is so very soft and fluffy, none that we have here comes anywhere near.

Thank you so much, Christina – that was so very sweet of you, indeed!

GRACE’s ARK 恩典芳舟, the bakery (2.122346, 111.521718) is located at No. 33, Jalan Entiba in Sarikei.