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 RM10.00 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. 

Stuffed…

The other morning, my missus came home from the shops in the next lane (Jalan Ruby) from my house with one big mackerel (ikan tenggiri). She said that there was a guy there selling fish at a temporary stall – he said that he would be there if there were fishing boats coming in (bringing a whole lot of fish).

So far, I never saw any big mackerels at the stall that I usually frequented, the one at the supermarket not far from my house. At best, there might be some small ones and no, I did not bother to buy those. You cannot even cut across the fish to get a big enough slice to fry. I can’t remember how much my missus paid for the one she bought – RM30 a kilo, I think. She did say there were even bigger ones but those would cost even more.

Well, she got down to work right away and filletted the fish to scrape out the meat to make fish paste to stuff some vegetables and cook with black bean sauce for this yong tofu dish…

There were some bitter gourd…

…and brinjal…

…and ladies’ fingers…

You can imagine how much work and what a chore that was!

Yes, she did make some fish balls too…

…and she boiled the unwanted parts of the fish – the head, the bones and everything…

…to get the stock for the broth for the fish ball soup…

Of course, it was very nice, so very sweet, bursting with flavours but all that work to come out with the two dishes stretched till almost lunch time! Actually, I expected her to throw all the stuffed vegetables into the soup as well but she had ideas of her own. I sure would not go through all that trouble, thank you very much!

Just for the weekend…

My ex-student/friend, Justin, was home just for the weekend that day to attend a wedding, if I am not mistaken. He’s married now – his wife is from Ipoh and they are blessed with one daughter.

If I remember correctly, the last time I saw him was in October last year (2022) when he dropped by my house to pass me a whole lot of these – the celebrated otak-otak from Muar, Johore…

My girl enjoyed them very much and was eating them slowly, one by one, with her meals. There were so many so they lasted for quite a while.

Well, that wasn’t the first time – he gave me these…

…before and these fruits…

…from the place where he was working.

I did not get to meet up with him as he was busy with his own plans plus he now has his wife and baby with him but he went through the trouble of getting in touch with me to drop by my house to pass me these…

…and also these…

…from the peninsula.

The chicken biscuit was nice, not as nice as the original, authentic ones from Kampar, Perak (with the fingerprints in the dough and all) but yes, we did enjoy them. My missus loved the sesame puffs and yes, we have tried the durian egg rolls already- I was shocked when I saw the price tag, RM15.90 for that small box! I sure would think twice about buying!

We haven’t tried the other three – I guess they are all sweet, not too sweet but sweet enough so I would have to go slow on these, a piece at a time.

Thank you so much, Justin, for the goodies and for going through all that trouble to drop by my house to pass them to me in the brief time you were here. May God bless you and your loved ones abundantly each passing day till I see you again come Chinese New Year next year. Cheers!!!

Different size…

I did mention in my blogpost the other day that I do enjoy eating the ikan kembong…

…and the other varieties of similar sizes such as the mak chik…

…for instance.

I do not know their names but there are others like these…

…or these…

For one thing, they’re cheap, all in the region of around RM10.00 a kilo, more or less. Of course, if I buy a kilo or two, there will be quite a number of them but the boy at my regular fish stall near my house will clean them for me, no problem at all.

Unfortunately, they do not get a lot of these – every day, there will be a lot of ikan bawal hitam/or chio (black pomfret) or kim chio (gold pomfret) or those from the lakes at the Batang Ai Hydro-electric Dams – the tilapia, the barramundi (ikan siakap) or the ikan sultan but those do not come cheap. The big ones can fetch around RM30.00 a kilo! I would have to go to the main wet markets to get these small ones but I have not set foot at those places ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I love how they will cook these small fish at the Malay nasi campur (mixed rice) stalls and shops. Some will deep-fry them coated with some kind of kunyit (turmeric) batter…

…and I love the ones at one place here, served with their very delicious black sauce or they may cook my favourite asam fish dish (with tamarind – for their fish curry, they usually use the much bigger ikan tenggiri…

…or the ikan tongkol, the tuna, that is or the ikan bawal hitam) with them like what my missus came out with the other day…

She said she did not add any belacan (dried prawn paste) for its flavour and sweetness because at the moment, I am recovering from my terrible skin affliction so we are avoiding all those things that I should not eat lest I will end up scratching all night long. That was why she did not fry the ladies fingers with hay bee/udang kering (dried prawns) either…

…that day and substituted those with ikan bilis (dried anchovies) instead.

If you go to the Chinese chap fan (mixed rice) places, you may get these fishes in their selection too but they will just deep fry them like that, take it or leave it! I guess they do not have the time to be that creative about how they will serve their fish or they couldn’t be bothered at all.

At one time, at our favourite Indian/Indonesian restaurant here, they had the ikan kembong sumbat (stuffed ikan kembong), see 1st picture above. My missus loved it so much and would order it everytime. They would take out all the bones in the fish and stuff it with their very nice filling…

…before deep frying it to perfection and serving it.

I guess as they always say, size does not matter and as long as I enjoy eating these smaller varieties of fish and the price is right, you can bet I shall not hesitate to buy them anytime when I happen to see them.

Just around the corner…

My girl and the mum wanted to drop by here for their late dinner/supper last Saturday night but the place was full. They ended up at this place just around the corner – it was rather packed as well but thankfully, the place is big so there were some tables available for the two of them.

The mum had the rosemary grilled chicken (RM23.00)…

…which was very good but my girl insisted that her creamy garlic & mushroom chicken (RM38.00)…

…with its whooping price tag was very much nicer. Do excuse the colour of the snapshots – the lighting at that place obviously does not allow for good photography at night but yes, the grilled chicken did look kind of dry.

They served the fries separately here…

– my girl loves these chunky ones, anytime better than those shoestring fries.

No, dinner did not come cheap – this place is definitely not known for that. With their drinks, watermelon juice (RM10.00 a glass) and 6% service tax, the total came up to RM91.15. Never mind! Plenty more where that came from! Teachers are so well-paid these days unlike the crumbs that fell off the table during my time. Sobsss!!!

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.

Why bother?…

There are people who take pride in their culinary skills and are very fastidious in their cooking – the Peranakans or the nyonyas, for instance. They will go through all the trouble to make sure that what they dish out is simply the best, second to none and woe betide you if they get to sample one of your half-baked efforts in cooking one of their traditional dishes. They will not mince their words, I assure you, when they tear your pride and joy to shreds.

On the other hand, there are people like me! I am all for taking shortcuts, the easy way out, the simpler the better as long as the end result is nice. Yes, I would insist on that – being just edible sure is not good enough, I’m afraid.

In an earlier post on using that very nice A1 Mountain Globe instant paste for cooking curry, I mentioned that at one time, I could buy curry gravy in a can, Yeo’s brand and I used that to cook sardines, rinsed to get rid of the tomato sauce, to come out with my own fish curry. I quite enjoyed it but the older folks in my family were not impressed – they did not like the “canned smell” that we would usually encounter in tinned stuff.

I never tried but I do think it would be good to use that to cook a bowl of vegetable curry – just throw in some ladies’ fingers, long beans, brinjal and so on…or egg curry by adding a few hardboiled eggs to it. The gravy would go well with rice, I’m sure…but unfortunately, I do not seem to see it in the shops anymore these days. Perhaps, it did not sell very well so the company has stopped its production.

I did mention in that aforementioned post another shortcut that we used to resort to when cooking one of our favourite dishes – wee’s satay sauce to cook our satay meat dish…

We would use that to cook beef (usually) and serve it during festivals and at our home parties/dinners…

It was very nice and something everyone would look forward to. For reasons unknown, they stopped production – one fine day, we found that it was no longer available in the shops despite the fact that the other products from that same company were still available.

My mum switched to Ayam Brand but theirs was yellow in colour, nothing like the peanut sauce they give you when you go and eat satay at the stalls or shops. She added a bit of tomato sauce so it would look nicer and for a time, we had to be happy with that.

Finally, at long last, this came out…

…on the shelves and it was as good as wee’s – the taste, the colour, everything so of course, if you take a peek into our pantry, you will find a few cans of this stocked up for use anytime we feel like having satay at home.

Of course, I am off beef and all red meat these days so we would not be cooking those anymore. When I was in Kuching a few years ago, at this place called Lao Eya Keng along Carpenter Street, the pork satay…

…was a crowd puller but I thought it was just all right – it sure did not get me jumping with delight. I love lamb but that too is red meat so left with no choice, we would use the satay sauce to cook pork…

…too. We already have too many chicken dishes so we are not all that keen to use poultry for the dish.

We’ve never tried but I do feel that another shortcut we can take is to use this satay sauce to come out with our own Indonesian gado-gado…

…or rojak Kassim/tambi…

I’m pretty sure that would be very nice.

This…

…seemed to have disappeared off the shelves at the shops and supermarkets as well. It used to be another shortcut that I used to take to cook my own sharks’ fins soup minus the unmentionables, the offensive stuff…

It was so very nice, just like the real thing that they served at wedding banquets. Everyone enjoyed it so much and would never fail to lick the pot clean everytime I cooked it. It was so easy – I could get it ready in minutes, I tell you!

Well, talking about soups, we had this fish maw soup…

…the other day. My missus cooked that and no, she’s not one who will resort to taking shortcuts when she’s cooking. She even went and bought some quail eggs to boil and peel and throw into the soup – my girl loves those eggs (Funny how she is not a fan of hardboiled eggs though – I would have to eat her share everytime!). Ah well! I guess it takes all kinds to make the world – we are all different in our own ways, right?

This was good…

This Japanese restaurant has been around for such a very long time, probably ever since 2017 when they started setting up those shops in containers in the vicinity of the megamall, not very far from my house.

I did drop by once to give it a try but no, I never went back again…not that I did not like what I ate there but I guess I wasn’t used to eating in enclosed spaces (I sat outside that one time I went there) though I don’t think I have some kind of claustrophobia, not at all.

We do have a few Japanese places here in town, local as well as three franchises but I am afraid I am not all that impressed by them. After going a number of times, you end up ordering the same old things on their menu so it gets kind of boring. Besides, I also find that there is a dire need for quality control – they were really good at the start, very very impressive but soon, the slips began to show and the number of customers started to dwindle.

Well, the other day, I asked my girl if she wanted to go this particular Japanese joint to give it a try. If it had managed to survive THIS long, there has got to be something good there that keeps people going back for more and since she was keen, we were on our way. Much to our surprise, there were quite a lot of people there for lunch – perhaps, it was a Sunday, I wouldn’t know.

One problem that we encountered was everything in their order slip was in romanised Japanese. Thankfully, between the two of us, we knew enough to know what some of the things were and managed to place our orders successfully starting with two choices of sushi – their avocado prawn maki (RM15.00)…

…and their chicken teriyaki maki (RM9.60)…

…both of which were very good and to our liking.

Ah yes, another problem was there was no indication in the order slip how many pieces we would be getting but we just went ahead and took our chances anyway.

My missus loves those inaris in their tofu/bean skin bags so I asked for their egg mayo (RM4.40) and their tuna mayo (RM4.40)…

…and got only two each. Both were good.

I ordered these soft shell crabs (RM22.80)…

…for the ladies to enjoy. Owing to my recent skin affliction, I am still staying away from these crustaceans that may trigger an allergy attack and keep me awake all night. Ah yes! Another problem was there were no indications of the prices on their order slips so you would not get to hear the cash register bell ringing away as you tick item by item in that piece of paper.

My girl loves those Japanese miso soups so I ordered this one with clams (RM10.80)…

…for her to enjoy. Yup, no clams for me either but I did sample a bit of the soup to see if it was any good. It turned out to be more or less like any regular miso soup elsewhere, despite the difference in colour, nice but no, it did not manage to win me over.

Everyone agreed that the yakitori (RM9.80)…

…was very well-done. We all enjoyed it, a stick each and the chawanmushi (RM5.80)…

…was perfectly steamed too!

To make sure we had enough to eat and would not go home hungry, I requested for a bowl of ramen, their chicken shoyu (RM17.80)…

I remember having the instant version of that and I did like it.

Yes, it…

…was very nice and I loved the almost-clear soup, unlike the thick and murky, rich broth of the bowl I had at another place not too long ago – I did not like that one, I’m afraid. There were a whole lot of ingredients in that bowl of wholesome goodness, including half an onsen egg.

The ladies shared the beef, the niku shoyu ramen (RM19.80)…

…which tasted exactly the same – the same soup base. I was hoping that it would have the gu bak mee (beef noodles) soup taste but there was none.

This place does not accept credit cards but it does not matter much to me as I always make sure I carry enough cash around. Frankly, we simply ordered not knowing how much the total would add up to – including the three glasses of iced green tea (RM7.50), it came up to only RM128.30. I must say I was pleasantly surprised as we had ordered quite a lot and I expected it to be a lot more than that.

Yes, we had a delightful lunch that day and looking at how things turned out, we certainly would want to go back there again…soon.

HITOKUCHI JAPANESE RESTAURANT is located on the ground floor of the container shops (2.324531, 111.853105) at No 4A & 4B, Jalan Ling Kai Cheng 12A, between what was formerly the Giant Hypermart (Swan Square) and SMK Bandar Sibu.

Things do change…

Looking back at my old blogpost, the last time I was here was in the middle of 2018 but for the same reason – I was craving for the awesome roast lamb….

…that they served here.

When we entered the restaurant, the very old boss was sitting by the side splitting the stems of the paku (wild jungle fern) like what I keep telling people they should do when cooking it. I noticed that there was a whole lot of those ferns and I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Gee!!! Business must be really very good if they can sell that much in a day!”

Of course, we ordered that, their paku santan (wild jungle fern with coconut milk), one of their signature dishes (RM15.00)…

I dare say that here in Sibu, they do it best – nobody can hold a candle to theirs!

I looked around the place – it looked like nothing had changed at all. The (fake) flowers…

…on the counter were faded/discoloured and covered with dust (even though they seemed all right in the photograph) and I do think they should replace the very old menus…

…instead of desperately trying to salvage them using cellophane tape. Thankfully though, they had stuck to these physical menus instead of resorting to that scan-the-QR-code nonsense at those supposedly more canggih places.

The pictures and decor were minimal, not that anybody would notice and yes, the place was still carpetted…which isn’t very usual for a restaurant! They might have done a thorough spring cleaning though and that prompted my missus to comment that she could not detect the unpleasant moist/damp smell that used to put us off everytime we came here.

Yes, I did mention this before – that they should get rid of the ancient window unit air conditioners and buy some new power-saving ones. That would help them save a bundle on the electricity plus the place would be a whole lot cooler. It was always hot in here, never mind how many fans they placed at strategic places all over the restaurant…and at long last, that was what they did! I saw a few new ones here and there all over the place!

I must say that I liked how they had fine table linen (table cloth) covering all their tables, giving it a touch of class and they used ceramic crockery, no less…

This was their very nice sea cucumber soup (RM24.00) that tasted like sharks’ fins soup minus the offensive stuff and their rice (RM3.00 a bowl). Yes, I felt the pinch when I saw the latter in the bill but I thought it was very nice, most likely that highland Bario rice from the mountains of Sarawak.

I never noticed this here before but it seemed that now, they would fold the paper serviette for the fork and spoon…

…that way I always do when I have dinner parties at home.

The aforementioned old boss was assisted by his equally old wife and there was an even older lady helping them with the serving and what not. I was wondering how they would be able to cope when they had a full house – there was just one table that afternoon, us…and things were a bit slow but it was fine by us. We were not in a hurry to go anywhere.

I also ordered the umai, the Melanau sashimi or raw fish (RM20.00) and it turned out that they used the black pomfret (ikan bawal hitam/or chio)…

…and it was very very good, anytime a whole lot nicer than the ones at the Malay shops and stalls where they use the cheap frozen fish fillet from the supermarkets and vinegar instead of calamansi lime juice!

My missus asked for their cuttlefish with dried chili (RM20.00)…

…something we had never tried before and yes, it was very good too.

Of course, the star of the show was the roast lamb (RM46.00)…

…served with their lovely mint sauce and chopped garlic and what not, the main reason why we decided to drop by there that day. I was taken by surprise when it was served – the presentation on a wooden chopping board was so well done, so impressive and nicer than anything I had seen at those supposedly classier western cafés and restaurants.

We asked for two slabs of the meat only because my missus was not into lamb and that works out to around RM20.00 a slab – not that expensive, I must say, compared to the prices of those thin and not very nice lamb chops here, there and everywhere. This was so very good – so tender, so juicy, so succulent, so very nicely done, a perfect 10! I was so tempted to order more but I am supposed to stay off red meat, doctor’s advice.

The overall total for all that we had came up to RM139.00 (inclusive of drinks), a little bit more than what I would have to fork out at the Chinese chu char (cook & fry) places these days, mainly because of the lamb but it was so worth it! We certainly would love to go back there again a lot more often now.

FISHERMAN RESTAURANT (2.287413, 111.826648)…

…telephone no. 084-316888, is located at No 4, Jalan Chew Geok Lin, the road that leads straight to the Tua Pek Kong Chinese temple in the Sibu town centre with the seven-storey pagoda.