Have you ever (1)…

Have you ever seen one so big? It was about the size of my lower leg!!! Well, what I am talking about here is the freshwater fish that we can catch in the Rejang River that flows by Sibu town. In Hokkien, it is called sai seng, a name probably derived from the fact that a multitude of them would come to feast on what dropped into the water in the bygone days of floating toilets. The local name for it is ikan buris.

The sad thing is that these days, they are no longer so easily available, probably because of the polluted and mud-clogged water in the river. Sometimes we may get smaller ones of about 1 foot long and the biggest so far was about the size of my forearm. I do not know why there were so many at the market the other day; perhaps it was the spawning season…but there were at least 5 or 6 huge ones, going for RM28.00 a kilo.  I bought two of almost 2 kilos each, so that came up to around RM100.00. I admit that was being extraordinarily extravagant but I probably will not come across anymore THAT size as long as I live. There were smaller ones at RM20 a kilo though…but I did not buy those.

So I cooked one of the two that I bought. I deep-fried a section for my father…

He is not very adventurous in his eating habits, so he prefers it simple as such. I had cut off the tail and I cooked it together with the top one-third of the fish, including the head, with kunyit (tumeric) and assam keping kering (dried tamarind slices)as a sourish soup dish…

I gave that to my mum, saving a bit for myself and my missus for dinner. But that was not all! There was still the middle section of the fish. Now, the other day, I bought a pais ikan buris (the fish cooked in banana leaf) for RM2 at the Ramadhan Bazaar. When I opened the packet, there was A fish inside the size of my thumb with sliced Bombay onions and serai (lemon grass). It was very delicious but there simply was not enough to satiate my craving. So, I decided to try and do it myself… 

I did not have any banana leaf, so I used aluminum foil instead. Chef Wan, on one of his shows, said it would be ok…but I’m sure it would be much nicer if I had used the leaf instead. After rubbing the slab of fish with salt, I placed it in the foil, put the sliced Bombay onions and serai (lemon grass) and a few cili padi (fire chillies) over it, wrapped it up and put it in the pre-heated oven…and turned off the heat. After an hour, I took it out and this was what it looked like…

Gosh! It was SO very sweet and SO very lemak (fat…but then fish fat is supposed to be good for health). Nice, very very nice indeed! And if you noticed, that was all from ONE fish. I still have the other one in the freezer and maybe I’ll cook that with daun bandung (tapioca leaves) and baby corn but that will have to wait till another day… Stay tuned! LOL!!!

Burning love…

I love barbecues…or to be more specific, I love the food. The last one I went to was way back in April. However, I must say that I cannot stand the heat so I would prefer it if there is somebody around to do the barbecuing instead of me…

It is much nicer overseas in the temperate region as it is cooler…and in places like New Zealand, you get to enjoy the thick, juicy steaks of beef or lamb. Here, all we have are imported frozen lamb and beef and even though we may be able to get hold of some fresh supply of the latter, usually we will not have the luxury of such generous cuts of the meat. Well, never mind for at least, we can have all the chicken we want. The least we can expect to find at barbecues here are frozen sausages and chicken wings as well…

…or some pork belly or spare ribs even. When nicely grilled till they turn a nice golden colour, they can be absolutely delicious…

But with all the meat, it would be advisable to prepare some coleslaw to go with it…

…or some potato salad and rojak timun (cucumber)…

My apologies to all those who do not consume pork because of religion or for whatever reason, but for the rest of you who are not quite convinced that barbecues are your kind of thing, perhaps the photo below of the huge slab of pork belly will convert you…

Can you honestly tell me that you are not drooling? ROTFLMAO!!!

P.S. Try that with sambal belacan (prawn paste). Ooooo…I assure you it is absolutely divine!!! Slurpsszzzz!!!!

A different corner (1)…

Whenever I went to the area behind the Rejang Medical Centre here in Sibu, I would usually go to Mitsu Tea House for the dim sum or the coffee shop across the road for the beef noodles or the char kway teow or even Sushi Tie for Japanese food whenever my daughter was back in town. But there is another coffee shop, the Sing Long Cafe, at a different corner in one of the blocks of shophouses in the area. I had gone there once before a long time ago when I heard from people that they had very nice homemade fish balls (mackerel/ikan tenggiri) and I remember having had some nice char siew noodles there…but I have not been there since. For one thing, it is usually very crowded and I do not fancy having to wait for a long time.

However, I saw Huai Bin’s recent post on it, and today being a Sunday, I decided to drop by the shop again to check it out. So there we were, my missus and I, after the church service this morning and we had this bowl of yong tofu for RM6.00…

It was very nice and I particularly loved the fish balls but I wished they had not put the seaweed in the soup as I did not really fancy the taste despite the fact that people say it is good for health. My missus had this plate of char siew noodles…

…while I had roast duck noodles, at RM4.00 per plate…

(Nice plates! Unfortunately, they’re melamine!) The noodles were nice…but I do not recall them using those huge Hokkien-mee noodles in the past. I think I would prefer the smaller wanton-mee or kampua/kolo mee variety. For one thing, despite the crowd, our orders came in a jiffy…so that was not a problem at all.

On the home front, not much has been going on. My missus cooked a huge bowl of steamed minced pork custard with soy sauce, so we had to have that for 3 to 4 days. I keep reminding her that there are only two of us in the house but she has fixed recipes and does not know how to adjust according to the number of people eating. But on no-meat Friday last week, I cooked this dish of steamed fish in Foochow ang chiew (red wine)…

…and prepared this ladies’ fingers’ ulam belacan…

I know! I know! The two dishes were not quite compatible…but I was too lazy to fry the veg…and I love blanched ladies’ fingers eaten with sambal belacan (prawn paste dip) and we finished all of that! I guess you can just call it the blending of the cultures.

Well, I bet those of you who have not taken the whole week off and are still going back to work tomorrow, would be quite happy that it’s not going to be a long, dreary one as you will be getting a few days off for Hari Raya!!! Whatever it is, do have a nice week, everybody! 

It’s not over…

Now, if you think that all the food in my previous post was it, think again. It definitely was not over yet, and that very night, they all went to The Heritage, a recently-opened restaurant in Kuching for dinner.

From what I gather, the place was originally the very popular Tsui Hua Lau or something…but a change in management brought it down and the chefs left, the food was not good, the service was poor and  it eventually closed. Now the former chefs or something got together to open this new one, so one would expect the food to be as good as before!

So, what did they have that night? I guess it started with this…

…followed by this soup, and before some individuals start protesting, my guess is it was probably fish lips which are very popular in Kuching (and getting expensive too!)…

…after which, they had fish…

…as well as duck…

…and whatever this is…

Ooo…my daughter loves these! She calls them “money bags” (and please, she was not talking about me! LOL!!!)…

…which was followed by this dessert dish which, if I’m not mistaken, is made from egg white and deep-fried…

…plus a plate of fruits. I’m sure everyone has seen fruits before, so I will not post a photo of that. All that came up to only RM360.00, believe it or not! Real cheap, I should say…and my only complaint is the excessive use of those wafer flowers (usually used by amateur cake makers who do not have the skill to pump nice floral icing) for decoration. LOL!!! 

Now! Now! Look at what they had been doing…

Ah well, it is claimed that red wine is good for health, for the heart in particular…so I guess they may be excused and if you are wondering who all those people were, that could eat so much in one day, here they are…the partners in crime! ROTFLMAO!!!

They include my uncle and aunties…and my cousins, plus a nephew. There is Stella – all the way from Melbourne and her sis from Brisbane, Pollie from Bintulu…and there’s Gerrie and Gundot and Cooking4stp and Sophia and Lindy and of course, the very eligible KNB (No! Not the one that looks like Raja Petra!!! LOL!!!!). See if you can guess who’s who in the photo!

It wasn’t me…

What do you do if you are making a one-night stop at a place and there are so many people to see and say hello to and so many things to eat? Well, for one thing, you can do what Stella did – just let them know when you’re coming and hope that they will arrange something like this.

Everybody gathered at one place and each of them brought something along (not available or not easily available Down Under). Gundot brought some dabai (You can see the photo in this earlier post!) and umai, a Melanau dish of raw fish with lots of onions and chillies, marinated with lime/kalamansi juice…

Do I see asam paya in it as well, Gundot? (Those brownish pieces?) And I know who brought this – steamed pork cake…with lots of fried onions…

Ooo…nice plate! Got class!!! Anyway, there were also those nyonya delicacies like nyonya bak chang (with minced meat and the fragrance of ketumbar – different from the Chinese meat dumplings)…

Ummm…if I go, don’t bother to cut it! I’m not so say-jee (shy), so eyew siew (delicate) and I would take it whole…but you can provide a knife for those who nibble like mice. They can cut it themselves! LOL!!! But you can cut the serimuka…

…even though I can finish the whole piece but I’m sure the others would like to have some of it too! Me so considerate lah! LOL!!! Actually I find that Kuching has the best nyonya kuihs; Malacca and Penang come nowhere near! Very rich, very lemak (generous with the santan or coconut milk), very very nice! I think this one’s homemade, specially ordered and I bet it’s even nicer that those available at the stalls e.g. along Green Road. By the way, Puan Sri, nice table cloth! I love the English roses! LOL!!!

Then there were the kuih cangkih (something like the green part of serimuka, moulded in little tea cups)…

Can’t make out what those white balls are! The kuih melaka or what you call them, those round kuihs with gula melaka inside and when you bite into one, watch out for the brown sugar that squirts out! They certainly do not look like the very nice homemade tapioca kuih coated with grated coconut that Sophia bought for me once together with the kuih bingka bandung (tapioca)…

…and I’m sure everyone’s familiar with the ang koo (red turtle) kuih. The best in Kuching would be from this place along some backstreet in Padungan. Dunno if it’s still there. Now, these kuih lenggang certainly do not look like they were commercially produced…

The lighter green colour of the pancake-like skin shows that it contained more santan and would therefore, be more lemak…and the size would be an indication of the generous helpings of grated coconut wrapped inside. Did Jovita make those? She used to make very nice ones!…Now, let’s see what else they had…

Ah! Jiew hu eng chai or sotong kangkong, that is cuttlefish with veg. Are these from Open Air Market? Love the plates too! I can see they’re not the NCAA (no class at all) melamine stuff. Hey! They put that in the milk in China and all the kids are falling sick. Are you sure it is all right to use those melamine plates? Oops! Sorry, I digressed!!!…And are these ham chim beng (local cinnamon rolls)…or are they Gerrie’s cinnamon rolls that were once the talk of the town? LOL!!!

These look like homemade char siew rolls…

…and these must be the homemade durian puffs that Gerrie brought. She seemed so proud of them, so they must be very nice!!!

And believe you me, those were NOT all! There were some more…but what I have posted would be more than enough to make everyone shake their heads in amazement…or perhaps, in shock at the gross indulgence! (Note the hint of envy!) No…no…no!!! I was not part of it! I swear!!!! LOL!!!…It was Stella and the rest of the clan. If you thought you saw someone like me, it must be KNB or his surrogate twin! It looked like me…it ate like me…but it wasn’t me! ROTFLMAO!!!

Reminisce…

I wonder how many of you have heard of this song by Crystal Gayle with Gary Morris. It is one of my favourite songs by the country singer and I feel it is just perfect for a cold, quiet night…but anyway, this post is not going to be about the song or some past romantic memory of mine. It’s just that when Stella was in Kuching over the weekend, everybody got together at one place and it made me reminisce of how it was in my younger days.

Way back then, my grandma lived in the kampung with two unmarried aunties and very often, one of them would telephone asking us to go over that Saturday or Sunday afternoon to eat “that thing” as they had managed to get hold of some good “beletak” (raw), usually from Dalat or one of those towns downriver. Very often, these sessions were arranged to coincide with Gerrie’s father’s monthly business trips to Sibu as he really enjoyed them so much and always looked forward to them. So there we would all converge on the stipulated day and time at the kampung house…

What I am talking about here is “linut” but it appeared that they had a pantang or superstition which prohibited them from saying that name. “Linut” is a glue-like thing that you get when you pour boiling water into sago starch (the beletak). By itself, it is quite tasteless but you roll it around the fork and dip it in the special sambal with belacan, asam paya…

Photo from http://www.flickr.com

…ginger and wild boar soup. That, of course, meant that somebody would have to go to town to see Kenyap – the man selling wild boar meat at the market and cook it earlier…and there would be the soy sauce variety as well.

The others would not come empty-handed and everyone would prepare something for the gathering. If they could get hold of some unripe buah emplam…

…then there would be this sambal made from the fruit…

…or perhaps somebody would prepare this sambal timun (cucumber)…

…or if it was the fruit season, then most likely, there would be buah dabai (black olives) to be eaten with the sauce from buduk aur (fermented fish in a salty dark sauce)…

Photo from Gundot

Or if somebody had tempuyak (fermented durian), it would be served as a dip for ikan pusu/bilis (dried anchovies)…

Somebody might decide to cook terung dayak (Dayak brinjal) with udang galah (freshwater prawns) or ikan buris (freshwater fish) or the latter with daun bandung (tapioca leaves) or paku (wild jungle fern) and baby corn. It did not matter actually as there would be all the ulams, the sagu’ (toasted sago pellets), the salai ikan (smoked dried fish) etc…etc…etc… There would be SO many things to eat that one would be spoilt for choice! But still, each person would bring something probably because it was the tradition or considered rude to go empty-handed.

So everybody would sit on the floor and eat to their hearts’ contents, sharing the latest gossips and chatting away happily…and black coffee would be served. At the end of it all, everyone must eat a little bit of rice; from what I gathered, it was another pantang or superstition for fear that the rice would get offended and henceforth, the family would not have any rice to eat.

Then everyone would adjourn to the living room where my grandma and the daughters would sit on the floor to eat sirih and buah pinang (betel nut) and smoke the self-rolled tobacco in a thin piece of paper that they pulled out of a small pack like tissue paper…and the chatting continued.

I would be horizontal by then, lying on the sofa…which, after all the torture over the years, gave way eventually and called it a day! ROTFLMAO!!! Those were the days…..

I should be so lucky…

I featured a coffee shop with a not-so-ordinary name in a recent post and in this one, I have a couple more. Firstly, there is this one…

I went there once in January with Alex (jeinster.com) to meet a few other bloggers including Clare. You can read about that in her post about it. Unfortunately, it did nothing to change my luck…and I am still waiting for the day when I will strike it rich at TOTO or one of the rest. Maybe I should go there more regularly…

Then, there is a new coffee shop right next to it and boy, what a name!…

It certainly seemed to be enjoying pretty good business though, but I went there on a Sunday morning when coffee shops will usually be bustling with activity…

There is the mandatory kampua stall in front which also sells Sarawak laksa and there is a stall at the back that serves Western cuisine like pancake or French toast with eggs, pasta and so on as well as local fare such as char kway teow…which was what I had that day…

Here’s a close-up view at what was under the egg…

It was ok but nothing sensational. That cost RM3.50…and for 50 sen more, I would rather head to Happy Hours Cafe, which I have mentioned in a post sometime ago for this bowl of clear fish soup mihun…

Daryl has posted on something that is, in my opinion, somewhat similar, so if you are interested, you can click on this link to go and have a look. What I had that day was very nice, with the fragrance of ginger and Foochow ang-chiew (red wine). This is also available in tom yam soup at the same price, or you may want to have either one of the two versions with freshwater prawns (udang galah) instead of fish at double the price – RM8.00. This particular stall is doing very well and that, I guess, speaks volumes about the taste of what they have to offer. I think I will be going there again one of these days to try the other options. Do stick around…!!!

Nothing compares 2 u…

Well, as I have mentioned two posts ago, Stella is in town from the land Down Under…and after reading all my posts about the Ruby Restaurant here in Sibu, she could not wait to go and try the dishes that I have featured in a few of my earlier posts like this one, for instance…or this one or even this one. So there we were last Friday night with Stella’s sister from Brisbane, Pollie and her hubby and her eldest daughter and my missus – 7 of us altogether.

We had the unrivalled fried mee sua (Foochow string noodles)…

and the incomparable butter scotch prawns…

I was too lazy to bother about the shell (and it can get quite messy), so I ordered prawn balls for a change (with shell removed). I think it would be better if they did not deep fry the prawns first, but still it was very nice and everyone was singing its praises and trying to figure out what the secret recipe was. Then we also had this Teochew-style steamed tapah (freshwater fish) which I took an instant liking to…

…and we also had nice and tender venison fried with ginger…

…and midin (jungle fern) fried with belacan (prawn paste)…

…as well as cangkuk manis with eggs (but I did not take the photo as I had posted that before…and it’s in many other people’s blogs)…and tofu soup – Foochow style (I didn’t take the photo of this either as it was served in individual bowls). I must say that the soup was not how it should be; it was more like the usual sea cucumber soup which is something like sharks’ fins soup minus the fins and replaced with sea cucumber instead…and this time it was minus the sea cucumber and they put in tofu instead. But anyhow, it was nice; no regrets ordering it at all.

The bill for all that came up to RM129.70 (7 dishes for 7 people plus 4 bowls of rice AND drinks)…and I told the boss that I should charge him for the promotion I have done in my blog (and my friends in theirs) and I have had people calling me asking me for the restaurant’s location and telephone number and what not…and in the end, he collected RM120.00 only!

I happened to stumble upon some not very good reviews posted by another blogger but so far, all my blogger-friends and others that have gone there with me have no complaints and many have gone back there on their own (e.g. Clare, who went there the following night. You can click this link to go and see the superlicious photos in her post!). Ah well! I guess this is a case of “to each his own” and whatever it is, from my personal point of view, nothing compares to Ruby – still the nicest and the cheapest place in town to go to, that’s for sure!

Blue moon…

Gee! How time flies! The Mooncake Festival has come and gone for a week already…and I have yet to put up this post. Well, there were no blue ones, just purple and green ones…

These were on the table at the wedding reception I attended that night but I did not have any. I do not like this type with that kind of skin…nor do I fancy the ones they have these days using agar-agar (jelly). I would only go for the conventional baked mooncakes but I did say that I would not be buying any this year as they were extremely expensive. 

Now as Forrest Gump would say, “Life is a box of chocolates; you’ll never know what you’ll get!” And that day itself, when I entered my tuition class, I saw this on my table…

One of the students had bought me a tin of assorted flavours…but I insisted that he took it back, considering that it was so expensive. However, he refused…so what I did was I cut the mooncakes into slices and everyone in the class could have one as a gesture of celebration to observe the annual traditional festival.

…So I did keep my word after all! I did not buy any of those expensive mooncakes this year! Here! Have a slice…..

After all, the best things in life are free! LOL!!!

Too much, too little, too late…

I don’t know what you call these… Razor clams? Lala?

Well, my wife bought 1 kg and it looked like there was too much…and when she had removed the shells and cleaned away all the sand, it looked like there was too little to cook anything out of it but it was too late to do anything about it…so she just stuffed it in the freezer. Of course, being the  innovative person that I am, I decided to create my own clam curry.

I got the ingredients ready: one Bombay onion – peeled and sliced, chillies – seeds removed and cut into thin slices, a few stalks of lemon grass (serai),  some curry leaves, a tablespoon of curry powder plus a bit of coconut milk (santan).  

I fried all the ingredients in a bit of oil (except the curry powder and santan) until fragrant and then I added the clams plus the curry powder and stirred it well. After that, I poured in some water, stirred again and let it simmer for a while. Then, I added my usual one teaspoon of ikan bilis (anchovies) stock and finally, in went the santan and when the gravy had thickened a bit, it was ready to be served…

Of course, there was hardly anything to eat. I could hardly feel the clams and most of the bulk was made up of the onion and chillies…but the gravy was very deliciously “sweet” and went absolutely well with rice. I had TWO plates that day… LOL!!!

And since we’re on the subject of seafood, Stella is in town, all the way from the land Down Under, and lunchtime yesterday, we went to Min Kong for the notoriously expensive Prawn Noodles…

That’s RM20 a bowl and it comes with a few giant udang galah (freshwater prawns). This is the soup version; the last time I went there with Sophia, we had it fried, Foochow style. And talking about Foochow style, her sister had this plate of Foochow fried noodles that came with equally rich and delicious gravy…

…while I had this plate of char kway teow…

Now that Stella’s back in town (to eat with a vengeance), you can expect more food posts coming up. As I’ve said before, it runs in the family! ROTFLMAO!!!