Always on my mind…

A foodie friend of mine shares photos on Facebook and Instagram of what he eats here…

*Archive photo*

…at Stall No. 13…

…ever so often so of course, the thought of stopping by to try was always on my mind.

The problem is parking around here is a real pain unless you go at the break of dawn…like me, after dropping my girl off at school. Unfortunately, they do not open so early and so far, I only saw the stall open once and when I went to ask, I was told they were not quite ready yet.

That was why when my good friend/ex-classmate, Robert, called me that day and for no apparent reason, invited me to dinner here, I accepted right away without a second thought.

These prawns…

…just came in that afternoon and were super fresh. That serving was HUGE and I sure feasted on a lot of the crustaceans, so succulent and sweet but I was a little bit worried – would I succumb to a gout attack after that? Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened and I was not made to pay for my sinful indulgence! LOL!!!

The dishes here were more like home cooking – I liked the mixed vegetables with bean curd sticks…

…and the ladies’ fingers…

…though I must say that was the first time I had seen it cut that way.

Robert also asked for these two dishes from their chap fan (mixed rice) selections, the pork cooked with fermented beans…

…but between the two, I prefer this one – the pork belly with mui choy (梅菜焖猪肉)…

My girl loved the steamed fish…

She passed a remark as to why they could always steam fish so well outside and when we did our own at home, it was never so nice. Hmmm!!! They said that it was some freshwater river fish but they never mentioned the name.

It turned out that the guy doing the cooking was my ex-student, Form 5 1992, the year when I had just joined the school where I retired in 2007. I don’t remember teaching him though but he knew me and he knew my name.

He sure had a following – there was quite a crowd there that night and I heard that it would be like that every night except Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are closed on those two days – I heard them saying something about them going jogging on those two nights. Hmmm…no, thank you! LOL!!!

Well, it sure looks like parking is a breeze at night, Sunday nights especially, so chances are we will be dropping by here again.

KHOO PENG LOONG FOOD GARDEN (2.286751, 111.827785) is located along Jalan Khoo Peng Loong, commonly known around here as Pulau Babi, facing the former express boats wharf where the one I took from Kanowit in the late 70’s and early 80’s would berth.

Narrow lanes…

The next morning after the night of the wedding banquet, my ex-student wanted to take me to his wife’s stall for breakfast again but I did not want that as I would want to explore all around to see if there was anything of interest that I would be able to blog about.

I remembered there was this narrow lane in Padungan, not far from this celebrated kolo mee place. Some guy was telling us that time that the kolo mee was just as good, maybe even nicer and one would not have to wait till like forever for it and I was thinking that morning that perhaps I could just stroll over there to look for it and give it a try.

I stumbled upon this one…

…and went in to look around.

I was taken by surprise when I saw this sign at the back…

I remember there was a coffee shop elsewhere that we went to once by that same name – they said the kampua mee or whatever was very nice but for reasons unknown, it looked like that place had closed down and everybody had moved here.

One thing that they have in Kuching and we cannot find in Sibu would be the crispy tomato sauce noodles and I simply must have a go at that before going home. That was why I went to this stall…

…to order a plate – I think it was RM6 or was it 5, I can’t remember now…

It was nice but I thought what I had at the shop before looked a lot nicer. Ah well!!! At least I got to eat that while I was in Kuching – I wouldn’t know when I will have the next opportunity to enjoy it again.

Now, while I was there, I noticed that this stall…

…was very popular – a lot of people were buying from them so I ordered some of the sio bee (meat dumplings), steamed and fried, and the or koi (fried yam cake), all RM1.00 each…

…to try. They all turned out to be really very nice – the lady said she added prawns to the sio bee filling and the or koi was probably 90% yam, 10% flour. Both were so good that I simply had to buy 10 of each to take home to Sibu. The fried sio bee was good too but I decided I would leave it out this time around.

While I was there, one of my cousins contacted me and said she was on the way – I told her I would go back to the hotel first (to drop off my purchases) and I would wait for her there.

Sin Poh Poh Café 新寶寶茶室 (1.554600, 110.356619) is located at 174, Jalan Padungan in Kuching.

The same place…

This was a few weeks back. My favourite Malay kuih and everything stall/shop at Bandong here has opened up a small place by the side…

…serving drinks so customers can buy anything and everything at the stall …

…and bring over to enjoy them there with the drinks available.

I noticed that they had porridge too…

…but no, I already had breakfast elsewhere that morning so I just bought a few things for tea later that day.

In the meantime, the nice satay stall formerly sited in the parking area round the corner…

…has moved to this shop there…

…that used to be occupied by this coffee shop which has since moved to the town centre, right beside the BSN branch along Jalan Kampung Nyabor. At one time, sometime ago, they moved to this shop here but I heard they felt the rent was too high so they moved out and took over the aforementioned shop. Unfortunately, there were some massive renovations going on at that point in time so they were not able to open their shop for a long time.

Thankfully, it is now business as usual and that day, I stopped by to buy some of their satay. Of course, I asked for more ketupat…

– I love that and a lot more of the kuah, the satay peanut sauce. I really can’t stand places where they are so very stingy with the sauce – they will just give you a little bit in a small saucer, never mind how many sticks you order and I would have to beg for just a little bit more. Tsk! Tsk!!!

I bought 10 sticks of chicken (70 sen each) and 10 lamb (80 sen each), RM15.00 altogether and I liked how they had got some ready already and all they had to do was to put them all back onto the barbecue pit…

…to heat them up and to grill them a little bit more.

I wonder if they still have their nasi campur for lunch – I sure enjoyed it when they were at the other place.

The stall/shop that used to be called MAK MET’s BREAKFAST STATION is located at the shops along Bandong Walk (2.313869, 111.825808) where PENYET BANDONG is in the evening and NOOR SATAY ISLAMIC CAFE is right round the corner at the back of the parking spaces to the right.

Rare…

That afternoon, when my girl and I went walking around that brand new food court in town, she spotted this stall…

…and told me they had fried carrot cake there. I did not notice that giant radish or what we call pek chai thow/white carrot there on the sign.

Unlike over in the peninsula where it is called koey kah at some places, this is something quite rare here – there may be a stall or two somewhere that we do not know about. So of course, I gotta try that and I asked for it to be packed for me to take home.

It did look like the cake had been pre-fried a bit, probably with a bit of soy sauce, first…

…and I saw the guy pouring a little bit of oil onto the hot plate to which he added some chopped garlic, pork rinds(crackling)/chicharron and dunno what else…

…to fry for a while before he added the steamed (white) carrot/radish cake…

…after which he added the taugeh (bean sprouts) and finally, the egg…

…and when it was done, he fished everything out and packed it nicely (RM6.00)…

…for me to take home. I would say it was very nice and I did not see him adding any msg which is a bonus point in their favour. I sure would not mind going back for it again.

KIM HOCK PREMIER FOOD COURT (2.301777, 111.843215) is located along Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai (formerly Jalan Pedada) somewhere opposite Wisma Liberty and Wisma Sri Minyak.

Milkshake…

It was blistering hot that mid-afternoon and we were thinking of going for something cold like the ang tao peng (iced red bean) here but when we got there, we saw that it was packed, the people spilling onto the road and being a Sunday afternoon on a long weekend, I guess they would sit there to chat while drinking and eating so nobody would be leaving and vacating their tables all that soon.

In the end, we decided to go and check out this new place…

…in town. It opened quite recently but we had not gone there to look around because there were always a lot of cars parked outside, every morning and needless to say, around lunchtime as well so we just kept our distance.

We spotted this stall…

…there and I ordered that (RM6.00)…

…to give it a try. It was nice but the crispy thing in it…

…was kind of hard so we just left most of it behind.

As for the something cold that we were looking for, we did not see any or maybe we were not looking hard enough – the place is very big and there are a lot of stalls selling all kinds of stuff. In the end, we decided to go for something from this stall…

I had the avocado milkshake and my girl had the mango (RM10.90 each)…

…which were at best so-so, not that cold and for that kind of price, I would much sooner go for that Mango No. 5 that I had not too long ago – with all that shaved ice in it, I do think it would be more suitable for cooling down on a very hot afternoon plus there was a whole lot more mango…and it was a little bit cheaper.

Well, that’s two down – I doubt we will ever manage to check out all the stalls there because there are simply too many!

KIM HOCK PREMIER FOOD COURT (2.301777, 111.843215) is located along Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai (formerly Jalan Pedada) somewhere opposite Wisma Liberty and Wisma Sri Minyak.

Clay…

We do enjoy claypot rice quite a lot but it is one thing that we do not get easily around here.

Way back in 2008, we stumbled upon a very nice one here and we went back for it again in 2011 but eventually, it called it a day. We also had it here but no, it was not quite the way it should be – more like rice in a claypot with stewed pork or chicken and the sauce poured all over it and served. I tried the one at a hotel coffee house and also at this wannabe-fine-dining place and both were disappointing.

We loved the one here but for reasons unknown, we were told that we could not just drop by and ask for it – orders would have to be made a day earlier and we would be informed whether they would be able to oblige or not. Well, eventually, they closed shop – talk about killing the golden goose. Their claypot rice was very nice and very popular and even though it was not on their menu, theirs had a following and people would make their way there just for it. I wouldn’t say the same about most of their other dishes.

Of course we were delighted when we heard that they had it here…

…at this stall…

…run by two very nice and friendly and very enterprising young guys and the first opportunity we got, we made our way there to give theirs a try. It is open from 5.30 p.m. in the evening on weekdays and from 8.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. om weekends and public holidays.

Both the ladies wanted the pork (RM7.00)…

…but I wanted that too and I did not want the chicken (RM8.00) so I asked for the chicken and pork combo (RM14.00)…

…and yes, it was really very very good but oopsss!!! I think they forgot the green vegetable in mine.

The pork one was good too but it did not have the lap cheong (Chinese sausage) – next time I would bring my own and ask them to add and it did not have the salted fish either. That was why I would say that my order was a cut above what the ladies had.

We sure enjoyed our lunch there that day and one thing’s for sure, we would be back for more!

CLAYPOT KING is located at WANG SENG FOOD STREET (2.342889, 111.831740) in UniCity along Jalan Wawasan.

Mambo No. 5…

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mango Number 5…

One, two, three, four, five…well, many not so many times, but three, at least – three times when my friend went to this hawker centre near my house and had this and shared the photographs on Facebook.

Since then, I had been wanting to go over and give it a try but I never got down to it. For one thing, this place is always very crowded and one may have to park one’s car far far away and walk all the way there. Walk? Now that’s one word that does not exist in my vocabulary! Hehehehehehe!!!

Well, after dinner the other night, my girl said that she would like to go to the mall at the other side of this commercial area of shops and I decided to walk to my bank right beside this place…and I made my mind there and then to grab the opportunity and go over and have that mango delight for dessert.

I could have gone to No. 2 – it also had this same thing, the one with the name like one of Jesus Christ’s Twelve Apostles, Simon Peter…

…but my friend said Stall No. 5…

…so I went to that one. After all, if I had gone to the former, it would not be Mango No. 5, not anything like the name of the hit song. LOL!!! It was a good thing I did what I did because when I shared the photograph of it on Facebook, another friend, obviously more familiar with this place, commented that No. 5’s was the best.

Indeed, it was very very nice, a whole lot of mango, half a fruit at least, very fresh and sweet, with shaved ice drowned in lots of evaporated milk underneath…

…that blended nicely with the fruit and it was only RM10.00!  I had the mango bingsu here that was almost double the price and it did not get us all that excited, not at all…especially at that price! This one wins hands down, that’s for sure.

I sure enjoyed that and should I be around those parts in the evening again, you can bet I’ll stop by for more of this…Mango No. 5!

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.