Back to business…

The other day, my girl wanted the fish (RM15.00 with rice)…

Payung Fish

…the ikan keli (catfish) here for lunch so we dropped by there for that. It is not exactly gluten-free because of the soy sauce but she likes it a lot so she would want to go for it once in a long while. I guess if she just eats the fish and leaves the sauce behind, it will be quite all right.

They were closed for a few days the previous week while they went to Kuching to receive their award…

Award

…now displayed prominently…

Trophy & certificate

…at the café.

They had been busy getting back into business as usual so no, they were far behind as far as their Christmas decorations were concerned. There were these miniature Christmas trees…

Miniature Christmas trees

…on every table and some rattan balls hanging from the trees…

Rattan balls

…and from the ceiling, sprayed blue…

Blue

…or brown…

Brown

Peter gave us a packet of this…

Emping blinjo

…that he bought in Kuching – I think it is an Indonesian snack. The ladies enjoyed it very much but personally, I am not into snacks and tidbits.

We had the Payung rojak, small (RM10.00)…

Payung rojak

…that we had not ordered for a while – we have been going for their pomelo salad all this while and when available, their papaya salad too.

The green curry chicken (RM16.00 with rice)…

Green curry chicken

…was kind of diluted that day so at best, it was just all right but the butter chicken (RM18.00 with rice)…

Butter chicken

…was very good. Usually, I would think that it was something like bolognese sauce but this time around, it seemed like a whole lot of fresh tomatoes went into the making of the sauce and it was a little bit spicy. We sure enjoyed that very much that day.

My girl tried their Indian tea (RM5.00), also known as chai tea, which is actually Indian tea, the one here, at least (from Mumbai, India) with all kinds of spices in it that give it the special fragrance that she likes a lot. It sure looks like she will be ordering that again and again when we drop by here in future.

PAYUNG CAFÉ (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, Malaysia, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River.

Better now…

It was good but it is even better now.

I first stumbled upon it way back in 2009 and ever since then, I have always considered it to be my favourite in town – I’ve tried others but none pleased me as much and if there is any that is nicer than this here, I’m afraid I don’t know of it.

My girl tried it more recently and yes, she loved it too and the other morning, after the early service in church, she said she would like to have that here, all the way in Sungai Merah…and of course, what she wants, she gets (RM4.00)…

Choon Seng meat porridge 1

…and yes, as always, it was very good or even better this time around and there seemed to be a lot more meat and liver…

Choon Seng meat porridge 2

…but there wasn’t any egg nor intestines – they did have those before. My girl does not touch liver so I had to eat that for her to get it out of the way so she could literally lick the bowl clean. Yes,she did enjoy it that much.

The mum ordered the Foochow fried noodles (RM4.00)…

Choon Seng Foochow fried noodles

…from the chu char place at the back. I don’t know why she keeps going back there as I do recall that on our previous visits, she did not think much of what she had from there. Well, this time around is no exception – she complained that the noodles lacked the much coveted wok hei fragrance but generally, she said it was all right.

We enjoyed the fried kway teow from the Melanau/Muslim stall right next to the kampua mee stall in the coffee shop so I went and ordered the special (RM5.50)…

Choon Seng kway teow goreng special 1

…and for that, I got one fried egg and one chicken wing. Other than the fact that both of them seemed rather small, the egg wasn’t exactly fried the way I would like it but on the whole, it…

Choon Seng kway teow goreng special 2

…was all right.

I did not have any small change so I gave the lady RM6.00. She saw some coins on the table and asked for those – I told her that it was not enough, only 40 sen but she said, “Tak apa!” (Never mind!) She took the coins and RM5.00 from me happily and went back to her stall.

Now, that, of course, is a far cry from places where they would expect you to dig out that 10 sen coin like squeezing blood out of stone even though you tell them you do not have any. The old folks in the past would describe those as bay hiao cho seng lee (don’t know how to do business) – when people are so nice and there is this seller-customer goodwill, rest assured that people will always want to come back for more.

CHOON SENG COFFEE SHOP /春陞茶室 (2.324218, 111.838197) is located along Lorong Wong Ting Hock 1, off Jalan Wong Ting Hock, off Jalan Tun Abg Hj Openg at the Sungai Merah Bazaar here.

Thank you, next…

I did mention in my post the other day that it’s the season for people to get married and  last Saturday night, I was invited to the wedding reception of another ex-student of mine, Alan, who tied the knot with his lovely bride, Eileen, that day…

Stage backdrop

…at the Jasmine Ballroom…

Door gift

…at this hotel…

RH Hotel, Sibu

…in the town centre.

It so happened that it coincided with the Annual Christmas Procession here starting at the Sibu Town Square, right behind the hotel, that same evening around the same time. For fear of not being able to find a place to park the car, I went very early and since I was extra early, I went for a shampoo at a salon in the vicinity so if you think that my hair looked kind of different in this photo…

My boys and I

…you are absolutely right. Good grief! With the mousse and the hair spray used, it was as hard as a rock, so hard that I was pretty sure it would not budge, not even a bit, if I had walked through a typhoon. LOL!!!

With me in the photograph were Moses and Jacky, Alan’s classmates and another one came later but I did notice a lot of empty seats at so many tables – probably many could not find a place to park their cars for the aforementioned reason and decided to just go home.

People kept saying that the food at this hotel was not very nice but what we were served that night were pretty decent, starting with this sio pua (hot dish)…

Sio pua

…and yes, there were more than four in the so-called Four Seasons dish.

The lights were kind of dim and for reasons unknown, at times they would turn the lights down and it would get quite dark and at other times, they would turn the lights up. For this reason, I was too lazy to take the chance and snap photographs of all the dishes but this fish…

Fish

..sure deserved special mention. No, it was not curry and yes, there were a lot of herbs used in the cooking – I could detect the whiff of the fragrance as soon as it was served, something like that of Penang assam laksa and everyone enjoyed it very much. I must say it was a welcome change from the usual curry fish or curry fish head.

This was their roast chicken and duck combo…

Chicken & duck

…and I enjoyed their or nee (yam paste)…

Or nee

…that we had for dessert at the end of the dinner and the mochi by the side was good too.

Service was great and for once, I was glad that the waiter did not come and fill my glass of iced water with Sprite – quite a few at my table was having that. It had happened before where they would just come with a jug of that fizzy drink and they would just randomly fill all the clear-looking glasses with it.

Thank you so much, Alan and Eileen…

Alan & Eileen

…for the invitation. Congratulations once again and may God bless you two with years and years of endless joy and love ahead…and yes, it was great seeing my boys again albeit only a few of them. Ok, who’s next? I guess you will find out soon enough…in the next few days.

After you…

There were others here before – the Singapore franchise laksa place and this one that had chap fan (mixed rice) for lunch. They did not last all that long though and after those two came this one…

Welcome Coffee Shop

Of course, parking is always a pain in that part of the town centre unless you are real early on a Saturday morning, like me, in which case you can park right in front of the shop. LOL!!!

Ooooo…I so love the blue and white weeping willow ceramic mug…

Willow ceramic mug

…that they used for the hot water to sterilise the spoon and the chopsticks. Surprisingly, the legend behind it is  English in origin, and has no links to China; it was first published as “The Story of the Common Willow Pattern Plate” in the magazine The Family Friend in 1849. You can click the link above to read the romantic fable behind the design.

I ordered their beef tendon noodles (RM7.00)…

Welcome Coffee Shop beef tendon noodles

…for breakfast that morning and yes, since word went round that the collagen in the tendons would keep one looking young, the price had soared and is now almost as expensive as the very much coveted sea cucumber. If you go for just the beef or the “mixed”, it is only RM6.00 a bowl.

Yes, I would say it was nice – the typical beef noodles chili dip is pretty good too…

Welcome Coffee Shop beef tendon noodles and chili dip

…but I still think the ones here have an edge over what I had here but I have sort of fallen out of love with that place – it is always crowded, the people spilling onto the road. Maybe it is because they have extended the shop to include the unit next door and they are not really able to cope. In the midst of the commotion, they always got our orders wrong…and the last time we went, the young Indonesian guy doing the serving spilled the whole bowl of hot beef noodles, soup, onto our table. Luckily, we were not scalded by the hot soup but looking at how things are there these days, we certainly would think twice before going back again.

I did hear that the people here were here before and we did go there to eat once and yes, we thought what we had was quite good. I certainly would give them due credit for doing away with those horrendously red plastic bowls that they used at their former location – anything served on plastic is not good for health, especially when it is piping hot.

The kopi-o (black coffee) I had was all right, just nice but luckily, they got my order wrong. If they had served it iced like what I asked for, it would have been too diluted and would not be to my liking.

Looking at all the photographs on the wall, it looked like they had a lot that I would not mind trying – like among their breakfast sets, Set C is a plate of nasi lemak with coffee or tea for RM4.00 and it did look good to me in the photo. Ah well! I wouldn’t know when I will be able to drop by here again, probably not for a long time unless I go so early again or on a fine day, with a little bit of luck, I am able to find a place to park the car.

WELCOME COFFEE SHOP (2.292472, 111.826947) is located along Jalan Bindang among the Tunku Osman area of shops, right next to the Singapore Chicken Rice outlet there behind the HSBC Building.

Mine and yours…

It so happened that I dropped by the market one morning and I saw some fairly big seawater prawns selling at RM19.00 a kilo – the usual price would be around RM17 or 18. Perhaps it was due to the wet landas season and another reason could be the sellers have started keeping them for sale as Chinese New Year draws near at a much higher price to reap a more lucrative profit.

I bought 3 kg and went through the tedious task of peeling and de-veining them, putting aside some selected bigger ones and leaving their tails intact. I took the heads and the shell and washed thoroughly and boiled them to get the stock…and after that, I buried them under my rambutan tree.

Well, the stock was sitting in the fridge all this while and one morning, while the ladies were out of town, I decided to take it out and cook some Sarawak laksa broth and I used some of the prawns (the ones with the tails) for the topping. I also fried some pieces of omelette and sliced them into thin strips for that same purpose…and that was what my own-cooked Sarawak laksa was like that day, garnished with the daun sup (Chinese parsley/celery/cilantro) from my garden…

My Sarawak laksa 1

It was on my no-meat Friday so I did not have any shredded chicken and it was raining that morning so I did not go out to buy some taugeh (bean sprouts) and of course, that saved me the trouble of having to pluck the tails but, yes, I did pound some very nice and very very spicy hot sambal belacan to go with it…

My Sarawak laksa 2

It was very nice – I had a bowl for breakfast and another one for lunch and I did save two servings of it for the ladies to enjoy when they came home. There was a whole lot of it so I sent it over for the wonderful people at Payung to enjoy to reciprocate for the birthday treat that they gave me a couple of days earlier.

They all loved it and Peter particularly loved the sambal belacan. Maybe there was not enough for all of them to eat to their heart’s content or as what Peter said, he did cook it before though not quite successfully so he wanted to try again. That was why earlier last week, on Tuesday, he invited me and the ladies (they had come home by then) to drop by the cafe and enjoy HIS Sarawak laksa.

Unlike mine, his had the whole works – the bihun…

Bihun

…and the prawns, shredded chicken and thinly sliced egg omelette…

Prawns, chicken and omelette

…with some sawtooth coriander for garnishing and the lightly blanched taugeh, heads and tails removed…

Taugeh

According to Peter, he will always get rid of the heads as that is the part, the bean, that may trigger off a gout attack.

He prepared one bowl for me, with bunga kantan (torch ginger flower) petals added…

One bowl for me

…and two for the ladies…

Two for the ladies

…and yes, we sure enjoyed it a lot!

His was very nice as well but different from mine – for one thing, his was creamier…

Peter's laksa 1

In general, Sibu folks love it with a lot of santan (coconut milk) but Kuching people would frown on it insisting that it would end up like curry instead and authentic Sarawak laksa should not be like that. Well, it wasn’t that creamy…

Peter's laksa 2

…not like many sold at the stalls around the town so it was not overly rich and very much to our liking.

Thank you so much, Peter, for going through all that trouble to cook this exclusively for us. Now, let’s see what we can cook next… LOL!!!

PAYUNG CAFÉ (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, Malaysia, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River.

All day long…

This was when the ladies were out of town and I was on my own that night. I happened to be walking past the coffee shop and I noticed that the stall was open…

Kiong Chuong chu char stall

Gee!!! They sure keep very long hours, the people here – it looks like they are open all day long from around 8.00 a.m. in the morning till God-knows-what-time at night. If I am not mistaken, they are closed on Tuesdays, just one day in a week.

So far we had been here around lunchtime only and so far, we had had to stick to the dishes that were gluten-free. I had my eyes on their stewed pork…

Kiong Chuong stewed pork
*Archive photo*

…the first time I was here but I had never ordered it because of the soy sauce.

Well, since I was alone that night, I wasted no time in ordering that…

Stewed pork, sliced

…but I can’t say that it swept me off my feet. I was wishing they had given me a lot more of the fat…

Mostly lean

…instead of all that lean and taking into consideration the taste as well, I would much sooner go for the stewed pork leg here – I certainly would enjoy that a lot more.

I spotted the fried pork ribs…

Pork ribs

…in the cabinet and decided to give it a try. Well, it was all right – it sure did not get me jumping with delight and generally, I would prefer to order spare ribs or what they call in Hokkien, pai kut ong as that would be all meat, no bones.

The long beans fried with egg…

Long beans with egg

…was so very fragrant – how come we do not get that when we fry our own at home, I wonder. I would prefer slicing the vegetable more thinly though so it would be much easier to chew.

I don’t know if they thought the ladies would show up later or what but the servings were rather big for one person and they did give me two sets of the fork and spoon initially…or maybe, like some places, the smallest serving they would serve would be for two persons. That was why it came as no surprise at all that the total came up to a whooping RM20.00, inclusive of one plate of rice. I guess that was quite reasonable considering that there was enough food for two or three persons but since I was alone, I could not help thinking of some of the nice things I could go for elsewhere with that kind of money and enjoy a lot more.

SYARIKAT KIONG CHUONG CAFE (2.291062, 111.827381) is located along Jalan Kampung Nyabor at the bend where one turns left or right when coming from Brooke Drive, a stone’s throw from Malaysia Hotel in the next block.

For such a long time…

We did drop by here a couple of times, the first time in 2015 and again here but we had not gone back for such a long time for the simple reason that I did not quite like the themes they would have periodically. I guess the kids would be attracted by those but personally, I felt that it kind of spoiled the somewhat regal and rather classy ambiance of the place.

I remember once they had Frozen and there was Disney, Hello Kitty and so on and so forth – they just had Rilakkuma but that ended some two weeks ago and right now, they do not have any theme but that was not why we went – I saw photos on their Facebook page of the items that they currently have on their menu and they all looked so good and since my girl was keen, off we went…for lunch yesterday.

The mum had their mee mamak prawn deluxe (Rm17.90)…

LaDoree mee mamak prawn deluxe 1

…which was excellent, great in every way except that they were very generous with the ingredients and she kept trying to push this and that to us.  The prawns were huge and nice…

LaDoree mee mamak prawn deluxe 2

…and the chicken satay was surprisingly very much to everyone’s liking – I thought it looked inadequately marinated and could have been grilled a lot more but we actually liked it very much and the peanut sauce was good too.

My girl chose their grilled chicken chop rice (RM16.90)…

LaDoree grilled chicken chop rice 1

…and she enjoyed the chicken…

LaDoree grilled chicken chop rice 2

…and loved the fried rice. Of course, she didn’t complain about the fried egg – I certainly would be frowning if that had been in my order as it was not done the way I would like it. She didn’t mind the mini-keropok (prawn crackers) by the side either. Eyewww!!! Ah well! I guess not everyone is as fastidious as I am. Hehehehehe!!!!

My char-grilled lamb shoulder (RM35.90)…

LaDoree char-grilled lamb shoulder 1

…was all right. I actually ordered that knowing how my girl loves lamb and I was thinking perhaps she would like some of it along with her order but the serving was so huge that she could barely finish all of it…plus I did have some more side orders for her to enjoy.

I would like the lamb to be a lot more charred, black at the edges for that extra fragrance and taste but it was not…

LaDoree char-grilled lamb shoulder

– just like the satay. Perhaps they are more into healthy eating here – I did hear people saying that one barbecued chicken wing, charred, is equivalent to 8 sticks of cigarettes. I did confirm with them what we suspected – no msg was used in the cooking and not much salt either, just the way we like it!

Talking about our side orders, the mushroom soup (RM10.90)…

LaDoree mushroon soup

…was very much to our liking. It was kind of black in the menu and my guess was they would use shitake but when it was served, it was white – much to my girl’s delight, they probably used those enoki mushrooms since we do not get buttons here. She is not a fan of shitake. I asked for the croutons to be left out and yes, they happily obliged. Of course, she could not eat the garlic bread either and no prize for guessing who ate both the slices by the side.

The cheese mayo baked mussels (RM21.90)…

LaDoree cheese mayo baked mussels

…were really good too and my girl sure had her fair share of those.

These chicken buns, fried chicken in fried mantao…

LaDoree chicken buns 1

…were on the house,  a special treat from an ex-student of mine – isn’t that so very sweet and thoughtful of him? His family owns and runs this place and the brother-in-law is the chief chef in the kitchen.

They…

LaDoree chicken buns 2

…were great too but my girl could not eat those as the bun was not gluten-free and neither was the batter used to fry the chicken, I’m sure.

No, we did not manage to finish everything so we asked for this and that to be tapao-ed for us to take home. The bill came up to RM113.40 and much to my surprise, and a pleasant one at that, they gave me a very generous discount and I was charged RM100.00 only for all that we had, courtesy of my ex-student who was there at that point in time.

Service was great, the food came out very fast…and everyone was conversant in English unlike those at that place at the other end of the block where they seemed to struggle with the language when one asked one question too many and yes, they do accept credit cards here, no terms and conditions – at the aforementioned place, you need to spend more than RM200.00 or they will just use Paywave to charge you, without telling/asking you first.

They have not come out with their Christmas menu yet – I may want to go here for our Christmas lunch or dinner seeing how we all enjoyed our lunch yesterday…unless I have other invitations. Hint! Hint!!! LOL!!!

LADOREE CAFE & EVENTS (2.302891, 111.842997) is located at Wisma Liberty, Lot 4047, Block 3, Jalan Pedada (now Jalan Dr. Wong Soon Kai).