Location: Family restaurant located 20 minutes drive from Igan Bridge. About an hour drive from Sibu town.

So why on earth did we spend the whole evening driving and searching for this nameless roadside restaurant? Because we wanted to taste some authentic dishes cooked by a former chef who used to head the Hock Ju Lao’s kitchen, once the top restaurant in Sibu back in the 80’s. But we loved the idea. There are many top chefs in the world actually opened their little restaurants in the middle of nowhere yet still cooking really good food.

After an hour of driving, we arrived at this family restaurant. Run by his family members, I could hardly see the chef inside his tiny little kitchen but I still believed the food would be excellent this evening. When you still got it, you got it.

We ordered a tableful of food, many which, used to be Hock Ju Lao’s signature dishes.

We ordered the Ji Quan, type of old Foochowdeep fried meatballs. It had crispy outer crust and soft meat filling inside, with strong aroma of Chinese Five Fragrance Spice flavor. The meat was rather mushy. Very rustic in presentation and flavor. Like I said, very unrefined food.

The steamed Siu Mai (Siow Bee) was probably using the same mince meat as the Ji Quan caused they had the same taste and texture. The outer skin was made of glutinous powder, sticky and light. Its a better idea to dip with some soy sauce and chilli sauce for extra flavor.

And then the Stir-fried Midin with Chinese Red Wine, always my favorite dish in Sibu. The used good Midin, tender and crunchy. Loved it. But I would beg for more red wine in the dish. Overall, I really liked it.

The Stir-fried Cangkuk Manis with Egg was another brilliant dish. Very flavorful. The Cangkuk Manis (type of sweet local vegetable) was cooked with garlic and egg. Very flavorful. Cangkuk Manis is not an easy dish to cook. As the leaves will welt tremendously, you need a bit oil to make the dish work. Too much of it will spoil the dish. Too little, the whole dish will be dry and inedible. I thought the Cangkuk Manis was cooked really well.

The Mixed Vegetable Soup had many ingredients such as bell pepper, cauliflower, tomato, red carrot, fresh mushroom, fresh baby corns, black fungus, Gua Chai (local bitter green) and pork. The soup tasted really well balanced, a bit of salty, sour and sweet at the same time. Again its very flavorful.

Then came the Gong Bao style Stir-fried Baby Clams with onions, ginger, dried chilli and celery. Because red wine was added during the cooking process, the smell was absolutely dynamite. And it looked really well too. The sauce was thick and very flavorful; sweet, salty and spicy at the same time, but not over the top. We could still taste the sweetness from the clams. I have tried many similar dishes everywhere in Sarawak, but I thought his, was one of the best. Very memorable.

But I might not want to return for the next, the used-to-be-my-favorite dish, Duck steamed with Hong Zhou (Rice Wine Deposit). My problem with this dish was that despite it had good red color, there’s hardly any red wine taste in the dish. The duck was fatty and tough too. Didn’t like it at all. Severe drop of quality.

Well, so there we had it. But certainly we came hoping for something more refined. Maybe we needed to take into account that he no longer had a full professional staffs to work with or fancy ingredients to play with. We paid RM 65 for the meal.

I don’t think the evening’s food was bad or anything. But when your customers make an effort to drive half a world to reach here, you need to be impressive. I thought the food was a bit too rustic. And I disagreed with the price too. With that kind of price and the amount of petrol we needed to burn in order to come here and return, I thought its hard to persuade anyone to make the same trip.

I had tremendous respect for Hock Ju Lao and the chef himself. They were a huge part of my childhood memories. They were the standard of the old foochow food.

But if you were not born during the 80’s in Sibu, you’ll probably never heard of Hock Ju Lao. And you’ll probably won’t want to come here in the first place. But we glad we took the journey. The way coming here was in high spirit. The way back however, was a bit dark and creepy.

We looked at the night sky and saw Two fading Stars.

Cafe And Restaurant, Chinese specialty, News

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Location: Kafe Up2U (Former Kok Chen Cafe)

The Foochows were too proud to queue for food. But Kok Chen’s Fried Kueh Tiaw was an exception. Even the Super Ego of my father would silently wait for his turns to order. In short, Kok Chen is synoynm to most popular fried Kueh Tiaw in Sibu.

I returned to Kok Chen’s location this morning and realised that the new name now is called Kafe Up2U. Cheesy I know.

I went straight to the Fried Noodle stall and ordered the Fried Kueh Tiaw. It’s been a while I haven’t taste Kok Chen’s Kueh Tiaw. The new Kafe Up2U has many halal stalls as well I noticed. I ordered their Rojak.

The Rojak came IMMEDIATELY. I never liked hyper-effective food service. I felt being rushed.

On first sight, I thought the Rojak looked quite boring especially its color. I would normally expect the Rojak sauce to be in darker color. This pale pinkish gravy looked a bit like Belacan sauce. But on the taste, the sauce was quite sweet and very peanutty. The main ingredients in the Rojak consisted of fried pastry, Tauhu, boiled potato, sprouts and cucumber strips offering variety of texture. Not bad.

The fried Kueh Tiaw arrived and immediately I noticed this was not the famous Kok Chen Fried Kueh Tiaw. After some confirmation with the customers eating there, I learned that they probably rest on Monday. They also added that their Fried Kueh Tiaw was not as good or as popular as before. I heard the same thing from my mother. I wondered what happened.

The Fried Kueh Tiaw that I had was actually not bad in its own standard. A bit oily, but overall, I thought it was quite tasty. The Kueh Tiaw was fried with dark soy sauce and had a really intensed color and charred aroma on it, which I liked very much.

So the Rojak is quite average, the Fried Kueh Tiaw was not bad, but I still want to return for the famous Kok Chen Fried Kueh Tiaw.

I give Rojak 2 stars

and the Fried Kueh Tiaw 2 1/2 Stars as well.

Cafe And Restaurant, Chinese specialty, News

Location: Pasar Malam Sibu.

I went to Sibu’s Pasar Malam (Night Market) and bought some interesting food. It’s always moody for me because today’s Pasar Malam was in much reduced proportion with fewer stalls and lesser crowds. Certainly it had way passed its glory days. Thanks to shopping complexes.

But still, I love to go to Pasar Malam. Always. And proud of it.

My favorite was always the Apam Balik. The filling was ground peanut, sugar and some butter. You can find two types of Apam Balik, soft-pancake-like and crispy-waffer-like. I preferred the later. The crispy sweet crust, aromatic nutty flavor from ground peanut and the saltiness from the butter really made the Apam Balik a very simple but delicious snack. Really popular among the children.

I also bought some local Siow Bee, Fried Stuffed Bread and Stuffed Kompiah. To be honest, those were awful. The mince meat was smelly, fatty, blank and even almost a bit slimy. The Siow Bee was mushy, the stuffed bread was oily and Stuffed Kompiah was dry and rubberry

And last but certainly never the least, a specialty in Sibu’s Pasar Malam, The Pig’s Head. We bought half and let the owner skillfully chopped the half-pig head into bite-size chunks. The ear was crunchy and chewy, the forehead meat was the nicest part, the meat near the nose area was a bit smelly, the skin was rubbery, I haven’t figure out where is the eyeball yet. There’s really not much of flavor in it but you did get the raw and pure pork flavor.

The Apam Balik gets good 3 stars.

The Siow Bee, Stuffed Kompiah and Stuffed Bread are hopelessly with 1 Star.

The Pig’s head…well…depends who’s eating. Some will totally in love with it, some will hate it. For me, 2 stars.

Chinese specialty, News, Night Market

Location: Manna Cafe Gallery, Floor 5, Wisma Sanyan.

Let’s put it this way. When Manna Cafe Gallery was first opened and established themselves as a Korean restaurant, I thought that was just another public gimmick. I was almost sure that there’s no way they could persuade the stuborn locals to substantially try and fall for their food. There were many similarly themed restaurants (Korean, Taiwan, Japanese, Vietnam etc) beforehand, either needed to localize their menus or forced to close down after few months of business.

The main reason is that the food prepared was suprisingly in low standard and ridiculously overpriced. Reason two is that I think the Foochows are simply too proud of their own food and reluctant to open to new culinary experience.

To be perfectly honest, I have little expectation with Manna Cafe Gallery. Over the years, I was so reluctant to try their food despite I hangout regularly in Wisma Sanyan. Not to mention I admit to have preconcieved prejudice against shopping centre’s food.

And I don’t like Korean drama.

This afternoon, I finally decided to take a quick brunch there with my two other friends. The decor is fairly relaxing and comfortable. The environment is relaxing with soothing gentle music. It’s not like a typical restaurant where you are expected to come in and feed and leave. We actually wandered around gracefully and studied the many decor and artifacts before we were ready for meal. After all, it is a cafe gallery.

Manna has a rather elaborate menus offering many Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Western and even local delights such as Eight Herbal Mee Sua. I thought that was quite local friendly.

We ordered Manna’s specialty such as Korean Mix Stone Rice, Manna’s Special Fried Noodle and cutely name Auntie Miao’s Oyakadum. The staff asked me whether I mind to wait for 20 minutes of cooking time for the Korean Mix Stone Rice. I didn’t mind, I told her. But it better be good, I thought silently.

We ordered two drinks. One was the Jujube and another was sort of red date tea. Served in plastic glass. Point loss. For a restaurant of this stature, you just couldn’t understand why they didn’t invest on their glass better.

The Manna Special Fried Noodle arrived first. The presentation was really attractive with radiant red. Basically it was a ketchup fried noodle but with a twist. its noodle was deep-fried until golden crispy before drenching with thick intensed color ketchup sauce. There were small prawns, fishballs, squids and a melting egg to further thicken the sauce. It had a strong sweet and sour taste. The prawns and squids were lightly overcooked. The fishballs were okay. But I thought it was the combination of crispy noodle and the flavorful gooey sauce really made the dish worked. For my preferrence, perhaps the sauce was a bit too rich, overpowered bascially all the other ingredients. There is a similar noodle dish using a thinner noodle called Ee Mian. But I just thought theirs was much better. Priced at RM 7.90, I thought it’s not a bad value. Should be popular among children as well.

The Oyakadum is a famous Japanese rice dish cooked with chicken and egg. Auntie Miao’s Oyakadum was indeed another colorful dish with the golden yellow egg omelet, decorated with red carrot, green onions and black dried seaweed. Its really looking very appertizing. I thought the egg omelete was cooked to good standard. Its not fully cooked, still had the smooth and sight slimy texture which gave the rice a good moist and bound all the flavors together. The egg was smooth and flavorful. The chicken meat was from the thigh, thus juicy and crunchy. The rice used was not the best, but certainly not the worst I had tried. No point lost there. For personally, I found dish slightly too salty and overseasoned. Priced at RM 8, I would come back for this dish again.

And finally, the Korean Mix Stone Rice arrived. In many Korean restaurants, this is a make or break dish. If you can’t even make this dish well, your very existence would be a shame. I always thought so. Imagine a Malay restaurant can’t even make good Nasi Lemak or Chinese Restaurant can’t make good Fried Rice.

The female staff sprinkled a handsful of dried seaweed and poured some sesame seed oil onto the dish before leaving. The nutty aromatic smell from the sesame seed instantly being released and it was really enticing. But where is the stone pot? Aren’t we suppose to expect this dish to be served in a stoneware or anything. I wondered silently. Again.

On the presentation, I just thought since all the sprouts, cucumber, red carrot were julianed in similar sized strips, perhaps they should follow the same treatment for the dried seaweed and mince meat to match the overall theme and texture.

We used the spoon to mix the rice with the ingredients well. The key was to mix the red Korean chilli sauce evenly to all the rice and ingredients. That was where all the flavors came from. We begun tasting the signature dish.

I thought this dish was more about texture than flavor. The rice was soft, the carrot and cucumber were crunchy, the seaweeds too offered another chewy texture and the bottom rice crust was crispy. But I couldn’t taste much of the flavor especially the Korean red chilli sauce. Then again, this could be caused by the intensed sweet and sour noodle dish. By this time, my tastebuds were probably a bit exhausted.

The Korean Mix Stone Rice came with 4 mini plates namely the Miso white carrot Soup and pickled seaweeds with sesame seeds as appertizers, Kimchi as side dish and sweet jelly as dessert. The Kimchi wasn’t very nice.

But overall I thought I really enjoyed the dish. It’s delicious and healthy too I reckoned. In fact, this was my favorite dish of the whole meal.

I was quite impressed with what we had. I thought this restaurant did a pretty good job on the food.

The Manna Special Fried Noodle gets a 3 1/2 Star. The sauce was a bit too much. Can score higher I reckoned with some improvisation.

The Korean Mix Stone Rice gets a 3 1/2 Star. I really liked it.

The Oyakadum was nice too. Deserved 3 1/2 Stars as well. Don’t overseason any egg dish. Use good chicken and good egg and better rice.

I take my word back. Manna Cafe Gallery is no gimmick.

I like this restaurant and its potential.

And I would like to see more creativity in the food, both in flavor and presentation.

Cafe And Restaurant, Foreign Specialty, News, Sanyan Plaza Area

Location: Siong Lok Yong Coffee Shop

The old Siong Lok Yong restaurant originally was located in Rejang Park, used to be a hugely popular spot for banquets and dinners. Anyone who had the experience of dinning there before would definitely remember their signature dish, the Braised Pork with Man Tou.

We just had our dinner. But we thought we really missed the dish. It had been a while since any of us tasted it. And so we went for a takeaway. The new restaurant is located near the Dewan Suarah.

The thick cut of streaky pork was braised in five fragrance spice, sugar and soy sauce broth. The fatty part was sticky and jelly-like while the leaner part was moist and still tender. It had a rather sweet taste to it.

The Man Tou was basically small size steamed bun with super soft texture. You need to open up the bun’s mouth and stuffed it with the pork. The bun would absorb the broth like a sponge.

We gave it a try and it was still very nice. But I thought the Man Tou’s size was hugely reduced. The old Man Tou that I remembered was in 3-bite size. Today, it’s hardly a single bite-size. And it’s has nothing to do with the fact that I have a bigger mouth today. Serious!

2 1/2 Stars for this old dish.

Chinese specialty, Coffee Shop, News

Location: Bukit Aup

Bukit Aup Jubilee Park is located around 20KM from Sibu town. The top of Bukit Aup has a ritual site for the local Ibans to workship a benevolent spirit called Naga Bari by sacrificing chickens. There are many ponds where you can feed the fishes. Many come in the evening for jogging and family activity.

But we drove 20KM to Bukit Aup for a special Rojak. We also ordered Ice Kacang and fried Kompiah.

It seemed like a normal Rojak with the usual ingredients such as cucumber, pineapple and tauhu, dressed with rich peanutty sweet and spicy sauce. But we knew the stall owner added one more secret ingredient to his Rojak, tiny bit of plum powder. That’s why their Rojak had a more aftertaste which was very nice.

But today, I thought he added too much. The whole Rojak became too annoyingly sour. We couldn’t taste any natural sweetness from the cucumber or pineapple. In fact, we were rushing for water to drink. Shameful really. He wasn’t rushing or anything. We were his only customers.

Well, we could and probably should give him higher score. But it is our policy to judge based on what we had on the day.

So, Bukit Aup Food Canteen’s Rojak received 2 Stars.

Chinese specialty, Food Canteen, News