Location: Tiong Hua Road Kompiah Stall

Tiong Hua Road is a quiet residential area in Sibu. There’s really no special reason why you should travel to this area unless you are an old school Kompiah lover. Located along the Tiong Hua Road, there is a family running a Kompiah stall at their hourse. When first started many years ago, this stall was a regular hangout for school students looking for a casual and budget snack.

Today, it has transformed into a Sibu’s household name, famous for its Kompiah served in traditional way. Instead of deep-frying in oil, their Kompiahs are considered as Wet Kompiahs as they are soaked in light broth seasoned mainly with Five Fragrance Powder. The result is their Kompiah is soft and has absorbed all the flavors from the broth.

We arrived today just for the occasion.

We ordered three Kompiah with and without the pork. We also ordered the Ice Kacang. The environment was fairly relaxed and homey. As I grew up eating their Kompiah here, I did feel a bit sentimental as the house basically stayed almost unchanged as if time has forgotten its existence.

The Ice Kacang arrived in glass with crushed ice cubes instead of my preferred shaved ice. But my real problem was that the Ice Kacang wasn’t creamy or milky. The red beans and jelly were not up to mark as well. I was quite disappointed. I remembered their Ice Kacang tasted much better than this.

Anyway, the Kompiah arrived. They certainly looked and smelled exactly how I use to remember it. The presentation was also very rustic and almost non-existence. The Kompiah with pork did look a bit awkward with thin slice of pork scattered around the plate. I remembered the pork was supposed to be the filling rather than the garnishing. And certainly I remembered the pork used to be a bit bigger and fattier.

But the Kompiah tasted exactly the same; moist and spongy. The Kompiah’s bottom were softer while the Kompiah’s upper crust still retained chewy texture. The sesame seeds on the Kompiah also added good nutty aroma to the dish. The broth was infused with light Five Fragrance flavor. The thin pork slices however were tasteless and dry. I would recommend to order the one without pork instead.

The Kompiah without pork is RM 0.40 each and with pork is RM 0.60 each.

Well, the old taste of childhood’s Kompiah is definitely still well-preserved here. But my concern is whether the younger generation without the shared childhood memory like we did, will still appreciate their Kompiahs.

I mean if I wasn’t born and raised in Sibu and schooled nearby, to be perfectly honest, I might even feel that there’s really nothing special about their Kompiahs. Technically its just Kompiah soaked in broth, that’s all to it. And I personally know many locals who actually preferred the crispy Kompiah over their soggy Kompiah.

The old taste remains. But the expectation is changing.

I was glad that I returned to taste the old Kompiah. Done it, been there…but what’s left? Perhaps I will return again for sentimental reason. But not for culinary reason.

Tiong Hua Road Kompiah is famous. Tiong Hua Road Kompiah is sentimental. Tiong Hua Road Kompiah gets 2 1/2 Stars.

Aftertaste: While taking the photos of the Kompiah, the owner almost stopped me of doing so as he claimed that his Kompiah was too famous already and needed no more publicity. I have problem with people with big ego.

Chinese specialty, Food Stall, News

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Location: Siong Kee Kampua Stall at Emas Corner 2002

Everyone knows that Sibu is famous for its Kampua Mee. You can find Kampua Mee almost everywhere and anytime you want. And everyone seems to have their own favorite Kampua Mee stall. But I was told that Siong Kee’s Kampua is perhaps one of the most well-known and authentic of all.

I was born and raised in Sibu. I don’t know how Siong Kee’s Kampua taste like and I don’t know what’s the meaning of “Most Authentic”. This morning I went to find up both.

Located inside the Emas Corner 2002 Cafe next to Wisma Sanyan, Siong Kee was probably the heartbeat of the establishment. I went in and saw almost everyone was having their Kampuas. You could spot their staffs wearing their trademark white caps, white T-shirts and red aprons.

I ordered the plain Kampua. That’s all. I found an empty table outside the cafe, in a small side-alley. I didn’t mind. Actually I loved it.

Soon my Kampua Mee arrived. You know I was told by some people that Kuching’s Kolok Mee is served in a bowl while all Kampua Mee is served in a flat plate. Well, the most famous and authentic Sibu Kampua was served in a tiny bowl. The end of the myth.

I tasted the steaming soup first. And I thought even the simple plain soup tasted really nice. It was lightly seasoned, had warming and clean taste. I was delighted. I was more ready now for my Kampua.

Forget about the meat, dry and tough.

And how should I describe the Kampua Mee? It’s not too salty or oily to start with. You could really taste the lard working into the flavor. The noodle was soft. It’s pretty average to be honest but I thought this Kampua Mee retained the old-flavor. This was exactly how Kampua tasted like when I was a kid. Maybe that’s why many call it “Most Authentic”. You can find better Kampua in Sibu. But if you ever wondered how Kampua tasted in the past, Siong Kee is the place to go.

Well, I finished the soup. The Kampua was not bad, but no WOW.

Siong Kee, I think, deserves 2 1/2 Stars for carry on the taste of the tradition.

Chinese specialty, Coffee Shop, News, Sanyan Plaza Area

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

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: 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