February 2004 – Page 4 – sixthseal.com

foochow big pau

There is a shop in Jalan Padungan selling Foochow Big Paus. I passed
by while driving to work today and decided to check out the place to
see how large these buns actually are. I was not disappointed.

big pau display

There is only one option if you want the big (huge) pau – the
chicken ones. It goes for RM 2 – ask for Chicken Pau (Big) and you’ll
get what you want. Behold the sheer girth of the Foo Chow big pau:

big pau size
Bigger is better!

I’ve put it beside my drink and a couple of coins for a size
comparison. It’s much bigger than the largest offerings of McDonald’s
or Burger King. There’s also one of those squeezable bottles containing
chilli sauce that’s provided with the bun (a pau is a bun containing
meat inside), but IMHO it spoils the taste of the huge chicken paus.

big pau inside

Here’s a photo showing the inside of the big pau. It has chicken
(obviously) and egg. The chicken isn’t the grinded up kind but actual
chicken chunks. I was a little appalled by the size of the bun and the
big pau will be enough as lunch for most people.

Now, if only I could figure out why they call it Foochow Big Pau when all the shop proprietors converse in Hokkien…

I am now in Kuching…arrived here yesterday, went accomodations
hunting and settled on a RM 300 per month place that’s somewhere near
the Tua Pek Kong temple (have to be vague for the dan’s out there ;)).
It’s a pretty big place, two rooms, two toilets (one is busted though –
previous tenent was a couple who had legendary fights, or so I heard,
altercations so legendary it leaves broken toilet bowls, holes in the
walls and broken doorframes in their wake), kitchen, storeroom etc.
Basically it’s the whole place to myself…rent is a bit steep, the
premium is for privacy.

The other options I had was this RM 200 room in King’s Center on top
of a snooker center and beside a disco, where the other tenents are
mostly waiters/waitresses at the large food court downstairs and a RM
200 room in a nice house a stone’s throw away from King’s Center. I
didn’t go for the former because I can hear the people around me
talking, radios playing etc…sound travels all too well there, because
the rooms are all connected (!) from a shared ceiling space (it’s hard
to describe…imagine toilet stalls, the ones without full coverage
i.e. you can theoretically peek into the next stall from above if
you’re so inclined. it’s like that.). The second one is a little too
tidy, plus I’ll be living with the landlord, and I would not want to
live in a place like that, no privacy at all. Thus, the RM 300 place,
RM 25 per week for privacy. 🙂

Anyway, this is my lunch hour, sorry for the all text entry, didn’t
bring my digicam USB cord along. I’m working somewhere in Padungan
(again obscurity for dan’s benefit) and I ate twice just now – chap fun
+ ABC and then I walked back, and in a spur of the moment decision,
went for belacan bee hoon + teh c peng. I am rather regretting that
now…regurgitation is a word that has been a permanent fixture in my
brain for the last 30 minutes or so, but I shall refrain to the best of
my abilities. 😉

Thanks for all the support about the veritas issue everyone, I really appreciate that! 🙂 I’ll update again tomorrow.

Sin Kwang Foochow Big Pau

Hello from Kuching, Sarawak!