“Don’t you want to go to some other place?” I asked my better half. She’s been eating at the exact same two places last time she was here – Aloha Cafe for lunch and Payung Cafe for dinner, so I suggested Baba & Siam but she really liked the durian ice cream we had last time at Payung Cafe so we ended up here for dinner, three days after we had another huge dinner with my sister and her family (who also loves Payung).
This is my birthday dinner – my dear had flown down from KL to celebrate slightly less than 24 hours with me and we had:
Guava Salad (RM 8)
This is our starter. Payung Cafe has a range of salads and most of them are great. I especially recommend the Herbs Salad (RM 8) but since it was a hot day, we went for the Guava Salad. It’s a lovely dish of guava with calamansi lime, crushed nuts and other herbs. It’s extremely refreshing!
Mushroom Roll (RM 8)
This is a dish that has gone through many, many recipe tweaks since it was first introduced 8 years ago. I was among the first people in Sibu who first came when Payung Cafe opened in 2008 and spread the word that it was a great al fresco dining place offering the best of South East Asian (and a couple of Western) dishes.
Starfruit Prawns (RM 16)
I love this stuff – it’s starfruit (carambola) cooked with large prawns. There are three inside and the rest is cut up starfruits and other vegetables. It makes for a good combination. My dad ordered this one.
Thai Green Curry Chicken (RM 19)
My better half’s order – she didn’t even have to think twice. Thai green curry is usually very spicy (at least if you eat the original from Thailand) but this is a much more muted interpretation meant for sensitive local palates.
Otak-Otak Fish (RM 12)
This is a Payung Cafe staple that we all ordered to share. It’s homemade and all of their dishes comes with rice (RM 2) and we also wanted to have otak otak so the owners were kind enough to deduct RM 1 from our fourth dish – we ordered four in total for a party of 3 so we didn’t need the extra. It’s usually RM 13.
Sour Chicken (RM 18)
This is one of their daily specials. I’ve had the duck version and I like how they use Cambodian spices and herbs to make this dish – it’s quite nice. Payung Cafe also uses chicken legs only in their dishes so you’ll get cuts of drums and thighs.
Mulu Ice Cream (RM 10)
We ordered one dessert for each person – this is mine, the ever-changing Mulu Ice Cream. This too has gone through several revisions, it used to be round, then a square slice, then a rectangular slice. It’s not cake – this is a sandwich of two chocolate ice cream layers with muesli in between, which is then topped with vanilla ice cream. I really like this coz of the textural aspects, there’s muesli sprinkled on top too.
Durian Ice Cream (RM 8)
This is a delicious concoction of homemade vanilla ice cream with durian paste. It’s delicious when they’ve just made it and it tastes like real durians instead of dodol (a local confection made with durians). It’s the reason my better half loves this place.
Jelly Pisang (RM 8)
This is a classic Sibu dessert – it used to be served with shaved ice and bananas and Jello. Nowadays, it’s almost extinct. To the best of my knowledge, there’s only two places who still serves this – Peppers Cafe @ Tanahmas Hotel and here. This is the higher end version with homemade ice cream. It’s pictured next to Roselle Juice (RM 6) – a refreshing drink made from the roselle plant. It’s misspelled as Roxelle Juice in the menu.
It’s a wonderful dinner, made even better with the awesome company – my dad and my better half. My dad insisted of picking up the bill and treating us to the meal since it’s my birthday. The total for the three of us came up to RM 132 which is very reasonable for the amount we ordered and true to this word, the owner took RM 1 off the bill. 🙂
Wowwwww!!! That looks like a lot for three people but never mind, it’s your birthday and yes, I know you could manage that easily, no problem at all. Hehehehehe!
Haha! Yeah, I can eat a lot, as you well know buddy! 🙂
It’s just right for 3 pax, although my dad didn’t eat much. I ate most of the desserts and you’ll not be surprised to find out that I polished everything off – no leftovers!
Happy belated Birthday! It is always best to have kins to celebrate birthday together..
Thanks Hazel! 🙂
Yup, I’m always in KL for my birthdays so it was nice to go back to Sibu to celebrate (also it was Ching Ming this year and the first year since my mom passed) and my dear flew down to spend time with me.
I have been hearing of this Payung cafe either from STP or some other blogs. Seems like the food over is really good. Nice gathering there!
Yeah, I remember STP asking me about the place! 🙂
I went when it opened in 2008 with a bunch of my friends and he asked me where it was and we’ve both been regulars since:
http://sixthseal.com/2008/07/payung-cafe-review/comment-page-1/#comment-33356
Unfortunately, one of the people in the group has recently passed on, very sad story, it came back to me when I browsed back to the post.
Lovely birthday dinner. Some more with your loved ones.
Been there once, tried almost all except the sour chicken and ice creams.
Thanks Rose! 🙂
Yup, it’s a lovely surprise indeed, especially since my dear flew down for less than 24 hours just to spend my birthday with me. We didn’t even have time to eat breakfast coz her flight back was really early.
The Mulu Ice Cream was huge!
Yeah, it’s awesome stuff! 🙂
The muesli is a nice textural addition too.