Local food

Black Pepper Burger and Chicken Gravy Hotdog

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black pepper chicken gravy

I was brought to this strange place, which I was told had very unique tasting, but small burgers.

black pepper stall cook

It’s located right in front of a bookshop, and the blinds has their
Black Pepper Burger and Chicken Gravy Hotdog ads printed on it, so I
imagine they have some sort of agreement with the bookshop.

black pepper stall bookshop

There are no seating arrangements per se, due to the unusual
location of their stall, but there’s a coffee shop a little down from
here where you can have a drink while eating the burgers (or hot dogs).

black pepper stall rack

I ordered one chicken gravy hotdog, one black pepper beef and one
black pepper chicken, to sample all their offerings. They do a brisk
business from what I can see – customers keep on turning up and the
burger turnover is pretty fast.

black pepper chicken burger
Black Pepper Chicken Burger @ RM 1.40

black pepper chicken

It’s very cheap burgers, but rather small in size. The chicken patty
has a respectable smattering of visible black pepper on it, and that
gives this burger a surprisingly unique tang, unlike any other I’ve had
before.

chicken gravy hotdog wrapper
Chicken Gravy Hotdog @ RM 1.50

chicken gravy hotdog

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” was my initial reaction, excuse the
blasphemy (and profanity). The gravy was plentiful in this open top
style hotdog and the gravy was RIGHTEOUS. I don’t know what they put in
the gravy, but it had a very agreeable flavor that imparted itself onto
the palette. It was sweet and sticky and mushy. It was divine.

black pepper beef burger
Black Pepper Beef Burger @ RM 1.40

black pepper beef

This is the famed black pepper beef burger in Kuching. Now, this one
really had a lot of black pepper pieces infused into the patty as
opposed to the chicken variety. It tasted completely different – there
was a pleasant fusion of flavors and textures in my mouth when I ate
this one. Highly recommended!

I don’t know where exactly this place is as my coworker brought me
there, but the address is on the wrapper. It’s definately something
different. The black pepper beef burger and the chicken gravy hotdog
is, to use a cliche, to die for. Avoid the chicken though, pales in
comparison with the beef one. The hotdog is also not to be missed –
it’s sloppy food for sloppy people. 😉

ABC Special to go

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abc special to go

There is little that can compare to the pleasure of drinking from a
large pack of takeaway ABC Special in front of the office workstation.
Even on a cold day. 😉

abc special to go thaw

Anyway, the trick to drinkable (through a straw) ABC Special is to
get the proprietor to agitate the concoction (or in less pretentious
terms, shake the damn thing) beforehand. It may be necessary to leave
the bag standing beside your monitor to thaw out at some point. This is
perfectly normal and you’ll know when to start drinking again when the
bag starts to tip over, indicating a state change into liquid.

The definitive 7th mile teh c peng

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fresh food court

Our quest for the definitive 7th mile (Kota Sentosa) teh c peng did
not start out easily, with feedback ranging from “It doesn’t really
matter now coz every place there does it the same way once it took off”
(Yes, but we wanted to find the pioneering coffee shop) to “It’s the
one beside the 4D outlet” (It would be great if there was only one
place which meets that criteria). It was finally established that Fresh Food Court was the one that introduced the multiple layer teh c peng that has become all the rage now.

kota sentosa teh c peng

We managed to come to this conclusion based on the existing
criteria’s and several other vague ones (has a kolo mee stall, good
roti canai) and thus our party of four made ourselves comfortable and
ordered the revered beverage. It helped that most other patrons was
imbibing the very same drink, as can be seen from the glasses on their
tables, and from the endless stream of waitresses carrying out the
signature three distinctive layer teh c peng from the beverage counter.

7 mile kolo mee stall

I also had the kolo mee, which was really good and highly
recommended. It should be noted that all kolo mee needs to have “char
siew yew” or char siew oil – the oil that comes from making char siew
(BBQ pork slices) added for the taste to shine through.

7 mile kolo mee

This is the kolo mee – I don’t think I’ve had a bowl that tasted as good as this, but then again, I was really hungry.

7 mile roti canai stall

The roti canai should not be missed either. I find that eating kolo
mee and then roti canai is the correct way to go about it, though
others prefer to reverse that gastronomical sequence.

7 mile roti canai

Here’s a shot of the roti canai – slightly sweet bread and good composition.

7 mile teh c peng

Lest we forget, the teh c peng was very good – the three layers were
distinctive and the concoction was very thick and sweet and strong. One
glass retails for just RM 1.20 – a price which is unheard of in Kuching
city proper. It was sublime…I had three glasses. The ambience of the
place is nice too. It gives off a “Sunday breakfast bustle” feeling
even though it was evening when we got there.

special for customer

There is a washbasin specially set up for you, too.

The longest chicken rice in the world

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fang yuen

I have just eaten at the longest chicken rice outlet in the whole
world. I was told that the chicken rice here is the best in Kuching.
It’s called Fang Yuen (opposite Hock Lee Center) and it used to be
located at the old bus stop (or something) until it moved to its new
premises. I was told to go early coz the place is likely to be full, so
we went at 6:30 PM.

It was a sight to behold…the place was indeed full, and we were
lucky to secure a seat outside. I noticed that everyone was
just…waiting.

fang yuen no chicken

Waiting for chicken rice. Except there was none, only neatly stacked plates…

fang yuen lonely broth

Broth simmering in a lonely manner….

Thus we waited…everyone had drinks ordered and were just waiting
for the chicken rice to arrive. This was starting to look rather absurd
to me…this had better be good chicken rice, I told my friend. It took
one hour (and two drinks) before the van carrying the chicken rice
arrived.

the eagle has landed

They unloaded the goods…and now we have…

fang yuen chicken

Chicken!!!

There was a flurry of activity and suddenly our chicken rice arrived.

fang yuen drumstick

The chicken

fang yuen chicken rice

The rice

fang yuen sauces

The three sauces

i pity the fools

The poor people who didn’t arrive early enough to secure a seat and had to resort to take away.

Manly burgers

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man burger

This is Man Burger, a burger stall under the Satok bridge. It
remember that a bunch of us used to frequent this place for it’s fabled
RM 1 beef burgers when I was in college here. It was a bargain. I used
to attend Inti College in Kuching…come to think of it, I went through
two high schools and three colleges (apparently, I wasn’t exactly a
model student). I re-visited the stall again last night, with the same
bunch of friends and I sadly report that the RM 1 burgers have ceased
to exist.

manly burger ingredients

Thus, I decided to opt for the largest (and most expensive) burger – the manly Special Burger – an extravaganza which has beef patties, chicken patties and sausages with egg.

man burger cooking

The interesting thing about burger stalls here is that they all have
different implementations e.g. different sauces, methodologies and
such. This one cooks the egg a la egg banjo, i.e. in a round steel
container instead of spreading it out into a large thin egg which folds
in everything. They also cut the sausage into small bits and put it
into the cooking egg so that it solidifies around it. Nice.

manly burger assembly

The manly stack is placed on a butter grilled bun with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sauces and the kitchen sink. 😉

manly special burger
The manliest burger you’ll find in Kuching!

Sibu kampua mee

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sibu kampua mee

This is my favorite place for no-frills kampua mee in Sibu. Everyone
has their favorite stall and most would swear by that one. Basically,
kam pua mee is a noodle dish that can be made within seconds – dropping
the noodles into a hot, boiling broth and then mixing it with oil (some
use vegetable, but purists will accept nothing but pork), soy sauce
(optional), chilli sauce (optional) and spring onions and fried onions.
It is then served with several slices of char siew or BBQ pork and a
bowl of soup. It’s fast food, Sibu style.

sibu kampua sauce
The sauce is prepared first according to your order – you can choose to
have it plain (just ask for kampua), with soy sauce (“kampua puak tau
yu” in Foochow, tau yu being soya/soy sauce), with chilli sauce
(“kampua puak lak”, lak being a direct translation of “hot”) or both
(“kampua puak lak puak tau yu”, cascading the words).

sibu kampua cooking
The noodles is then dropped into the boiling broth and cooked for a
while. You can opt for the flat noodles if you want, otherwise the
default is the round noodles.

sibu kampua mixing
The cooked noodles is then mixed with the sauce(s).

sibu kampua soy chilli
This is how I like my kampua – with chilli sauce and soya sauce.

sibu kampua closeup
Here’s a closer look at the kampua mee.

The coffee shop with no name

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coffeshop with no name

I went to this coffee shop for dinner tonight. It doesn’t have a
name. It’s just a couple of tables and chairs along the roadside at
Jalan Abell.

no name waitress

The waitress took our order. A little kid sat beside us watching.

no name stove

The order went to the little cooking place in the corner.

tong gua longan hai cha

I had two glasses of tong gua long yuen hai cha ping. It’s buah kundur (don’t know the English name for this), longan, and hai cha.

hai cha

I don’t know what hai cha is, but it looks like this.

no name taiwan noodles

I had a plate of Taiwan fried noodles. It was served with gravy and
the waitress told me it was spicy. This photo is out of focus.

no name belacan kueh tiaw

I had a plate of belacan fried kueh tiaw. It was served dry. Every
plate has two pieces of fried chicken fillets on it. This photo is not
out of focus.

no name lemon chicken

We shared a plate of lemon chicken.

I was ready to throw up after eating all that.

Green kolo mee

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green kolo mee

Have you ever had green kolo mee? I’ve never even heard of it
until today! The beauty about these noodles is – the green didn’t come
from food coloring…it came from vegetables! I had these at Chong Chon
at 3rd Mile Bazaar, Kuching. The stall is called Chong Chon Kolo Mee.

green orange noodles

This stall has some unusual offerings – noodles that add life to
plain kolo mee. The photo above shows that they have two choices of
noodles – either green vegetable noodles or orange carrot noodles. I
thought it was just food coloring, but it isn’t – the owner of the
stall told me the green ones are made with bits of vegetables inside
them and the orange ones are made with bits of real carrots inside them.

green noodles

How’s that to spice up the simple kolo mee? They add nice chunks of
relatively large bbq pieces instead of the usual char siew and there
are a lot of veggies in the dish. I have never seen anything like this
before, but it sure tastes good – you can actually tell that the
noodles are made with veggies inside!

I was told that the noodles here were good and I wasn’t
disappointed. My CTO brought me here to have lunch at 2:10 PM. My lunch
break is from 12 PM – 1:30 PM, but we had a meeting with the SUPP
(Sarawak United Peoples’ Party – part of BN) Batu Lintang
representative which was scheduled at 11:45 AM. It took till 2 PM to
finalize the details and he was about to drive back to the office when
he suddenly though “Oh, you haven’t have lunch right?” *slaps forehead*
Yeah, I was in the meeting with you, so of course I haven’t had any
lunch. Can’t blame him though, he has a lot on his mind and he’s a
really nice guy, even though I had to work 1 1/2 hours extra today. 😉
Regarding the project, if you want my honest opinion – it’s is a crazy
and logistically challenging project. The “technical guy” (and I use
this term very loosely) in SUPP has…well, flawed understandings about
distributed networks (to call a spade a spade) and drew up this
unrealistic diagram. I don’t know the scale from the map yet, but if
it’s what I think it is, it’s going to be a real challenge to deliver
what he’s asking for. However, I, Huai Bin, is here to make 2 + 2 = 5,
so I’ll be damned if I don’t deploy this solution, by hook or by crook [pengsan.com].

Lok lok

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lok lok nasi lemak

I’m not sure where the etymology of the word “lok lok” comes from,
but it’s basically stuff skewed onto a stick (like a satay or kebab)
which you can pick and choose from the large selection on offer. There
are two different styles of lok lok – it’s either boiled (more common
here) or deep fried. This is Ming Corner in Kuching, it has become a
staple where me and my friends go for lok-lok and nasi lemak. It’s
along Jalan Padungan and you can’t miss the neon sign.

Here are photos of the many varieties of selectable items that can be found in places specializing in loklok:

loklok offerings
These are the more common offerings. There’s fishballs and meatballs of
all sorts and shapes and mystery meat made in the likeness of shapes
like fishes, barrels etc.

sausages cuttlefish
You’ll also notice that some of the lok lok sticks comes interspaced
with different items e.g. one sausage followed by half a meatball till
the stick is filled. There’s also more esoteric items like the mussel
(with shell intact) topped with a fish ball you can see beside the
sausages. The far end of the picture shows the items that are less in
demand like chicken stomachs.

crabclaws mussels
Here’s a picture of tofu, cuttlefish, shrimp and crab claw lok loks.

sotong vegies
There’s also vegetables strung onto a stick and sotong interspaced with vegetables.

quail eggs preserved
Now this is something I won’t miss out on every time we go for lok lok
– quail eggs! =D I love these things. The white ones are normal boiled
quail eggs and the dark ones are century quail eggs!
I’m surprised that century eggs comes in the quail egg size in addition
to the chicken egg size. I love them all! Quail eggs! Quail eggs! Quail
eggs!

clams lok lok
Last, but not least, is the staple of lok lok – clams. These are the
small clams you can find in Penang style char kueh tiaw. There are also
unshelled clams and whole fishes in addition to stingrays and whole
prawns.

Anyway, what you do is grab a plate from the stack and pick up the
sticks of lok lok you want. I had two plates, this is the first one:

jellyfish crabstick
It contains jellyfish, clams, squid, a crab claw and meatball combo, and a prawn ball and half fish ball combo.

loklok cooking

You pass your plate to the attendant when you’re done choosing from
the selection and she cooks it by dipping it into the small boiling pot
of broth. The time it takes for each item is different e.g. vegetables
are just dipped in for a second while squid will be simmering in the
pot for a while. Thus, each batch is cooked separately.

loklok sauces

In the meantime, you can take another plate and fill it up with the
sauce(s) of your choice. Personally, I mix all four together in
different ratios. My personal preference is – two portions of satay
sauce (peanut based sweet sauce), 2 portions of oyster sauce, one
portion of chili sauce (it dilutes the sauce mix and I like mine to
have a thick consistency) and one portion of this unknown salty tasting
sauce which is not soy sauce (just to make it salty).

serving prawns

Here’s a photo of the cooked plate, served to your table. This is
Plate #2 – it contains vegetables (yes, I do eat
veggies…occasionally), quail eggs, century (preserved) quail eggs
spaced with cuttlefish, prawns and clams.

nasi_lemak.jpg

Ming Corner (or just “the lok lok place”, as we call it due to the
prominent neon sign) serves a mean plate of nasi lemak as well – the
dish that makes the meal, since lok lok isn’t filling per se. Yes, I
realize how cheesy the adjective “mean” sounds when used in this
context. 😉

BBQ chicken skin

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bbq chicken skin

I have been recently introduced to the strangely tasty offerings of
chicken skin, skewed on a stick (not unlike a satay) and flame grilled
over a BBQ. BBQ chicken skin is exactly what it means – it only has the
chicken skin on it. Look closely at the photo and you’ll make out the
skinned chicken pieces arranged on the sticks. These places usually
also offers other items like chicken liver, as well as more
conventional fare like chicken wings and sausages.

bbq other fare

Chicken skin has this cloyingly chewy sweet taste and I must say
it’s somewhat of an acquired taste. It does taste good, but after the
3rd or 4th stick, you’ll start to feel a bit queasy. It’s pure chicken
skin after all, without any meat, so the texture starts getting a
little…unpleasant after a few skewers of this. I would recommend this
in small portions…and its best eaten with a slathering of chili
sauce. 🙂

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