Sibu

Ruby Restaurant, Sibu

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ruby

This is one of my favorite places to eat in Sibu. I guess you can call it a dai chow place but over here we just call it “choo chiak” which is literally Hokkien for “cooking food”. I met up with Arthur a couple of hours after we touched down and headed over to this restaurant for lunch.

ruby restaurant

Ruby Restaurant has a surprisingly rapid turnover for a weekday lunch. I remember eating rice with cooked dishes for lunch when I was working for a short stint in Sibu. You can actually do that, and in fact, a lot of people do. There was a huge group of all-females in office attire occupying a huge table when we were there.

ruby coffee

Anyway, when you go to Ruby’s (the Chinese characters for the restaurant apparently means “red ruby”) with Arthur, you’ll be remiss if you didn’t order their coffee. It is made to the exact specifications of Arthur, a bit of a regular here, and it’s really good, thick coffee.

ruby coffee black

You can actually watch it turn from milky brown to black as the coffee seeps up.

ruby midin

This is midin – a local fern. I can’t find it outside of Sarawak so it’s a must-have dish whenever I go back home. It actually grows in the wild and locals pick and sell it in the local market. It’s crunchy to the bite and very nice when you get it right. That means it should be in the wok for just a short amount of time.

ruby mani chai

The other vegetable dish that we ordered is what we called mani chai. This leafy vegetable is defoliated from its stalk before cooking – only the leaves are eaten. It’s usually fried with eggs and it’s one of the few vegetable dishes I would eat as a kid…mostly coz of the egg. 😉

ruby beef curry

Arthur also asked about specials and the chef informed us that they just cooked up a batch of beef curry so ordered that too. It came out in a bowl and the beef curry isn’t overflowing with thin gravy like most Chinese style curry dishes but sat in a thicker, clingy gravy like rendang. I loved it, the beef pieces were tender and the curry is flavorful. There’s even bits of potatoes inside, which goes very well with the curry.

ruby butter prawns

This is the butter cheese prawns and the main reason I like going to Ruby. It’s not dry with sprinkles of deep fried butter on top, but made with a creamy butter sauce that’s heavenly sweet. I have really missed this dish – no one does it better than Ruby, IMHO. The prawns are battered and deep fried before being cooked in butter, resulting in a sweet, rather than salty dish. *drools

ruby arthur

It was great to meet up with Arthur again – we had quite a long lunch before he had to go fix his car and it hardly felt more than 30 minutes. Time just flies when you’re catching up with old friends. Thanks for the lunch, Arthur! 🙂

Sibu Famous Jelly Pisang

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sibu famous jelly pisang

I was having pre-dinner drinks at Peppers Cafe earlier today before finally capitulating and ordered the Sibu Famous Jelly Pisang (RM 7). It is described as “Fresh banana slices with strawberry jelly in sugar syrup topped with shaved ice, finished with Ideal milk and laced with strawberry syrup”.

I’m from Sibu and I’ve never heard of such a concoction before, much less with a “famous” tag preceding it. *squints suspiciously

tanahmas

However, it seems that there really is such a dessert despite my initial skepticism and dark thoughts about fleecing unsuspecting tourists. Eddy told me that Jelly Pisang was a very big thing back when he was a teenager – all his Malay friends would eagerly go for a bowl on a particularly hot day.

I’m not sure if it’s a Sibu thing or more of a Sarawak thing but anecdotes seem to suggest the former. This is further confirmed by Arthur’s blog post about it and a mention of it being a specialty of Ban Chuan Coffee Shop way back in the days.

jelly pisang

Jelly Pisang (banana jelly) is delicious – there is no sweetener in the iced concoction, the shaved ice only has cordial (for color) and evaporated milk.

However, when you bite into the huge mass of jelly, you get an intense sugar rush. The jelly forms 1/3 of the entire dessert and sets at the bottom. You scoop up large chunks of it like ruby red sugar icebergs when you dip your spoon down. There’s no fine dicing (a sure indicator of mass production) here, which is a good thing.

peppers cafe

The Jelly Pisang is really quite nice, as the unsweetened shaved ice contrasts nicely with the saccharine sweet in-house made jelly. The banana slices are lovely too. However, it seems that time has not been kind to this particular dessert.

It has largely fallen out of favor and is now mostly available in cafes and restaurants under “Local Desserts” as a historical ode to days gone by, instead of stalls.

Y2K on 9/9

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y2k dinner

I just had dinner with the extended clan at Y2K. It’s a family favorite – my dad is a huge fan of their low MSG and salt style of cooking. The chef comes out with dishes really fast too, probably due to the relative lack of customers.

y2k empty

The restaurant next door is more popular since Y2K is priced slightly higher. A meal would probably cost a bit more for the exact same dishes but I doubt the proprietors care much. They have their loyal regulars…and Y2K is entirely family run.

y2k owners

The cook and his wife maintains the nitty gritty stuff while the new generation – the son and his wife, pictured above, runs the front end customer service.

y2k food

I’m pretty bushed now coz I haven’t slept (except for a quick cat nap during the flight) since I woke up at 7 am on Thursday. I’m turning in now, I’m super exhausted. I’ll update again soon…had a great lunch with Arthur just now which I haven’t written about. 😀

Jeanie and Huai Bin’s 1st Monthsary

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monthsary

The 7th of March 2011 marks the one month milestone in my relationship with Jeanie. I’ve actually known her for longer than that but we officially got together on the 7th of February 2011. That makes today our monthsary! 😀

movie

I still remember the day we decided to get into a relationship. It just so happened that we’re both in Sibu during Chinese New Year and decided to go out to catch a movie together. I don’t recall when we started falling for each other but we both knew there was something since we found excuses to hang out every single day.

kissing

I think the reason we were so hesitant at first was due to the distance – neither of us believe in the feasibility of a long distance relationship. However, we’ve decided to commit to each other and Jeanie has flown over twice to spend time with me. I’ll be going over to Miri soon to live there for two weeks.In long distance relationship, many of your wishes didn’t get fulfilled but all thanks to jav, who provide some real stuff for the long distance relationship people to enjoy their time.

sibu

It takes a lot of effort and sacrifice for a long distance relationship to work and it has been a long time since I’ve been in a serious relationship. Nevertheless, we’re determined to make this happen despite the challenges and we’re doing great so far. 🙂

I made a video as a monthsary surprise for Jeanie and showed it to her at the stroke of midnight. I’m glad she likes it.

I love you Jeanie! <3

My niece’s 1st birthday!

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niece

I’m a proud uncle of a 1 year old bundle of joy. 😀

sister

My sister’s daughter just turned a year old and the entire Poh clan went out to celebrate her birthday. I’m really fond of her, she’s soft and adorable and it’s really touching when she takes to me and asks for a hug. *melts

dinner

We all went for dinner at this Chinese restaurant called Home Cook Corner (favored by my dad coz of the relatively low MSG content) and ordered:

pork
Claypot pork leg
This is nicely done and came out tender and sweet – just as it should be.

veggie
Unidentified veggies with egg
I don’t know what vegetable this is but I love how it’s cooked with egg. Eggs = awesome.

fish
Curry fish head
I like how this came out.

curry

It can’t compare to the legendary Sheraton curry fish head in Sibu but it comes pretty close.

midin
Midin
This is a local fern that’s only available in Sarawak. It’s cooked in a spicy and sour style which actually works pretty well.

century egg
Century eggs
Erm…this is actually mine, I always tend to order this when I’m eating in Sibu.

chicken
Kung pow chicken
I found this a little bland and disappointing since I’m used to very spicy dishes.

tofu
House specialty tofu
I’m not particularly fond of tofu so this doesn’t really appeal to me.

fishball
Homemade fishball soup
The fishball is the size of an egg (!!!). I quite liked it even though the others found it too soft.

family

We adjoined back home after dinner with all the relatives in tow for the obligatory cake cutting ceremony. This is a durian cake from Secret Recipe. Yes, we have one in Sibu. -_-

cake

I don’t know if she made a wish (probably not, considering her age) but I made one for her. May you grow up to be happy and here’s to life treating you well!

wish

Happy birthday little one. Much love from your uncle. <3 "…and I hope, life treats you kind. And I hope, you have all you dreamed of. I wish you joy, and happiness. And above all this, I wish you…love.”

2011 fireworks and firecrackers review

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fireworks firecrackers review

I’ve always made it a point to get some fireworks every year during Chinese New Year to properly get into the festive spirit. I have a lot of photos of the variety available this year at the store but I took it using my iPhone, which was stolen during CNY so I’m left with the ones taken using the digicam I used to film this year’s pyrotechnics. T_T

fireworks review

No matter – even though my budget for firecrackers and fireworks this year is significantly reduced, I still managed to get some gems.

25 shot cake configuration (RM 100)

5 effect

This 25 shot cake contains 5 different types “effects” in a cake configuration. You’ll notice that this is taller than the other one – the reason for the height merely indicates how high it will go. Taller cake configurations shoots the conflagration higher up in the sky while more compact ones goes lower.

cake fuse

It also has a larger diameter, which allows for bigger fireworks. However, the optimal viewing angle has to be taken into account – you’ll need to be further away to fully appreciate this without craning your necks. The shorter ones can be let off at a lesser distance and it still goes high enough so you can admire the bursts of color and sound.

Here’s the video of this firework in action. It’s rather disappointing since the next one (which is half the price) produces a better effect. I’ll give this a pass next year.

49 shot cake configuration (RM 50)

7 effect

This beautifully made firework cake produces 7 different type of effects with an amazing ending. Kudos to the manufacturer for this impressive display.

This is the video of this cake – there’s a nice variety among the shots and the climax is beautiful. I’ll say this is the best value for money this year.

This comes highly recommended and I’ll be getting more of this next year. 🙂

2” display shell (RM 15)

display shell box

This is a consumer grade firework that shoots out 2 inch shells instead of the usual 1.5 inch ones. I was very surprised at the price since a similar looking 1.5” display shell was going for RM 30.

2 inch shells

It contains 6 individual shells which you put into a disposable cardboard launcher (included) before lighting the fuse.

This is what it looks like – you can see that I accidentally burnt my fingers on the fuse in the video. Heh!

display shells

I finally realized why this box of “fireworks” is so cheap. It’s not fireworks at all – the 1.5” display shells launches with a burst of color while this just produces a sound.

It’s basically just a glorified firecracker but for the price and the sonic effect, I can’t complain.

display launcher

The only downside to the cylindrical design is that sometimes the entire shell does not eject, leaving the cylinder still inside the launcher. This can be a Bad Thing (TM) if you don’t realize it coz if you put another one in, it’ll stack up and run the risk of blowing up on the ground.

I’ll still buy this for the bargain basement price but be sure to check the launcher after you let one off to see that the shell has been fully ejected.

cracker

I also got some double report firecrackers this year – click on the link to view what that looks like.

Anyway, I got this idea to play Jackass Badminton during Chinese New Year – this requires two people with two rackets. One person lights the firecracker and serves, and you both hit the burning firecracker with your badminton rackets until it explodes. I didn’t get to play it but Willie managed to find some original Thunder Kings when this idea was conceived.

Thunder King / Crazy Bang

crazy bang cracker

This is what the original Thunder Kings are like – it’s a huge ass firecracker with much more flash powder and explosive potential than other similar high grade firecrackers (e.g. chai lei, da di lei gong etc).

crazy bang

Interestingly, this time it’s labeled Crazy Bang and it is ALSO called da di lei kong (literally “gigantic earth thunder”) in Chinese. It comes in a pack of 5. There is no fuse visible – you’ll have to break the paper at the top to pull the fuse out.

Check out the video of this baby.

crazy bang fuse

Despite the similarity in name to Da Di Crackers, this is much more powerful than the red ones. It’s exactly the same as Thunder King with the base removed.

crazy bang effect

Intense. I remember people using this during my schooldays with a delayed fuse (usually a mosquito coil) in the toilets to break the cistern. Pity the fool who is taking a dump when one of this goes off. smirk

spent fireworks

It’s been a good Chinese New Year!

I can’t wait for the next one. 🙂

Chong Tien Pow – Rushing Skywards Cracker

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chung tien pow

I used to have a bit of a phobia with these crackers – it’s a double report affair, with the initial primer launching the entire cracker skywards before exploding with a loud bang. I’ve never thought of the initial blast as an explosion, it’s the second one that’s the real banger.

cracker

Once when I was a kid (with little fingers which would have been mutilated by more powerful firecrackers) one of these crackers collapsed when I lit it. I was in one hell of a dilemma – these things are supposed to shoot towards the sky (thus the name) – but it actually goes the direction it’s pointed to unless it’s firmly on its base.

light

Anyway, the fuse was going and I got my panties all in a twist thinking of whether to risk handling the toppled cracker and put it upright, or let it be. If I had let it be it would have gone into my house and maybe shattered a window or two so in the end I did a bit of a compromise and kicked it into the drain.

history

Now, this puts a totally new spin (no pun intended) on things – the second and more powerful blast will go where the cracker is oriented so it’s a bit like Roulette. Luckily both explosions happened in the drain but that scared me more than a little. As I grew older we took to lighting the cracker and throwing it into the sky and dodging the second blast as it came down, it was the sort of stupid fun we got up to during Chinese New Year and neighbors hated us. Heh!

I still do stupid things sometimes like lighting firecrackers indoors.

I grabbed a pack when I went fireworks shopping during CNY eve to see if it’s still like what I remembered from my childhood.

The funniest thing is near the end of the video when I got startled by the cracker while my mom was a cool as a cucumber, still steady with the digicam. Haha!

Anyway, I haven’t played with these for a long time and the problem with it is that the initial report (which launches the cracker into the sky) is a propellant of sorts…and it’s HIGHLY (no pun intended) variable. Made in China, yo!

chalk

It usually goes up to 12 feet or more but this one barely made 7 feet (judging from the lamp post) and had a diagonal flight path so I was apprehensive and recoiled at the report. I still find it hilarious. smirk

The weird thing is, as a kid you remember these crackers as being one of the loudest things on earth but as you grow older the sound seems…diminished. The sonic effect isn’t what I remembered from my youth.

fuse

…or maybe I’m just going deaf from blasting music from headphones.

More on firecrackers and fireworks when I do my annual Chap Goh Meh roundup. 🙂

Gambling during Chinese New Year

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in between poker

Yup, it’s a tradition along with fireworks and heavy drinking – the third component of celebrations would be gambling with blackjack el arab! I don’t have photos of the family session coz I lost my iPhone but I have several other ones after that:

In-Between

in between

This is a poker derivative where you get dealt two cards and you draw from the deck to see if you can get a card with a denomination in the middle (thus the name “in between”). You can opt to wager as much as you want up to the limit of the pot. There is no distinction between spades or diamonds and a card of similar value would result in a penalty of double pay. also you can enjoy situs poker online here.Before playing one must check that the casinos and gambling sites,you are prefering should be on the most popular platform of gambling i.e https://bestsitesuk.casino/not-on-gamstop/.

in between pot

You contribute a predetermined amount into the pot when you first start and roll until it’s empty. The pot was over RM 600+ at one point. You can opt for the entire pot if you have a good hand but if you draw a similar card, you’ll have to pay double – RM 1,800. This tends to make everyone cautious unless you’re attempting to win back your losses. I won about RM 200+ from this (after minimal fluctuating movement in my loss-profit – the most I was up was by RM 300 before paying RM 200) and reimbursed Jeanie for her RM 100 loss.

Poker Terpercaya is also one of the popular online poker platform to play poker, for those who love to play poker online anytime or to consume their time by playing poker. It Provides You to play numbers of games as much as you want.

Four Color

four color

I have completely no idea how to play this – it’s like Chinese chess on Mahjong tiles and you have to make a set of matching components which totals 11 points (minimum) to win. This is my first time playing it and I was using Jeanie’s money to play – it’s a game between her two sisters and brother.

emperor tiles

It took me a while to figure out how to win and how to calculate points but the rule of thumb is that if you get the “highest denomination” (think of it as an Ace of Spades) – a tile with the “Emperor” calligraphy on it – it’s calculated as 1 point AND RM 1 at the same time.

tiles

I managed to win about RM 20 in a single game due to an abundance of Emperor tiles and it’s quite an interesting game – but I’m still not very good in arranging sets. It’s a bit complicated to explain the rules coz I’m not sure of it myself. 😡

cny visiting

Anyway, Chinese New Year is not over yet – I’m heading over to my grandma’s tomorrow (technically later tonight) for dinner and there are some developments on the personal front which I guess I’ll share when I’m not so sleepy. 😉

Happy CNY everyone!

Chinese New Year Eve in Sibu

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cny fireworks

It is a source of our pride that the residents of Sibu put out the best display of citizen sponsored fireworks during Chinese New Year annually. Despite the ban on the sale and use of firecrackers and fireworks most people still let loose every year – spending incredible amounts of hard earned money on pyrotechnics.

Unlike most other places, we can get firecrackers and fireworks by just strolling into certain shops, where they are displayed in all their glory. It’s nowhere close to the good ol’ pre-ban days where there’s a booth selling firecrackers outside supermarkets every meter or so but I take solace that despite the ban we still manage to put out an impressive barrage every year.

Most of my neighbors were out in force, and the most popular item this year is pre-loaded “ground cakes” which makes a sustained burst of colors and sound easier than one shot shell launchers.


CNY Eve in Sibu!

This is what Sibu looks like at the stroke of midnight on Chinese New Year Eve – it’s awesome and the smoke from all the firecrackers and fireworks quickly overwhelm the street, making visibility poor and seeping into your houses until everything smells like sulfur.

roman candle

It’s all good though and the best part of CNY for me! Happy Chinese New Year 2011! 🙂

The CNY karaoke session

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It so happens that it has become a bit of a tradition for us to gather at Pan Box, book a room and a case of beer and sing (in a completely off tune manner) karaoke. It’s more about having fun than anything and several songs are bound to make the play list:

Hotel California
Friends (it’s a Chinese song – the one in the video)
Isabella (a Malay song from a movie)

eddie

Truly 1Malaysia. Heh! My bro Eddie and a bunch of us usual suspects turns up and I usually need assistance to walk to the car by the time it’s over. This is the inaugural photo with my bro.

jeanie

This year, we’re joined by J who I’ve been hanging out a lot with. It’s really funny coz years ago she told me I’m a total asshole (not in these words exactly), but now we’re really good friends. 🙂

reunion firecrackers

Anyway, the neighbours have been letting off the pre-reunion dinner firecrackers for the past 3 hours (damn, they start early over here) and I couldn’t take a nap but it’s all good coz I’m heading over to my grandma’s for the reunion dinner now!

Happy CNY everyone! 🙂

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