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Bintangor: Famous Bintangor rojak, Bintangor orange juice and river travels!

November 23, 2015 by HB

Boat

My better half has never been to Bintangor before. It’s a small and sleepy town which is one of the major transit points to further destinations accessible only by river. We thought about dropping by the last time she was here but went directly to Sarikei instead.

Sibu Swan

Her parents were in town and I thought they’ll enjoy the small town vibe so I drove all of them down from our hotel in Sibu (after snapping a few quick photos at the swan statue).

Express Boat

It takes approximately an hour to reach Bintangor by car. The main feature in town is a passenger jetty with express boats departing to obscure villages and micro-towns like Dalat, Song and other similar places which can only be reached by the large Rejang River which runs along the entire length of Sarawak.

Jetty

The express boats are the only way to go to these places upriver and that’s why you’ll see them packed to the brim (with people jammed in every nook and cranny and even occupying the roof). Boats like these are supposed to carry 103 pax but regularly exceed that and it makes accidents a very real possibility – a capsized boat killed quite a lot of people last year.

Bintangor Me

There are no roads to the towns further down, you can only get there by boat or helicopter.

Bintangor Orange

I like how the major export of Bintangor is featured as a statue in the middle of town. There’s a local orange that features predominantly in the esplanade and the last time I was here, it was in a very sorry state – paint all peeling and unkempt. It’s been maintained better and the colors look more or less like what a real orange would look like. Trust me, it looked a lot worse in the past.

Bintangor Market

We also dropped by the Bintangor Market to check out their produce. They have a lot of interesting local vegetables, knick knacks and other assorted daily essentials.

Wet Market

I made it a point to bring them to the famous Bintangor rojak at Wong Hung Ping. This place is very popular even among Sibu folks, people would make the 1 hour drive to eat rojak during weekends and drive back down again. I ordered a large portion for us to share and my dear’s dad enjoyed it tremendously.

Famous Rojak Bintangor

There are steamed sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pineapples (from the neighboring town of Sarikei), fried crullers and other miscellaneous ingredients tossed in a sweet homemade sauce and sprinkled with toasted peanuts. I think what makes it so good is that everything is sourced locally and very fresh. The sweet potatoes are even cooked to order!

Bintangor Rojak

I also highly recommended the local Bintangor orange juice (RM 3) which is the squeezed product of the fruits grown just on the outskirts of town. You can’t get it fresher than this!

Bintangor Orange Juice

Her dad enjoyed the rojak so much that he bought a bottle of their homemade rojak sauce to bring back to KL!

Famous Bintangor Rojak

It’s a really fun day trip to do with my dear and the family. I haven’t been here in a few years and it seems like time hasn’t marred this small town like it has other places. Bintangor is still a serene little place you can escape to if you want a change of pace, to experience a quieter way of life.

A local durian stall on the road to Bintangor

November 11, 2015 by HB

Durian Sarawak

Sarawak (or at least Borneo) is said to be the home of the largest variety of durians in the world. My better half came to visit with the kids and her parents and I drove them to the rural town of Bintangor.

Bintagor Durian

We had just seen durians in the local Sibu market the morning before and I expected a few homegrown stalls to be selling the wonderful fruit.

Borneo Durian Stall

I wasn’t disappointed – one wooden structure on the road leading to Bintangor had a few cars pulled up and browsing the durians on offer. Her dad (who is also a passionate durian lover like me) wanted to see what the local durians were like so we also joined the fray.

Durians

This man was literally selling durians out from his van. He’s local and says the durian trees were grown by his father. He looks to be in his early 40’s so that says a lot about the age of the durian trees – it’s a lot more mature than most of the cultivars you get in Peninsula Malaysia.

Borneo Durian

The price was RM 100 for 10 durians or RM 15/durian, which is slightly more expensive than the prices we get in KL.

Durian Stem

Keep in mind that these are local Borneo durian species instead of special cultivars and no one really knows what the species is but it tastes quite good. The walls of the fruit was thick and the stem is relatively long and slim like a D158/Ganyao durian. It had the characteristic frayed look of a durian that dropped naturally too.

Durian Flesh

The flesh is creamy and sweet with almost no bitter notes. Significantly, the odor wasn’t very strong too, but that didn’t affect the taste much. The small fruits bore about 7-8 seeds which we all shared. My dear loved the durian coz it didn’t have much fiber, unlike some cultivars like D2 durian.

Durian Us

My better half took this photo of us – she didn’t want her parents to appear on the blog so she asked me to put in her head instead. Haha. I forgot to take a photo with her inside coz my hands were dirty.

Sarawak Durian

It turns out that this was the *only* durian stall around so it’s a good thing we managed to try some during the bridge season. I’ll be back!

Bintangor Rojak and Bintangor Orange Juice

June 17, 2008 by HB

Bintangor is a town about 95 km away from Sibu. It was decided that an impromptu road trip be made to check out their rojak and orange juice – the two things Bintangor is famous for. Four of us went in my car on Sunday afternoon:

mary

Mary

klm

Clare aka KLM. 🙂
The secret is out, so she let me put the original photos up.

huai bin

Huai Bin (me) and bengbeng

bintangor sarawak

Bintangor isn’t really far away from Sibu if you maintain a reasonable speed. It must have been the company of the two fine ladies coz we were there before we knew it. The “Welcome to Bintangor” signage is in the shape of the Bintangor orange. It’s the symbol of the town and there’s also a replica orange in front of the wharf – it makes for a good photo opportunity.

wong hung ping

The famous Bintangor rojak stall is called Wong Hung Ping and the rojak (a local fruit salad) is so renowned that Sibu people have been known to drive down just to eat the rojak during the weekends. They also sell the rojak sauce (which is the crucial ingredient that makes or breaks the dish).

rojak sauce

The bottles of rojak sauce goes for RM 7, which was up from the previous RM 5. That’s just about in line with the oft quoted 40% price increase. 😉

rojak owner

The proprietor of the Bintangor Rojak Stall used to be a nice, old lady. This is her daughter manning the stall. She’s the one managing the stall nowadays due to the advanced chronological age of her mother. I like her as well, she’s friendly, like her mom.

rojak ingredients

Rojak is made by chopping up pineapples, tofu, cucumbers and miscellaneous other items…

…before mixing it with the special Bintangor rojak sauce.

rojak dishing

It is then dished out and eaten with forks. It’s really a simple dish to prepare, it’s the special rojak sauce that makes it taste good. Bintangor is famous for their rojak due to the excellent rojak sauce that they make…at least in this stall.

bintangor rojak

This is the Bintangor rojak that we drove all this way for. Rojak is a communal dish, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone eating a plate all by himself.

bintangor rojak photo

Here’s a closer look at the Bintangor rojak. The money shot, if you will. 😉

bintangor orange juice

The stall also serves Bintangor orange juice. Bintangor orange juice is not made with Sunkist oranges (which was what they accidentally served us the first time) but from Bintangor oranges. It comes in a brighter shade than regular orange juice.

bintangor orange

These are what Bintangor oranges look like – it’s also the official produce of Bintangor. It’s sweet and tangy, with sour hints. It’s smaller in size than regular oranges.

bintangor group

The Sibu blogger contingent at Bintangor.

bintangor camwhoring

True to blogger tradition, we did the camwhoring thing at the Bintangor wharf. This is me taking a pole up the ass while Mary looks on with mirth. Boy, I’m gonna be sore tomorrow.

bintangor photo

It was a fun road trip with the Sibu bloggers to Bintangor. I had wanted to go there for ages to take photos of the famous Bintangor rojak and Bintangor orange juice and the company was great! Cheers! 🙂

Bintangor Day Trip

July 7, 2002 by HB

I headed down to Bintangor today with Daniel for some rojak. Daniel says
that the Bintangor rojak is really good, and sure enough, there were six
other groups of non-Bintangor residents eating rojak there. Anyway, we
took the 2:30 pm express boat out of Sibu wharf. The boat ride took 30
minutes and arrived at Paradom, where we had to catch a bus to Bintangor,
which took 30 minutes as well. There is a large fruit replica right in
Bintangor town, and Daniel says it’s a pau (a kind of large citrus fruit,
don’t know what it’s called in English) while I thought it looked like an
orange. The rojak store had a drink called Bintangor orange juice, which
somewhat supports my theory. I hear Bintangor is famous for it’s oranges
too. Anyway, I found the rojak so good that I bought two bottles of the
rojak sauce to bring back. We had an hour to spare coz the last express
boat leaves at 6 pm from the Paradom wharf, and we’ll be taking the 5:15
pm bus out of Bintangor to catch that boat. Bintangor is not a really big town, and we
managed to cover the whole town on foot in that one hour. Took heaps of
photos too.

The express boat to Paradom.

Paradom Jetty.

96500 Bintangor.

The Bintangor Orange replica.

The old part of Bintangor town.

The new part of Bintangor town.

The non working clock tower in the new part of town.

Old skool barber in front of the football field in Bintangor. Floyd the
barber is cutting the hair of the old man while two people wait for his
services.