Stone Ice is a popular iced dessert and rojak specialty outlet that has been operating for years at the top floor of the commercial portion of Saberkas building. The shop occupies almost the entire area and the name stems from its initial foray into iced desserts and the decor.
Stone Ice has seating arrangements made of solid rock in a part Roman part prehistoric theme. The tall pillars leading up to the ordering counter is decorated by the random tall brush and small decorative areas with creeping vines and stones. It’s like a small Zen garden in the austere shopping mall.
Stone Ice is a self-service eating establishment – there are different sections on the long bar counter for ordering. The two main flagship products are located in the iced dessert (ABC Special or Ice Kacang) section and the rojak (fruit salad) section.
This is the iced dessert and rojak section. Stone Ice pioneered the open kitchen concept long before the term was coined. There are selections of fresh fruit, dried nuts, and other items on display here. The user is given a bowl and chooses the ingredients they want in their iced dessert or rojak.
The iced dessert containers have the usual suspects like cendol, sweet corn, mixed fruits and various colored jellies. You choose the stuff you want in your iced dessert from this section and put it into your bowl.
There is also an additional section for the users who wants to spice up their iced dessert with unorthodox ingredients – there is a variety of dried fruits and herbs you can opt for.
This is the stuff I put into my bowl – there are peaches, corn, black jelly (a jelly made from herbs), and miscellaneous jellies to add texture to the final product.
I also added some dried fruits to the bowl coz I like eating stuff with different tastes and textures. The bowl is charged a standard price and it’s passed to the attendant on duty for processing.
The attendant puts shaved ice on top of the ingredients and tops it with a healthy pouring of evaporated milk and sugar syrup.
This is what the finished product looks like – the ingredients are all at the bottom of the bowl just like what a local shaved ice dessert should look like.
Here’s a closer look at the shaved ice dessert. There are an infinite number of different variants which you can make due to the user customization of the ingredients that goes into the shaved ice dessert. It’s a great concept!
The rojak here is what Kuching citizens usually go for. Stone Ice is famous for the same reasons it’s renowned for good iced desserts – the rojak is customizable from an array of different platters of fruit, tofu and even lok lok (deep fried seafood).
The customer is given a container and you fill up that container from the ingredients that’s on offer. I like my rojak to have plenty of fresh mangos…
…and jambu batu (a water soaked local fruit) as well as pink guava.
Here’s a closer look at the my container – it’s filled with fruits and I also added some deep fried crab sticks (at the bottom left) and some squid (bottom right) coz I like zany ingredients with fruit. Can you see why Stone Ice is a stoner paradise now? 😉
The rojak is sold by weight…the container is put on a weighing scale and the amount charged according to how heavy it is. Fruits like nectarines are lighter and so is tofu but I really don’t like tofu so I just add a little of it.
The rojak you selected is sent for further processing after the weighing process. It’s like a mini assembly line. This is where the rojak is cut and mixed up with rojak sauce and peanuts and chilli (if you opt for it) for the final product.
The attendant will start cutting the selections into bite sized pieces and mix it in a large bowl (which happens to be a stone bowl, and could be a possible etymology of the establishment’s name) with grounded peanuts and rojak sauce (a sweet dark sauce).
The rojak is done individually and that adds to the appeal of the rojak over here. The antiseptic cleanliness of the bar doesn’t hurt either. You can see octopus legs here if you squint at my choices. Octopus legs with rojak rocks my socks off (no pun intended).
The mixing of the ingredients is done by dousing the stuff you chose with rojak sauce. The rojak is made by a wooden spatula slowly integrating the ingredients in a semi-uniform manner and allowing each piece to be covered by the sauce.
Stone Ice rojak is served on disposable Styrofoam containers with toothpicks and half a lime, topped with finely grounded peanuts and pork floss (by request).
It’s great stuff…
Stone Ice is Stoner’s Heaven. 🙂
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