Weekend Menu #3

I didnt do much cooking over the weekend. We have fried rice vermicelli for past two days, till my hubby went “Not again?!” LOL! I have been thinking of vermicelli for past one week, so I tried to finish the pack before I forget and keep till “don’t know when”! We didn’t went to market over the weekend, so I didn’t have any vegetables and much ingredients to venture into! Just try to clear my fridge before re-fill for the coming Chinese New Year.

Sat dinner -Vermicelli with spicy pork cubes and egg

Sun lunch - Vermicelli with Danish sliced pork, Danish sausage and egg

We were going Malaysian over the weekend, tasting local and famous food around Kuching. As a typical Chinese, rice and noodle are a must in my daily meal. Not saying that I wouldn’t venture into Western or other cuisines, as those cuisines have their own unique taste and attraction too. In no particular order, I present to you our very own Malaysian signature food:

Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak with Beef Rendang

Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken

Nasi lemak is a very versatile rice dish, in the sense you can have it anytime of the day. The important element of nasi lemak is its sambal. No matter how nice the smell of coconut milk rice and delicious side dishes, if the sambal does not compliment the rice, it is not a complete dish! For me, sambal should be spicy, with slight taste of tamarind juice. Some sambal I tasted before, either it is too hot, or some not hot at all or it tasted sweet!

I tried this nasi lemak at Kafeteria Simply Sedap at Tabuan Jaya. For those who can tolerate spiciness, it is worth trying. The sambal is superb; it comes with boiled egg (half portion), crispy anchovies and peanuts, and sliced cucumber. We ordered the special, I have curry chicken while hubby having beef rendang. RM6.00 for my nasi lemak with curry chicken and RM6.50 for hubby’s nasi lemak with beef rendang.

Chicken Rice

Hainanese Chicken Rice is pretty popular in Kuching. One of the best Hainanese Chicken Rice I dare to say would be this stall in a coffee shop behind Hock Lee Centre. It is operated by 3 siblings, with one of the sisters chopping the steamed chicken. Better not mess with her, she have strength of a man to chop you down! LOL.

You can either have char siew rice, steamed chicken rice, or mixed rice. RM4.00 per plate per person. They also have set price, RM15.00 set for 3 to 5 persons. One thing about this stall is that they are pretty generous in their serving. Big portion of rice and meat. You will walk away stuffed after finish its chicken rice. Look at the chunky steamed chicken and char siew. The dipping of sweet soy sauce and chili compliment the meat well.

Sarawak Laksa

For those who come to Sarawak, Sarawak Laksa is a must! Your trip would not be complete without tasting our famous Sarawak Laksa. Laksa soup is served with either yellow noodle or vermicelli. There are few nice laksa stalls around Kuching, but I shall concentrate on one particular stall for this post.

Hubby and myself love to go to Bormill Food Centre at Bormill Estate for its laksa. Special at RM5.00. Just the portion is bigger and more prawns.

The unique taste of Laksa soup is what make a bowl of laksa flavorful and tasty. It is practically easy to prepare laksa, but time consuming as you need to prepare its ingredients, i.e steamed chicken, prawns, bean sprouts, egg and vermicelli besides preparing the laksa soup. With availability of instant laksa pastes in the market, it cut down a lot of time on grinding and mixing those herbs and spices. Now I miss my mum’s laksa! I love each time she cooked laksa, as I can mixed what ever I want for my laksa! I like a lot of shredded omelet, prawns and Chinese parsley in my laksa.

Fried Noodle/Vermicelli

I like fried vermicelli more than noodle, especially those fine vermicelli. Fine vermicelli taste well in laksa too.

Once again, I recommended Bormill Food Centre for a nice plate of fried noodle or vermicelli. The stall that serves “chau chu” dishes is always packed with orders, so you need to be patient waiting for your food. The cook is cooking each order one by one, to preserve its taste and quality. Not bad hoh, got quality control!! Last week I have to wait for my fried vermicelli for almost 20 minutes while hubby has finished his breakfast.

The waiting is worth a penny, check out what I have. Fried vermicelli with clam (kerang) and fried soft egg. RM4.50 per plate. The taste is great, vermicelli is cooked well “ko huo” (enough fire in Chinese), and the clams are fresh. Try it out yourself.

Satay

Those charcoal grill meats sure appetizing with a dip of peanut sauce, dont you agree? Most satay sold are halal, meat consists of lamb, chicken and beef. I seldom find pork satay, so when darling hubby bought home few sticks of pork satay for our Saturday dinner, I couldnt resist to taste some of them!