Some of my fav places to eat in Kuching - part 1

Humans are creatures of habits, aren't we not?  So am I.  I'd return to the same place over and over again.  I don't really like trying new places, in case it's a waste of my calories.  So, here' some places I like to go to eat in Kuching.

Morgan Pork Soup

When I was in Selangor, I "worked" in this a small Christian bookstore.  "worked" because I spend more than I earn, just to get to work!  And one of the luxury I let myself have is KL pork noodle soup.  I love Kuching's kolo mee version of Kueh Tiaw Soup, but some days, I just miss the KL style pork soup.  And I was glad when I saw this here.  It's one of the best rendition of the noodles.

This stall has been serving pork soup since a long time ago, but I've never heard of it till it moved to its current location; Geylang Kopitiam.  Its always very full of patrons that you need to share tables (which I have no problem with).  But with the current covid-19 situation, no worries about overcrowded places.  If you come later, just be prepared to wait.  We like to reach this place by 7.30am and immediately place our orders.  The first serving is at 8am.

Huge CHUNKS of minced pork, thin slices of meat and cubes of pork skin with your choice of noodles - the most popular, being small, slippery, kueh tiaw.  The bone broth comes from hours of boiling; not from MGS.  You can request to add egg, which is nicely done, not too soft; and definitely not hard boiled.  Don't forget to top up generously with cili.

This kopitiam has great kopi peng and teh C peng too.  Very kaw.

IPH Roasted Cafe Kuching

This is our go to place for roasted meat.  We love all the pork roasts - sio bak, char siew as well as the ribs.  The duck is great too.  Roasted chicken?  Same like others I reckon.  Business goes on well into lunch, but some of the popular meat (especially the ribs), will be gone by then.  We being kiasu, like to go at 8.30 / 8.45am to get the best cuts.  Noel likes the noodles here.  It's the closest resemblance to KL's wanton mee (but not quite).  Definitely no green pickled chili.

This is another kopitiam with great Kopi Peng and teh C Peng.

Kenyalang Wet Market Kuching - Tomato Kueh Tiaw

Seems that I like kueh tiaw eh?  I'd think so too :)  I like my tomato k.tiaw like this.  Not too thick.  Not too sour.  Mild, with sweet and sour taste.  My must have?  Slices of Char Siew.  And with Chili and vinegar poured on top.  There are only 3 places in Kuching that I know of that sales like this - Hui Sing Hawker Center (only opens at night), Bintawa market (too far to go) and Kenyalang Market.

Hui Sing is where the stalls that I grew up with serves now, so that's a given why it's my favorite.  I used to work in Bintawa area, so that's how I know the one in Bintawa and Kenyalang - because I go for my fortnightly wet marketing there (as an adult).  I am usually very early, so after getting all my supplies, I will go up to the next floor for self reward.  The place used to be jam-packed with the early risers (read:  Ah Kong and Ah Ma).  But with the social distancing regulation, some tables has been blocked.

Go to stall No. 37 Hap Hap Hin for Tomato K.Tiaw / Cripsy Noodles.

Go to stall No. 17 Ngiap Kiang for Fried Noodles - please order Mee & K.Tiaw campur, masin, pedas.  Be ready to wait.  He prepares and fries his noodles religiously.

There's another stall with good porridge and good coffee - I'll update the numbers / name when I go there next.  There's other things to eat too - cucur pisang (my fav overriped pisang tanduk), yu cha kueh, a huge variety of kuehs etc).

I come here at 5ish in the morning.  They are opened from 4am till lunch.

Ah... last but not least on today's post... 

Wood Lam Cafe (old immigration) 

This is another place we grew up with.  There used to be a laksa stall that serves, to me, the best laksa in town during that time.  But one of the daughters got into trouble with loan sharks and they had to close up.  A sad day for many of us.

The kueh chap here is good, mild in taste, with a kick of sambal.  Pre-MCO, we had to wait HOURS (well, about 30 - 45 mins), for this bowl of goodness.  But now, it doesn't take as long.  But don't expect to have this "early".  He usually drives in at 7.15 and sets up, maybe ready to serve at 7.30, though his signage says 7am.  He is very particular with his cuts and do not cut ahead of time, and he does it meticulously.  So yes, the wait is painful, with a sweet ending once you put it in your mouth.

But thank God, whilst waiting, you can curb your hunger with this!  This is THE BEST cha kueh tiaw in my books.  Smallish cubes, with crunchy sides.  The usual radish cakes outside are usually huge cubes, all soggy, but these although it looks too "broken" are absolutely delish.  There are surprising bites of tang chai, lots of eggs and tonnes of crunchy ends.  I have no patients to pick it bit by bit, so I usually just use whatever spoon I have on hand to gobble it up.

The uncle who serves this now has knee pain from the long hours of standing.  Now he sits on a high stool to fry these beautiful golden morsel.

We usually get here by 7am, the cha kueh would be ready to serve by 6.30am.  Serves decent coffee.  Kopi-O peng is nice too.  Not too kaw, not too pok (thin).

As you can see, these food I've mentioned are the food / taste that I grew up with.  Some will need me to wait (for up to an hour), but still, once the craving is there, there's not turning back.  I normally will just endure the wait with a happy smile on my face :)

Till my next entry of fav food in Kuching!

They Exist... but always remember our God is bigger...

I don't normally write about hike stuff in here, because it's much easier to just upload in Insta.  After all, the photos are all in the phone and I don't need to download and upload it into the blog.  I guess I can update the blog from the phone, but it's too small to bother with.  But for this, I wanted to write it in here, as a reminder of what happened, what could happened and to never take my hikes for granted.

This is the beginning of the Red & Blue trail.  Apparently, the name of the waterfall is just... "waterfall"

Anyways... Date:  19 July 2020.  Sunday afternoon.  We actually planned to go to Santubong small waterfall (loop track) for a first hike for the girls.  It is an easy hike of 30 minutes with a beautiful waterfall with a nice cooling pond at the bottom.  To our dismay, when we arrived at 1.30pm, the notice said it was closed and they only open at 8am - 12noon, with a maximum capacity of 50 pax per day on both the summit and loop trail.  Bummer.  So we decided to try Permai's Blue and Red Trail.  By the time we got there and registered, it was already 2.30pm, but the ladies at the counter let us in anyways, as long as we get back to the counter by 5pm.  She said it takes 1 hour to get to the waterfall, but the sign says 90 minutes!  We had faith that we could do it of course.

This rope bridge is almost the end of the trail to the waterfall.  Almost reaching the waterfall.  I think one can easily hike from the bottom, i.e. through the small river, but for the thrill of it, one gotta go through this 😉

Bear in mind, this is the first hike for the teenage girls, so we took it really slow.  And 4/6 of us got out of breath, even needing inhaler (asthma) at some point.  It definitely took us 90 minutes to get there.  We started at 2.30 and arrived at the waterfall at 4pm.  Bear in mind, we needed to ARRIVE back at the reception counter by 5pm.  The lady at the counter said, the journey back would take 30 minutes.  So, we said we'd hang till 4.30 and head home.

In my secondary school days, I was in Girl's Guide and my brother was in the Boys' Scout.  I can say that we both were pretty good at it, both being Company Leader by the time we got to Form 4.  And yes, these camping stuff is nothing new to us.  I felt so happy when I managed to get some solid fuel from the Army Supply shop, dug out our messtin from Dad's police days and managed to light up the fire.  Truth be told, I'm not sure if we can start fire here - is Kem Permai under Santubong National Park as well? (as in no burning etc?)  I don't know... but I won't do this again with the solid fuel (without the "metal cooker" a.k.a. the box to burn the fuel in).  I now have the burner that uses butane gas, so that would be better as we will not be harming nature (by using rocks as our base)

Everyone was ecstatic when we saw the waterfall, although it was small and "skinny", but because it was so late in the evening, we had the whole place to ourselves.  The ladies quickly took off their tudung and everyone was in the water before long.  And because everyone knew I carried stuff to cook Maggi at the fall, we started fire soon after.  But it took SOOOOO long for the water to boil!!! In YouTube tutorials that I religiously watched before this trip, water would boil within 7 minutes.  Mine?  Took more than 20 mins!! And that's with HOT water! (Yes, I carried hot water in thermos to cook the maggi).  So the whole cooking and eating process took almost an hour. We made Milo too, and since it was piping hot, it was hard for some of us to eat and drink fast.

Here we are... the six of us.  It was the first time for the two teenage girls with glasses.

Everyone was still enjoying the water, so I told them that we need to start hiking out at 5pm.  But... we only started to change clothes and clear up at 5pm!  So we started the journey up at 5.15pm.  I'd be lying if I said that I was not nervous.  I kept thinking in my head, what do I have in my bagpack that could sustain us should night fall before we reached the reception counter.  Torchlight - yes, I have 2, checked.  Chocs - yes, I still have 6 small packets, checked.  Whistle - yes, I have 1, checked.  Lighter - yes, I have 2, checked.  First aid kit - checked.  I normally have Noel on hikes with me, so both our bags would be sufficiently loaded (although it would look very bulky and weighs a ton), but this time I hiked alone with the group, so I didn't think I was prepared enough.  Where WAS noel when I needed him huh?

The 90 degree hike up immediately after the waterfall.

The hike back began with a 90 degrees hike up with rope trail.  We actually did pretty fine on this one.  Then it was a continuous walk down the hill.  A never.ending.walk.  In the middle of the trail, we heard a male voice, we knew that there was no other people on that trail with us, but I thought that it must be the ranger or something like that, maybe they were looking for us, since we were supposed to be out by 5pm.  Then, the sound changed to something akin to a frog and THEN it changed to the sound of a wildboar.  Because my teammates were all muslim, the one leading the pack immediately turned around looking all white, aghastly claiming under her breath, "I'm scared!".  Trying to keep my cool, I picked up a dead branch and tossed it to the source of the sound, hoping that if it were wildboars, they would run.  but no footsteps, nothing.  I clapped my hands very loudly a few (more than a few) times, just to shoo them away, but again... silence in the forest.

Didn't get a single decent photo on this trip.  No Noel to bully to be photographer.

So we moved on.  It.was.spine-chilling.  I told the team, we had to pick up our pace, because nightfall is upon us, but I'm not too sure why, maybe the girls were tired already, maybe they were unsure of their steps going downhill, but they were really really slow!  Almost like walking in the mall!  I almost cried because I was sooooo scared that we'd still be in the forest by night, that we would end up like one of those stories we hear about going round and round the same place.  I kept looking at the markers on the trees and I thank God that it was a different tree every time.  After going downhill for a bit and confident that there wasn't any beast in front, I moved to the back of the troop again, my usual place, (unless there's Fread.  Then, he'd normally be behind me, because I'm the slowest and he will make sure that I'm ok, God bless his kind heart).  That's when I started to hear the rustling of leaves and branches to my right side.  As if someone (s) were walking beside us, no, not one, there were more than one of "them".  I kept looking, trying to see if there were any animals, but there were none!

The person we asked to take our photos were REALLY bad at it.  I think we took more than 20 shots here, we even gave her the EXACT position, yet, every single one turned out really bad.  Again. where was Noel when I need him huh?

After what seemed like ages (in reality, it could have been about 10 minutes), I spoke to "it"... whatever it was... "Are you following us to ensure we get back and get out safe?  Thank you for coming with us.  Thank you for teman us down.  Thank you for lending us your place.  Thank you for making sure we will be safely out.  Thank you for being with us..." and all sorts of thank yous, which I did mean with all my heart.  And to my relief, the rustling stopped.  After that I kept praying in the Spirit, I knew that only God can protect us now.  I kept on praying that the girls in front did not hear the same things I did, and most importantly, that no one gets a hysteria attack.  Being in an all Muslim group, that is what I fear the most, because they are prone to hysteria attack and that I won't know what to do, should that happen.  (A day after, when our hearts were not too unsettled anymore, we checked on each other, and yes, every single one of us heard the sounds, but no one dared to say anything at that time)

We walked as fast as our legs could carry us as we got back to the beach at about 6.15pm.  An hour take to a track out that was supposed to be 30 minutes.  We headed to the beach to catch the sunset but because it was too early and the ladies wanting to be home before Maghrib, we left at 6.30pm.  When we checked out at the counter, we saw that our names were highlighted already, and the team was on standby to look for us should we fail to check out by 7pm.

That's my legs.  Feeling so happy we got out Maggi and hot Milo.  We ended up making 2nd round of Milo after this, and given enough time, we would have cooked another round of Maggi, but we didn't have the time.

When I told the story to a Muslim friend of mine, who is stationed at Pusat Ko-K in Santubong, he said according to his experience, the sound of wildboar is Jembalang Tanah and you should just walk ahead without looking back.  He also said we should carry "protection" when we go into the forest, such as having "Kayu Hujan Panas".  Go Google it.  Apparently, it's a wood that would make you superior to the animals of the forest and the spirit world.

Whilst tempted, as I reflected, I remembered a chapter in The Long Awakening (by Baru Bian) that tells of the existance of the spirit world, of how we know and acknowledge they exist, but that our God is bigger than they are and is the ultimate one above all.  So no, I do not want to carry any protection apart from the protection of the Almighty.  I will depend on no articles created by Him, but only depend on Him, the creator of all things.

I often wondered what might have caused this "attack".  Several things came to mind - 1)  It was with a group of Muslim - and it was Asar time - a time they believed they shouldn't be in these mystic places.  2)  2 of the group members were having their period, and they had just jumped in the water albeit.  3)  Perhaps I wasn't supposed to cook (using "their" utensil)?  4)  I boasted in the beginning of the trail.  The lady at the reception counter said it would be a one hour hike, and I told my team, that the one-hour time was because she was big sized (bigger than me), and that we'd do better, in lesser time as we are smaller and supposedly fitter.  It's a combination of many things, but above all, I hope I will remember to keep a reign on my tongue next time.

I had dreams of this for several nights after, even a week after, when my sister in law and I spoke again about this, that night, the scare came back in my dreams and I had to play worship music and turn on the lights to get "it" out again.  Actually it still gives me the creep till today, but somehow, it doesn't stop the hiking itch and I'm ready to venture out to Santubong again.  But I promised myself that I will never, ever go out from the jungle after 4.30pm after this.  Once is enough.

Tuhan kita besar bah kan.