Yamcha @ Payung Cafe

It is a rather "low profile" cafe in Sibu town. Located at a more "isolated" corner of Jalan Lanang, this cafe only available for dinner and supper. Perhaps not many Sibuians aware of its existence.

It is called "Payung Cafe". With the 2 classical look bamboo umbrellas topping the 2 dining tables in front of the cafe and its interior deco plus the soft lighting, this cafe left me with strong ASEAN-culture feel.

As its location is more marginalized from shop houses, the cafe offers a more quiet environment for those prefer a peaceful and quiet dining. Fresh orchids decorating each table with soft music accompanied slow the busy rhythm down and gave the customers a relaxing ambience while enjoying their meals.

It is not fair if I comment too much on the foods served at this cafe as I just went there for some tea time with a friend. Anyway, we were looking for some "light" foods to have something to bite on while chit chatting but the choices were quite limited.

After few round digesting the menu, we finally went for some milk shake drinks which cost RM5 per cup. The cup size was rather small compared with some of the cafes around the town. Anyway, the taste was great with strong milk fragrance. Both of us personally like the taste.

For food, we tried garlic bread with chicken sauce. With only 5 small pieces of garlic breads and some white chicken sauce, it costs RM6. Both the bread and sauce tasted good actually, just the portion is a bit small.

One more thing. You may become donor for the little blood sucking creatures while enjoying your time there. However the shop owner did take some precaution by applying mosquito repellent but that will not totally solve the problem.

Yamcha Time @ Le Ark Cafe & Gallery

Le Ark Cafe & Gallery is an eating establishment located at Rejang Esplanade Sibu facing the Rejang River. It provided a very nice place for those who wish to have a romantic and quiet environment for their dining.

Last night I happened to go there with friends. The purpose we went there was not for foods, but just want to have a good place to sit down and have a nice chit chat as one of my friend is going to UK for further study.

Nothing much to elaborate about the restaurant, but basically it is a double storeys building. The photos can explain everything.

Ground floor:

[Entrance lobby area]

[Non air-cond dining area]

[One of the corner...]

[Some decoration]

[Staircase to the upper level]

[An open air dining area at 1st floor facing Rejang Esplanade children playground]

[Another non air-cond dining space on 1st floor]

[A corner where magazines are provided for customers]

I would say the foods here are a bit pricy. Anyway, it depends on individual acceptance. Some might feel they are reasonable, but I would say it is not an ideal eating place for average income families.

[The colorful menu]

Here are some of the foods and beverages ordered by us.

The ais kacang cost RM4.90. Nothing special about the ais kacang, but it was tasty.

The fries cost RM5.00 with 3 sauces given. They were different kind of tomato sauces I guess.

Other 2 friends ordered ice-blended Cappuccino and ice-blended Vanilla which priced RM8.50 and RM7.90 respectively. Here is the receipt of the night:

Oh ya, another specialty here is you will get accompanied by mosquitoes especially when you sit at the non air-cond area at 1st floor.

Anyway, I would like to wish my friend LSW who is going to UK soon all the best and don't ever forget us when he is there!

Yamcha @ Uncle Dom Cafe

Uncle Dom Cafe is a new eating establishment located at Lorong Chew Siik Hiong, somewhere behind Rejang Medical Centre in Sibu.

I had been hearing about this place from colleagues, therefore I suggested to have a try with buddy of mine. When first stepped into the place, I had a strong feeling of being inside the Ipoh Old Town franchise cafe with old and nostalgic photos used as the wallpaper at one corner. These nostalgic photos were purely localized and reflecting some of the Sibu sceneries at old days.

At another corner of the cafe, a giant photo showing a breakfast set consists of a cup of hot coffee and a plate of half-boiled eggs was used as the wallpaper. It gave me the old-town feel again!

Wheareas the wall near the entrance is decorated with colorful foods' photos to stimulate saliva of the customers walking into the shop.

Now come to the foods. A waitress presented us with a nicely printed menu. There were variety of foods and beverages to choose from, yet the prices are rather expensive. I mean the prices are at standard that I used to pay at the similar kind of restaurant in KL. With the income standard average Sibu people earned compared to KL, I would consider these prices are expensive.

After looking through the menu, I finally decided to order a Penang Char Kueh Teow. It tasted good, with wider Kueh Teow fried with some chinese pork sausages, eggs, vege, taugeh and also some small prawns. The portion was quite big and suitable to order if you are really hungry. It costs RM7.90.

For the drink, I went for ice blended chocolate. It priced at RM4.90.


My buddy ordered a chicken chop in black pepper sauce. It came with some beans in tomato sauce, french fries and also caleslaw - typical western food set combination. The chicken chop not really tasty, maybe because of the chicken quality. This set costed him RM8.90. He also ordered a cup of ice blended chocolate.

At the end of the day, this is the bill... with 5% of service charge added to the bill, the total amount is RM27.95 for 2 persons.

While I was busy snapping on the foods, one of the cute waitress sending the food to our table asked me if I did that for blogging. She then told us that she has the same hobby. Hence, I requested for her blog. Without much hesitation, she wrote down her blog address on a piece of paper, but insisted that she couldn't write well.

Anyway, I had read through her blog, not bad really with quite a lot of write up and photos. If you have time, maybe you can pay her a visit at the address shown in above pic.

As a whole, I would say Uncle Dom Cafe is a nice dinning place with comfortable environment and free wifi service despite the food prices might not be acceptable generally by some of the Sibu people.

Yamcha Across Igan River @ Fong Hing Seafood House

The 3 single-available guys - Sparkish, Rojak Toh and me went yamcha again! The idea was initiated by Sparkish and he was kind enough to drive from north to south then back to north again just to fetch us and made this yamcha session a success.

This time, Sparkish was crazy enough to bring us to a restaurant across the Igan river just for yamcha. Actually before this, the idea of yamcha across the river already being suggested by Sparkish for few times, yet because of some unavoidable circumstances, the plan had been forced to cancel.

This trip was not an easy one either. On the way to the restaurant through Igan Bridge, we met an extremely heavy downpour which caused driving difficult. However, after about 15 minutes of careful driving, we finally arrived at this restaurant just at the roadside, Fong Hing Seafood House.

[Outside view of Fong Hing Seafood House]

The seafood house is actually a double-storey bungalow which the owner use the ground floor as restaurant and upper floor is reserved for their own usage, probably for staying.

[The inner view with plenty of spaces]

The space for the restaurant is big and comfortable, yet only around 12 tables being stationed there. Maybe it is because of its location near rural area thus the restaurant owner didn't expect too many customers at one time? Just a guessing, but definitely the space can accomodate more than 12 tables, probably 18 would still be comfortable.

[Menu displayed clearly on wall]

The menu was displayed big and clear on the wall, but mostly are quite heavy foods. It is a good place for dinner, yet not preferable for supper.

For drink, I ordered 3-layer-milktea, one of my favorite drink! Sparkish went for wheatgrass ice and Rojak Toh tried a more special drink, something like lemon plum ice. Not quite sure what is it called.

[Drinks - Special lemon plum ice, wheatglass ice and my favorite 3-layer-milktea]

The 3-layer-milktea tasted quite nice with very thick ingredients added in. However I was not sure if they put in too much of pandan coloring or what, my drink became totally green in color after I stirred it. This not normally happened in 3-color-milktea with pandan flavor. Even my toungue was dyed with green color after I drank it which caused Sparkish and Rojak Toh kept laughing at my ghost-looking tongue!

[My 3-layer-milktea became totally green after stirring]

For foods, Sparkish ordered a claypot fish noodles. Not sure what kind of fish they used for this dish, but overall it looked nice and delicious. However, the box paper under the claypot used as heat insulation a little bit affected my appetite. The claypot fish noodles costed RM8.

[Claypot fish noodles]

Rojak Toh had not much idea what he would like to order as he just took his dinner about an hour ago. After a long thought, he decided to go for more ordinary one - sizzling fried noodles. The noodles looked not bad really, although it was ordinary, but the noodles came with quite a variety of ingredients such as red carrots, vegetables, mushrooms, eggs and some sotong as well! It costed RM4.

[Ordinary sizzling noodles]

My turn to order. Well, actually I was looking for lighter foods as I tried not to further expand my belly! Yet there was no light foods available on the menu. I was planning to consider longer before placing my order, but the big size guy - about 3 times larger than me who was writing the order sounds a bit impatient already. Therefore, I quickly scanned through the menu on the wall and first dish that caught my eyes was this - Sizzling prawn noodles! "Ok, just give me sizzling prawn noodles", I told the giant guy hopefully he won't lose his patient.

[Sizzling prawn noodles still boiling]

When the giant guy was writing the order, suddenly I thought of why not I order Kueh Tiaw instead of noodles as Kueh Tiaw has lower carbohidrate than noodles and that may minimize the impact to my belly. Thus, with scared voice, I asked the giant guy, "Halo... err... can I change noodles to Kueh Tiaw?". The giant guy replied me softly, "Of course you can". Gosh! Scare the hell out of me! Luckily he didn't kick me out! I felt more relief after that.

[Closer look on the sizzling prawn noodles]

The sizzling prawn noodles tasted quite nice with about 5 middle size white prawns, some red carrots, baby corns, mushroom and also fried bean curds. However, I think the white prawns were not fresh enough.

[Look yummy?]

Maybe a lot of you may not know I am "selective allergic" (TM) to prawns just like some people are "selective myso". (If you have no idea why I mentioned about selective myso, just forget about it.. nothing important really). Why I said "selective allergic"? Because I'll allergic and my mouth and throat will feel the itchiness if I eat prawns which are fresh enough. I didn't feel any uncomfortable inside my mouth or throat while eating those white prawns, so I dare to say that they were not fresh enough. Honestly, they didn't have much taste. The sizzling prawn noodles was priced RM10.

[Mini Kailan fried with oyster sauce]

To add more nutricious, vitamins and fibers to our supper, Sparkish then placed a side order - mini Kailan fried with oyster sauce.

Gosh! Those noodles were really big portion and I felt very full after eating it! Felt so guilty for myself and my stomach! To make myself feel better, I tried to convience myself that I didn't eat like this frequently! (I was cheating myself! How fool I am?!!).

Before we went back home, Sparkish gave us a ride to a deeper part of the rural area. We almost fly into the river when we didn't realize we were approaching the end of the road because there aren't any road sign! Luckily Sparkish didn't drive fast and stepped the brake on time. ;p We also accidentally met a Proton Wira parking at the end of the road with some people in there... well I think you can imagine what they were doing at such quiet and dark condition... we guessed so at least... hehehee... what do you think?

Thanks Sparkish for making this yamcha session a succes!

Curry Kampua @ Lane 13 Seafoods Coffee Shop

About a week ago I heard a colleague mention about curry kampua at a coffee shop somewhere near Oya Road. I was quite curious about it because even though Sibu is famous of its kampua mee, but this is the first time I heard about curry kampua.

[Outside view of Lane 13 Seafoods Coffee Shop]

Last night I got a chance to yamcha with a friend at the coffee shop. The shop name is quite unique - Lane 13 Seafoods Coffee Shop. I guess it must be the shop is located at 13th lane of Oya Road.

[Tables outside the shop were fully occupied]

We reached there around 9 something and noticed quite a lot of tables were occupied. We looked for a fengshui table to sit down and just before my buttocks touch the chair, a lady already came over to ask for order. "What you want to eat? Curry kampua?" asked the lady. Now we can assure that we were at the right place for the famous curry kampua!

[The curry kampua taukeh and his helpers]

Without much thought, my friend quickly ordered one as he is a kampua fan (I guess most Sibu people are!). As for me, I was considering.... Don't get me wrong! I am origin from Sibu and that makes me a big kampua fan as well! Just that I was hesitate to take heavy supper because that may boost up my already-rounded stomach!

Anyway, I still go for one. I was too curious how a curry kampua would look like, taste like and why it is so famous! When the kampua reached our table, honestly not much surprise I gained.

[A plate of curry kampua]

It was just look like a normal kampua with some curry covered on it, that's all. Well, at least that's what I feel. The taste? I would say not much surprise as well. If you know how kampua taste, then just imagine you eat kampua and curry at the same time.

[Closer look at the curry kampua]

Anyway, the curry tasted quite nice. It was not hot or spicy, but sweet! The mee is thicker and bigger than normal kampua mee.

Honestly, I am not too impressed with this curry kampua but I doesn't mean it was not nice. In fact it tastes good, just that the way of cooking curry kampua didn't give me much surprise rather than kampua covered with curry.

Anyway, if you never try before, you should have a try! Maybe you will like it as most people do and that may explain why it is so famous! Just like my friend commented, "It was nice. At least this kampua taste diffrent than a typical one that we used to eat!"

[Nice looking glass containing teh-o ice]

The price? RM2.20 a plate. Fair enough right? But the drink cost a bit expensive. A Milo ice and a teh-o ice costed us RM3.30.