Thankfully, we didn't have to wait for long and we got our table almost immediately. The first thing that came to my mind was, "No way, I'm going to eat rice at 10am in the morning!" But after surveying the other tables, it was quite apparent that we were going to have rice for brunch...So we proceeded to order the restaurant specialties...
(Left to right from top)
Fried Lala in chillies and tauchu (fermented bean paste)
Shark Meat fried in black soy sauce
Mudskipper fish fried with tauchu (fermented bean paste)
Shark Meat, Fishball and Preserved Vegetable Soup
Bitter Gourd fried with eggs and dried shrimps
Grand total for the meal (incl. of drinks) = RM55!
Overall, I felt that the meal was a bit too heavily laden with tauchu and was a bit on the dry side but it was nice to have the soup to neutralise the whole taste. The mudskipper had too many bones for my liking but other than that it was a good meal that felt very home-cooked with love by Grandma.
The challenge we had there was more of the locals (2 tables in fact) who took a fancy of watching us, 3 girls, trying to finish 5 dishes. For a good 30 minutes, they took the liberty to discuss and gave a "live" commentary on our progress of finishing our food. Honestly, it was pretty amusing as they thought we did not understand Hokkien, but we did! Finally, I think we impressed them by polishing our plates right up to the gravy. *take that, hah! don't look down on a girl's appetite!*
After that very eventful meal, we decided to head for some coffee to wake our full and lazy selves. We found an old school coffee shop which seem to have what we were craving for - local coffee and cham (coffee + tea)
As you can see from the look on our faces that this was our first coffee for the day and we are, lovingly, coffee addicts...oh happy, happy, joy, joy!
Satisfied and mildly buzzed from the coffee, we made our way to the paddy field to do a little exploration and trying not too act too much like a tourist who has never seen a paddy field. That was kinda hard, considering that only tourists would go and see the fields instead of going to work there! Having said that, the views at the fields were pretty awesome and somewhat invigorating.
Tucked away in the corners of the paddy fields, we found an orchard which bore fruit of the season - mangoes and papayas.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to take many pictures while we were there as my fellow roadtrippers forbade me to! Well, I guess they had a fair reason as when we walked into the orchard, all the (male) workers stopped working and started to talk to us by asking our names, where our boyfriends were and if they could have our phone numbers! Talk about being bold! Being at the fruit orchard was way creepier than being in a dodgy Chow Kit road night club! If you can spot the topless male in the pic above, he was the boldest and offered us free fruit for our numbers...errm...no thanks! We quickly paid for our mangoes (which were super tasty, I might add) and went on our merry way out of the orchard!
With all that, we had such a hilarious ride back home recounting our adventures for the day and our run-ins with the Sekinchan folks. Having said that, we know that they meant no harm and it was all in good faith, in other words, they were (super) friendly!
Merpati Adventures, Over & Out (for now)
