I was in Labuan long time ago last last last Monday if you people don’t know. It was short study trip.

Labuan is duty free = cheap liquor

Was browsing through the duty free shop and I found this little thing.

Its Choya. The label stated that it is a Japanese Plum Liquor. Look interesting enough to try eh?

So I bought the 160ml version. Which suppose to do nothing to a heavy drinker… which I’m not.

That’s RM13.50 for 160ml…

and here is the caps mechanism..

rather slick I must say, It make me go wohoooo…!!! (engineering high)

The taste?

It smell like the Iban’s rice wine but taste more like a sweet plum juice infuse with liquor. You have that warm feeling after a few sip. Not enough to make me drunk though…

but after a few shot later, its a different story..

p/s: no I’m not drunk. I seem to have a high resistance against alcohol.

cheers

Ensabi (this is what the Iban call this vegetable)

at this moment I don’t have any picture of the ensabi, unpreserved that is. I will try to get it after I’m home.

This vegetable is just like the green bayam we see in the market, but the ensabi is somewhat has bitter and sweet (to me) taste. To my knowledge so far, there are three ways of preparing it for consumption. First, just cook it like you cook a bayam, with anchovies, garlic, MSG and salt. Second, the ensabi salad, just mixed the ensabi with some anchovies, add MSG and salt and you are done. Last method, preserved with salt and a little bit of rice to make it sour. This one is more like the preserved vege from China..

And guess what?
My sis and mum flown me one container of it from Sarikei to Sabah. :p
and not to mention the some other surprise in the box…

This is what it looks like after I cut it for easy consumption. Picture was taken using my W810i.

To go with this I diced up some garlic…

*No picture*
To add to that, I add some dried fish (Ikan Salai), also from the box.

To cook it… Also no picture available, but I give you some ideas.

Heat up your wok or frying pan, add cooking oil to your liking.
Add the garlic, anchovies and stir fry them for a while.
Then add the preserved ensabi, stir fry it. use low heat.
Add sugar and MSG to your liking.

The finished product, go very well hot rice.

And not some ordinary rice, its the fragrant red rice from home.

and… some sausage too… I just throw it into the rice cooker :p

This is my lunch, Red rice, ensabi and egg. A very good combination indeed. Unless you are some high class bastard

I really enjoy it, and my GF also like it, she even threat to steal the container full of ensabi

yes you did dear..

(insert your own caption)

We were browsing through the busy market. Just like any other day, the market is busy with people. New fresh supply of vegetable and fruits arrived by the truck load. People shouting here and there…

I was busy choosing some fruits. He came and suddenly say something.

“WTF is that?”
“Where?”
“That… (pointing at something),…. Makcik.. apa benda itu?”
“Keropok dik”
“Kenapa hijau?”
“Keropok bayam, sebungkus RM4”
“Bah… ambil satu”

So he get a pack of Spinach cracker for RM3 -_-“

__________________

This is what it looks like. Green with some yellow. I think they dip the spinach leaf into a flour mixture before frying it.

The size depend on the spinach leaf. It looks great and supposed to give you the “Taste Good ™” impression.

Well… he say it tasted good since he finish the whole packet.

P/S: all events maybe not true but the spinach cracker tasted good.

I was given this Cadbury chocolate by a friend of mine who is studying in Labuan (Labuan is a duty free island near Sabah if you don’t know yet). She handed it over in church, being a forgetful person; I left it in the church fridge for 2 weeks until today.

I’ve stayed in Labuan for 1 year, so I was a fan of this imported Cadbury chocolate. They taste different from the one locally manufactured here and they have more varieties.

It seems that they have changed the packaging.

This one is sourced from Australia. No wonder they tasted great.

The new wrapper design come with Cadbury logo on it.

Opening the foil revealed the chocolate. Malaysia weather is a total chocolate killer.
Let it on the table and it will melt. *sigh*

Just ate a row of the chocolate. Love it, but since I’m not a chocolate junkie, going to give half of it to my gf and share the rest with my roommates.

Cheers.

yet another fun & loving post from Pejalai(TM)

This is the promised dedicated post on Tebaloi. The food that is synonymous with the Melanau of Sarawak. Tebaloi is some sort of a cracker made from sago powder (in shredded form). This cracker is made from the same stuff the sago grub eat.

We start with this traditional method of making it. I assume this Kilang is a family affair.

Relatively the tebaloi start in the blender machine.

With a mix of certain stuff to give flavour, texture, colour and smell. (please refer to recipe at the bottom). This so call dough will go on to the next phase..

Later on the dough was spread evenly on a banana leaf to get the nice thin physic of the cracker. Somehow they only use banana leaf because it is the most suitable material, I was told. Bottle is use to spread the dough on the leaf. That lady can done it smoothly and evenly…

You end up with this.

They put it aside for a moment. I don’t know why they do so. Maybe for letting the dough settle.

Later on they bake it over this traditional style oven. They have mangrove wood as fuel, I believe this wood give a very stable and consistent heat as it burn away. This is the first baking phase.

Half way through the baking the tebaloi is taken out for cutting. At this stage the tebaloi is still soggy but manageable. It is cut into small pieces (almost the size of ½ A4).

Another shot of the pre-baked tebaloi. Still soft..

The cut tebaloi then go through it’s final baking process. This is where it get the crunch. Actually it’s more like smoked not baked. *noticed the cylinder to vent out excess smoke?

The finish product is weight and packaged. Ready to ship out.

Next we visit yet another Tebaloi factory with a modern twist.

Located not far from the traditional one. This one is under Jabatan Pertanian.

Actually they do the same thing here only they use industrial type machine to process the tebaloi dough.

See the same dough…

They have this huge electric baking oven to bake the Tebaloi to perfection. They use production line concept to mass produce the tebaloi. Taste the same… but you will not smell the smoke on the tebaloi.

So for those who is adventurous enough, try your hand on making one. Below is a pamphlet given by the factory. It contain instructions to DIY your Tebaloi.

technorati tags: Mukah, Food, Tebaloi, Melanau