Tuesday, July 29, 2008

To the market...

When I was in Sibu for my holidays, the place which I often visited was the market especially with my dad to buy food for the week. The market is basically the busiest place in town. Its like the only place where there is a slow moving traffic and where you have to squeeze your way through or getting pushed at. The market I am gonna review in this post is Sibu's central market. *Be warned, there are some graphic images in this post so, if you can't bear things like blood or death, please do not read on.*


Central market is the one place where you can still see the old folks hanging out, drinking their coffee or just enjoying the company of others. The food court, located on the first floor serves some of the best local dishes which you can find in Sibu. Trust me, even the Hokkien fried me is totally different than the ones found in Semenanjung Malaysia. Too bad I didn't manage to get a picture of it.

Old folks enjoy their morning coffee with some company.


Sibu Central Market.

Things found at the market....




Chickens and more chickens
And of course the produce by the chickens....



Eggs!!!


Dad buying some Qui Ni (local mangoes only found in the Borneo Islands which are a little bit more sour than mangoes) from a local Iban lady.


Ga na (Ermmmmm.... it looks like olives so some locals call it local olives. HAHA...)


Some herb used by the Ibans for cooking soup.


A local weaving a ketupat.


Local ferns like Paku (not Melieng, different thing but same species)


Bamboo shoots and some local root being chopped up by an Iban lady.





Sea food like fish, prawns, eels, squid.... You name it they got it. Even shark meat, crab and so on...

Fish eggs

And of course....

The all time Foo Chow favorite meat, pork. Yes.. Why do I say so? Because pork fat is one of the ingredients for the sauce used for kampua. For kompia, roast pork is used as the filling. And many other dishes which require pork. I can't remember it all. HAHA..
And guess what I saw dangling at he bottom.


The heart, liver and intestine are also sold.. URGH!





Of course we have the fruit stalls and vegetable stalls.


And I only saw one or two stalls selling Red rice which is kinda expensive in the market right now.

The next part of this post contains some exotic meat found in the market. Ermm. Also, there are some graphic contents and videos so please stop reading after this point. Just close your eyes and scroll all the way down.

Exotic meat found at the market

Biawak meat (monitor lizard meat) Know how a monitor lizard look like before it is chopped up?

Yap... this is it.. A monitor lizard.

Then while I was walking around, my brother called out to me to look at the killing of a tortoise. I know its cruel but through watching, you will understand why we can't eat these kind of meat. Am I right? Well, its the locals who are eating it. Not sure whether it is illegal or not but if you can't take it, please don't watch.





This is no fake. Please understand the cruelty in this act. And yes, all animals (which an be eaten) face this fate. Like our beef, pork, chicken, etc. So in some culture, eating tortoise meat is okay. All I know is this tortoise is a river tortoise and not the endangered sea-turtles.


Poor tortoise. The price for a kilo of its meat is rm35. Now thats expensive. According to the locals, it is very good for the body and our blood circulation.


To a less endangered species of meat, I spotted some sago worms for sell. Not cheap you know. One small basket with about 10 worms costs us rm5. My cousin Leonard dared me to eat one with him so I took up he dare.

Sago worms. Yummy yummy. Big, juicy and slimey.





After the first, I decided to eat another one and this time up close so I can prove that I ate a sago worm.

Watch out for the slime as I bit off the body from the head.

HAHA. I think I can join fear factor after this. Not too bad. Tasted like coconut milk because it eats the bark of a dead sago tree which contains starch and lots of natural sugar. So the sago worm tasted like caramelized coconut milk. Slimey but interesting in taste. It left a distinctive aftertaste though. Like when you drink milk. HAHA. Well, this is all for this post.

Hope I did not disgust you all. Well, its about the market. Don't take the killing too emotionally and hold a grudge against me for I am just showing you what I seen.

More of Sibu to come~~~

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG IS THIS THE POST U SAID I WILL DROOL OVER? T____________T im not scared of the bloody things behind ho i damn scared chicken ok! real life chicken gives me goosebumps T__________________T i cant sleep d T________________T omg popokei sucks T_______________T

Aaron C. said...

Look at the previous post!

Bentuckee said...

Aaron,

Aaron,

Aaron,

... I really love this posts!!!!!!!

And i think that's not a turtle, i forgot what izit called in english. Starting with the letter "T".

JiUaN...... said...

=.=then.....still call turtle lo~if start from T............hehehe~
i miz thaz olive=.= y semenajung here dun sell=.=

Unknown said...

Hi Aaron! I'm an editor at Atlas Obscura, and I'd love to get permission to use your photo of biawak meat in an article we're publishing on the topic. Would that be okay? We would use the photo on our website and to promote the article on social media. We'd of course give you credit and link back to your blog. Please let me know! My email address is samantha.obrien@atlasobscura.com.