Lao Yang Cafe 老楊 Kopi 店 ● Pig Friend Dog Buddy Curry Rice 猪朋狗友咖喱饭 ● Miri Sarawak

Lao_Yang_Cafe_老楊 Kopi_店_Curry_Rice_猪朋狗友咖喱饭_Miri_Sarawak

We needed to catch some quick breakfast before getting on our flight from Miri to Singapore.

Restaurant name: Lao Yang Cafe 老楊 Kopi 店

Address: Jalan Krokop 2, 98000 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

Tel: +6014 991 9817

Hours: 6am - 2pm

Wilson the Mirian brought us to Lao Yang Kopitiam.

It's a food court with many stalls. I made one round to survey the twenty stalls and still had no idea where to start 🤔

Wilson solved our predicament by ordering a random selection from various food stalls. (Maybe not so random 🫢)

I sampled the different dishes but the one that caught my attention was this "pig friend dog buddy" dish. It's called such because it is a random looking mishmash of dishes. (But, maybe it is not so random and there is a logic behind the mix 🤔 )

There's nice and tender poached chicken, tasty braised pork, curry vegetables and the rice was splashed with flavoursome curry and braising sauce. I speculated that this could be Hainanese curry rice.

Well...., there is no reason to second guess and jump to conclusions when we can simply ask the hawkers directly 😬

This stall is run by Khor and his mother Chan 田添英 for around 30 years. The recipes were developed by Mdm Chan who used to work in the kitchen of one of Kuching's clan associations (I can't remember exactly which one but definitely not Hainanese). Mdm Chan moved to Miri from Kuching in 1988.

I asked Mdm Chan if she is selling Hainanese curry rice. She said no. It was her own mix and match from her own experience.

Besides poached chicken, they have soy sauce braised chicken, chicken feet, eggs, duck and also pork belly.

These go well with the poached chicken over rice banjir (flooded) with curry and braising stock.

When Mdm first moved to Miri from Kuching, she was operating in Miri's Hopoh Canteen food centre 河婆饮食中心, hence her stall / dish was known as 河婆咖喱饭 Hopoh curry rice (even though it has nothing to do with Hopoh Hakka cuisine). After handing her stall to her son, the stall became 世扬咖喱饭, named after her son 世扬. Source credit 砂麼東東.

But, Mdm Chan's fans prefer to call the dish 猪朋狗友.

I asked Khor how the name 猪朋狗友 "pig friends dog buddies" came about. It was coined by customers and it got stuck. It sure sounds more memorable and descriptive than "mixed curry rice" 😛 "Pig friend dog buddy" is a Chinese phrase referring to fair weather "friends" who gather only to eat, drink and gossip.

Khor is very proud of his ngoh hiang (fried meat roll of tofu skin wrapping Chinese five spice marinated meat) and he made me one to try.

Their ngoh hiang was indeed excellent. Inside the roll, there's hand chopped pork, prawn, fish and vegetables. The fillings were nicely soft tender with a subtle soft meaty bite (not a minced mash). Flavour was gently savoury with five spice fragrance.