Our Kuching expert buddy Chai 蔡羽 brought us to Petanak Central Market Food Court for dinner.
Petanak Central Market is in many ways similar to some of the larger hawker centres in Singapore where there is a wet market at ground level and cooked food stalls on the upper level, e.g. Hong Lim, Taman Jurong, Chinatown Complex, etc.
Even the layout of the food centre gave me a sense of deja vu like the round tables planted into the floor, the tiny hawker stalls, etc.
But, here they have little stackable plastic chairs instead of fixed stools, and stall helpers still serve your food at your table like in a restaurant. The stall helpers also clear tables. Some, such as the zhi char stalls even come to take your orders at your table.
There are about 100 cooked food stalls at Petanak Central Market. It will more than two weeks to try most of the stalls here.
Petanak Central Market overlooks the Sarawak River. It was raining the whole day when we were here, so the mist shrouded bank across the river looks prettily dreamy. Quite a charming sight really.
My first time here, Chai brought us to Fu Yong Stir Fried which is one of his favourites. The owners are Hakka and their dishes have a lot of local elements e.g. in ingredients used.
There are about half a dozen stir fry / zhi cha stalls here in Petanak Central Market. In Kuching, what we call zhi cha 煮炒 in Singapore is known instead as cha zhi 炒煮. They mean the same thing, which means cook / boil and fry dishes.
These were the dishes we ordered. Handwritten by the lady boss. Total cost was RM126.
We also wanted to taste their fried mantis prawn with chicken eggs 虾婆炒蛋 but there was no mantis prawn that night.
Fu Yong's signature dish, pork belly slices stir fried with terung asam (golden eggplant) 拉子茄炒三层肉.
The main ingredient terung asam was fleshy and sourish sweet. Lemongrass and garlic added their taste and aromas to the fresh tender sweetish pork belly slices. Dried shrimps gave the dish a slight balancing savouriness.
Recipe for this signature dish was inspired by a customer's suggestion.
This reminds me of other food stalls where the God of Fortune came knocking as a customer with a good suggestion 👈 click
We ordered a large slab of fresh ikan kurau (threadfin fish). There's a choice of either steam or fry.
Steam is the safest - less risk of ruining the slightly premium ingredient. Frying I feel brings out the natural sweetness of the fish better but the risk of ruining it is high. But, I trust Chai when he said the chef is good, so we went for high risk, high return 干煎午鱼 fried.
The slab came back well browned outside.
The chef did a good job. The moisture of the tender white flesh was retained and the natural sweetness of the fish was accentuated.
The risk taken paid off well 😊
Chicken chunks stir fried with calamansi juice and dried chili 酸桔鸡腿.
Fish lips soup 魚唇羹. Savoury sweet (chicken) stock starch thicken with soft ingredients like mushrooms and gelatinous fish lips / skin. We love this soup with lots of different soft and subtle soft crunch textures.
Sayur midin fern stir fried with red yeast rice wine. I always treat myself to local vegetables when I visit new places 😁 Sayur midin is soft tender with a subtle crunch to the bite. It doesn't have much flavour of its own, so relies on the sauce or aromatics it is cooked with. With red yeast rice it is savoury sweet.
While we were eating, a man came to sell tofu stuffed with minced meat. Chai bought us one each as he gets the tofu regularly from this seller.
The savoury sweet soy bean tasting tofu generously stuffed with fish and finely minced pork was delicious.
We had a lot of food for three of us.
No problem when the food is nice 🤭
No need to say more 😜
After this we walked over to 34 Kuay Chap stall 🤭 👈 click
Stall name: Fu Yong Stir Fried 福容炒煮
Address: 110, Jalan Petanak, 93100 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia (Petanak Central Market)
Hours: 5pm - 9:30pm (Mon, Thurs off)
Written by Tony Boey on 26 Jan 2024
🎗 To be neutral, I paid for my own food. This blog is powered by voluntary contributions from appreciative readers to Tony Boey Johor Kaki PAYNOW 96888768 in Singapore $.
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