The "sea treasure" which have ingredients like starfish, some kind of reptile skin, seahorse and many more ingredients I can't identify.
And this is the demo jar showing you what it will look like properly done. Eew.
And these cute turtles are not in a pet shop but is in the seafood area of Wal-mart. Kinda sad when I think about it.
And of course, Wal-mart do have normal seafood like crab. What's interesting is that they are tied-up in some form of seafood straitjacket so they can't pinch people... but that is no fun, I'll love to see someone got pinched lol.
As you can see, Wal-mart have an amazing array of dried meat. My mother would really love this. One thing about Teochew people is that they love this kind of salty food especially salted fish, salted egg and salted vegetable.
Wal-mart also have an amazing selection of ready to eat local food and I actually bought some(more on these later) and queued up on this long line for the 9.90 yuan black pepper chicken. When so many people queue up, it must have tasted very good... but we ran out of patience 30 seconds into the queue and left hehe...
Bought half-a-jin of these (roughly 250g) dumpling. The last time I went to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, I fell in love with dumpling especially the fried version. So I'm curious whether the Nanning's version is nicer. It turns out, Nanning's dumpling smell really great and the taste is much more complex than KK's. In the end, it is good but I still prefer KK's. My friend that introduced me to the wonderful world of dumpling would certainly be glad to hear this. He is very proud of KK's food and think it is the most superior of all Borneo. Kuching's people would certainly disagree lol. What I think is, why compare these food when each city's specialty is different. Let's compare food that we all have like Italian and Japanese Cuisine. If that is the case, Brunei is the best! LOL.
Let's go back to Nanning's food. This picture here is Wal-mart's barbecued "lion head" meatball (half-a-jin). I have observed it under different angles and different lighting conditions and still don't know why it is called by that name. Maybe I lack the imagination of a Chinese poet. As for the taste, the flavour is intense and it leaves a very strong aftertaste and slightly too salty. That night, I can't finish my half-a-kilo of supper so I have to throw them the next morning... hey it not my fault, I don't know any Chinese measure smaller than jin and I don't know the Chinese word for gram... I don't really read the signs hehe.
Since I mentioned supper, these 2 cup noodle are my supper for two nights. They are all from Wal-mart and purchased on the first night there, just in case. Its 2.50 yuan each making them cost around 50 cents only. Seriously I would pay several time more for them because they are very very delicious especially the ginseng chicken flavoured one. Of course, we should not have too much of this stuff since they are very unhealthy.Now let's move on to Parkson. Parkson's supermarket is smaller but they have some pretty interesting things on sale like pearl, freshly out of the oyster (yup they have unopened oyster with pearls still inside, sorry no photo), Chinese paintings and one thing that astonish me is that they sell over-priced Olitalia Extra Virgin Oil (encased in a glass showcase), which is the cheapest olive oil in Bruneian market. But of course the best thing about Parkson is that they have more ready-to-eat food.
Don't they look delicious? One thing I noticed is that many of the food have chilies and there are a lot of "kimchi" type of food. Those people in Nanning really love spicy food. Wonder what food they have in Sichuan that is so famous for spicy food? Raw chili, fermented chili and chili puree?
When I was in Parkson, I have a sudden craving chocolate and head for the chocolate section. When I reached there then discovered they have a pitiful selection of chocolate. This is all the chocolate they have in Parkson. I can't even find Cadbury. Brunei in contrast have so many chocolate that this shelf shown above would only carry 15 to 20 percent of the chocolate in a typical Bruneian supermarket and mini-marts would occasionally carry more chocolate than Nanning's Parkson. Maybe this is why 99.9% of the Chinese I saw is slim. The "curse" or "blessing" of chocolate deprivation.
Nonetheless, I still bought a chocolate made in China. I actually expect it to be not that good, that because I have tried many Swiss, French, Belgian, Australian and British chocolates which are superb. It turns out that this particular brand taste pretty good, not as nice as those from the aforementioned countries, but much much nicer than Malaysian chocolate. To tell the truth, the worst chocolate I have tried is a New Zealand brand. Yuck! Good thing I have people in the house to finish it. My favourite chocolate now is a Swedish brand commissioned by the Royal Swedish Family. The Dark Chocolate with coaco bits are simply delicious.
I bought this Coca-Cola Zero from a convenience store selling imported goods and they even have the same Pringles that we have from here, the ones made in Mexico. About this Coca-Cola Zero, it is a new formula said to replace Coca-cola Light. It has no sugar and calorie but taste exactly like Coca-Cola Classic. Or so they claimed. I bought this and after examination, found out it is manufactured in Hong Kong (one of the few test market I assume). I tried it, and it just taste different. Still pretty much like Coca-cola Light and less like Coca-cola Classic. Its all just marketing hype. I'm a marketer, I know. It no biggie. Stick to Coca-cola Light.So, this ends the China series and I'll move on to a post I always wanted to post up since Ramadan, boy, I miss Ramadan. Maybe after that I'll post something about Miri to make up for the what seems like anti-Malaysia rant.
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