‘OMG!!!!! A fresh river fish that cost RM800/kg?????? that is my inner voice shouting inside when I saw the price tag shown in front of the fish tank in one of the restaurant in Kuching, Sarawak. The dearly fished called empurau and only found in East Sarawak upper stream rivers which lives on wild fruits and flowers, the Buah Kabang or Engkabang.
No kidding. Its written there RM80.00/ 100gm.
They look normal thou.... Lucky fishy to be so expensive
My business partner brings me with bunch of his colleague there for dinner and welllll….. He ordered the empurau for us to enjoy. Generous guy and LUCKYYY bunch of us especially ME. The fish weighted 3 kg (RM2, 400.00 for the cost of the fish for a dinner?? Hmmm… he must be making lotsa money here). He is smart in getting the fish cooked in 2 different style- red wine and soya sauce with ginger slice) so we can try different cooking for this fish.
Empurau cooked with red wine. Nice.
I must say this fish is really good. They cooked it perfectly- it is tender and the textured of flesh is amazingly soft. Flavor differently as it has some special aroma mainly due to its fruits and flowers that they eat. I would say this dear empurau died worthy. Heard from my partner that it must be right way to cook this fish or you will lose the sweetness and softness of the texture in the fish and not many restaurants knows how to cook this precious fish. I prefer the empurau which is cooked with soya sauce. The flavors are intense that it brings out the best in the fish. Just put a tiny piece into your mouth and amazingly it melted as soon as it’s inside. I am truly blessed to be able to taste this fish here. Kudo!!! to the fish for having such a good meat.
My favourite for the night. Yumzzz
We had a local vegetable to compliment the fish. It’s called bidin. If you are familiar with paku pakis (fern leaf), bidin is something similar to it but smoother version. It is usually cooked with red wine or belacan here. It makes me wonder for a while, is red wine a popular way of cooking here? I never had fish or vegetable cooked in red wine back in peninsular. Pretty funny way of cooking but absolutely delicious combination. Back to the bidin, we had both type of cooking for it ans I must say I prefer the red wine style. It’s just at the right taste and the bidin can just be eaten at such without having to mix it with rice. Simply luscious!
Red wine bidin
On the table there are also deep fried pork knucker, black pepper deer meat, sizzling bean curd and another specialty of the restaurant- herbal pork rib.
Pork Knuckle with their special made dip sauce. OK but nothing so fancy.
Black Pepper Deer Meat. Tasted bit like pork but more tender. Tasted OK only.
OK! I have to say the herbal pork rib is a total squander. The aroma of the herbal is a bit strong and the soup is just too thick. Worse the pork rib got into the simmer pot too long that those meats are soft. Soft! Too soft! What a waste of this dish.
The total waste pork rib herbal dish. Ewwww.... taste bad!
Well, besides the pork rib everything is good. I had a memorable empurau dish. Niceeee… Slurp!!!!
I had it this fish in Kuching but heard that there is one restaurant in KL, to be precise it's in Kuchai Lama that are cooking this fish as well. Time to keep some $$ and head there later.
XOXO
suz
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