Lunch with suituapui at Ming Mei Shi

I had a glorious lunch of braised pork, four emperor vegetables, and buttered prawns with the famous suituapui a.k.a. Arthur a couple of days ago. He suggested either Ming Mei Shi – a Chinese restaurant I haven’t been to, or Payung Cafe and I went with the former. It’s relatively new and one of Arthur’s favorite places to eat so I wanted to check it out.

Ming Mei Shi is owned by the chef of the now defunct Blue Splendor (a famous restaurant in Sibu). Word is, the rent at Wisma Sanyan was raised to levels he found unacceptable, so he opened a new restaurant at a different location.

Four emperor vegetables

This is a dish made with four different types of vegetables – brinjal (eggplant), lady’s finger (okra), baby corn and long beans. It tasted really good and I ate most of it, much to my surprise, since I’m not usually a huge fan of vegetables. It’s the mixture of sticky starchiness in the eggplant and okra combined with the sweetness of the baby corn and the crunchiness of the long beans that did it for me.

Homemade silk tofu

Okay, I don’t actually know what this homemade recommendation is called. It was the special of their day and I wouldn’t call it tofu at all. I hate tofu and this is awesome stuff. It has tofu in it but also surimi (crab meat) and a plethora of other flavorful ingredients all mixed together before being quickly deep fried, creating a very fine and silky tofu medley piece that goes well with the mayonnaise served on the side.

We didn’t really know what it was so we only ordered one piece each. I wish I had ordered more as it was excellent!

Creamy butter prawns

Our version of butter prawns is not deep fried with butter but cooked in a sweet and creamy butter sauce. Ruby Restaurant does this really well but I love Ming Mei Shi’s version too. Arthur preferred Ruby’s but I was rather taken with the sweet butter prawns the cook dished out. Perfection!

Braised pork belly with man tou

This is the signature dish of the place and it’s a huge chunk of artery clogging pork belly. The waitress cut the string binding the porcine goodness and used a pair of scissors to dissect it into manageable pieces. You’re supposed to eat it with the warm man tou (plain steamed buns) as a sandwich of sorts.

It is tender and flavorful, with a thick starchy sauce that goes very well with your rice. I enjoyed this dish tremendously.

I polished off everything – there wasn’t a morsel left when I was done with lunch – a testament to Ming Mei Shi’s delicious culinary offerings. The bill came up to about RM 50 for all that, which is very reasonable for the dishes we ordered.

Just look at this fine specimen of perfectly cooked pork belly! I highly recommend every single dish that we had that day. :D

Ming Mei Shi is located behind Rejang Medical Center in Sibu.

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