Best Bruneian Burger: Ahad's Burger!!

 Look at the dripping juicy secret-sauce from the burger...YUMmmm


Ahad's Burger is back this year together with the UBD Pesta Convo 2010 which has started on September 30th. Why is it called Ahad's burger? It's available only on Sunday? NO!! The founder of the burger is Mr.Ahad? BINGO...that's right! Heard that he had started making the burger since 1982. (It's printed in every on his banner) I think they have trademarked the brand "Ahad's burger" and saw them wearing the Ahad's burger T-shirt. Wow? I know right.

• there you go, the banner saying home made daily and since 1982. got this picture from ahad's burger facebook.    

What makes Ahad's burger so YUMYUM and special? It's known that the burger patties( beef and chicken) are home made. And, most of all the burger sauce which is also known to be the "secret homemade sauce" really complements the patties that makes one feel like swallowing the whole burger. The sauce is very juicy and rich, tasted similar to BBQ sauce. The burger used to be only sold in KB and hungry fans of the burger have to travel all the way to KB to "tapao" for it. Now it's available in UBD! What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

*the menu and price also taken from Ahad's burger FB. The price is affordable, in fact, cheaper than the other bruneian burgers I bought.

 

Where to get Ahad's burger?
Pesta UBD 2010 (30th sept - 13th Oct)
CLT, in front UBD library
10.30am-5.30pm

In case you want to try but can't make it to UBD, you can get it after the convo at Sumbangseh Beribi every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Ice Ice...

It's interesting to note the difference of how a Bruneian and a Malaysian (which agrees with the Singaporeans) that when we posed the question to define the abbreviated form of A-B-C.

ABC in English or north Asian culture will be Ice Shavings or something similar.

So when we ask the following people to define the abbreviation.... : -

1) an elderly Bruneian male/female

"What does A.B.C stands for?"
"Aiis Batu Campur" (Ice block mixed)

2) to an elderly Malaysian female/male

"What does A.B.C stands for?"
"Air Buah Campur." (fruits and water mixed)

Why is it that the Bruneians refer to the Ice Shavings delicacy as ice blocks (for the form is hardly block-y, although it was 'shaved' from big chunks of ice)

On the other hand the Malaysians refer it as Air Buah (fruits and water) for explanations which are so obviously obvious.

This shows that possibly it was the Malaysians that brought this delicacy to us back in the early days. But us locals kinda mixed up or changed the words a bit from "Air" to "Aiis" (ice) and "Buah" to "Batu".

Why Roti John is called John but not James.

One of the popular bread snacks favored by the Singaporeans, Malaysians and especially Bruneians, it is "Roti John."

"Roti John" nowadays has different names associated to it according to their size and ingredients.

Let's take the example of a bed.

The smallest version, for example ; the cradle is called Baby John. Obviously because of the smaller shape (although the ingredients remains the same according to the preferences of the customer).


Single bed for the single at heart (or otherwise) is the standard and typical size for the regular Roti John, simply refer to as Roti John. Amusingly enough Roti Johns are sold at a price affordable enough for bachelors who has a tight issue on their savings. Which means having dinner with Nasi Katok as the main course and consuming the Roti as the appetizer isn't a new thing.

A queen-size bed version of the delicacy is called Mama John. The biggest version is, as you guessed it,
Papa John. 

There are a number of varied stories as to why Roti John, a Malay snack, has an English name attached to it. Although, if one is to be precise about Grammar here, the food should be called "John's Roti" or any other corny sounding name.

The story goes like this.

Back in the early days, there was this foreigner (and no, his name is not Sir John Jeremy Jabbolah) went to a stall. He requested the cook to make him a simple snack ; bread with omelet in between. Seemed like the customer favored the chef's first try of the request and has then been seen frequented the stall each tea time. Since the cook didn't really file a patent for the snack, people just call it plainly Roti. But there's many Roti in the menu so they add "John" because of the foreigner/customer who always bought it. The locals didn't really know his name so they use the name "John" for it was one of the typical English names back then.

The story behind Kueh Puteri Mandi and Biliks....

Coming soon...   I need to find that certain book. urgh... where the hell did I put that book.

EDIT : Ah... That blasted book seemed to have been blasted away by someone blasted enough to blastedly burn it with the rest of those blasted disposables....

Without a proper citation, we apologize. For the tale behind the traditional delicacy, "Kueh Puteri Mandi" can only be presented here in the form of summarised short text based from memory. Aurally passed down by a sleepy grandmother to her granddaughter who was suffering from insomnia. The irony of telling stories to enable the child to sleep. The Kueh hardly resembled a woman taking a dip at her jacuzzi. So why is it called a bathing-princess-sweets? We can analyze the delicacy in a symbolic way. First of all, to make the sweet, one needs to have flour rice in glutinous form. Molded into the size of a ping pong ball and then made a deep dent at the center to insert the sugar. The sugar can vary from Malacca sugar or white sugar. Roll the balls into a pot of boiling water and then scoop them out to be rolled around in a bowl of grated coconut.

Here we can say that the symbolism played here are : -

Ball of glutinous rice with sugar inside = Princess
Grated coconut - the bath tub

The elders can't really explain why the Kueh has to be painted in green. They just dismissed it as a decorating thing.

And here's the story behind the naming of this sweet. You could say that it's just a random fairytale which doesn't really relate to the Kueh at all.


The story began about a Princess who likes to take daily baths at her tub full of milk. She believed that bathing with milk instead of water will whiten the skin as well as making her prettier. Vain.


One day, the King decided that his only daughter is grown up enough to wed the nearby prince. Problem is the Princess, like all tragic heroines from similar situation like hers, doesn't want to be married. Yet. 

However it's a marriage which will be advantageous to the kingdom and the Princess was forced/persuaded/bribed/begged not to flee the castle and just be a docile bride-to-be.


On the wedding day, when the wedding ceremony started, at the last minute the princess finally ran away from her groom and the shocked Tok Imam. The guards and maids ran after her and the last time they saw her, she entered her toilet bathing room. 


None of the palace workers find her, she simply vanished. But one maid realized that the princess's favorite bath tub is full of milk. And the milk has bubbles bubbling around the rims...


It was assumed that the princess fled away... but others speculate she drown herself and became milk herself.

It may sound like a foolish/sexist/total-escapism tale to adults, but for a young child. The open-ended ending does made one feel creeped out. Is this part of the reason why one of us became lactose intolerant?

So back to the Kueh. We established that the Princess is the round glutinous rice (with gula inside). Then that means that the scrapped coconut insides are like the bathing 'milk' from the story. In Malaysia there's varieties of Kueh Puteri Mandi now, some called Kueh Puteri Sebilik (Princess with two rooms) and Puteri Dua Bilik (Princess with two rooms) which hardly resembles a sweet with two beds or something).

History of Nasi and "Katok".

We all use/read Wikipedia.com so that we can sound smart. So here's a little trivia (although most people know these facts, so should we just call it a known fact?)


Knock knock, who's there? Nasi Katok
 
Katok is actually "ketuk" in the Malay language, and it means knock. There is a story behind the name Nasi Katok. It was begun by a couple of teenagers who were feeling very hungry after a midnight practice. They went to a place where they normally bought their food. This place was actually a residential house, which offered Nasi bungkus (a pack of rice with chicken and egg) even in the middle of the night. At any time you could just Katok (knock) on their door, and the owner will come up with fresh hot Nasi Katok. And that's how it became Nasi Katok. 

Excerpt taken from : http://wikitravel.org/en/Brunei