Restoran Aminah Arif

Back again with another installment of foodiez~! For starters of this month (other than the crappy article that I posted about tea), we decided to entertain my friend's craving of ambuyat, which is a local Brunei delicacy way back when.

This be the signboard of the store that was said to sell the best ambuyat in town. It is situated in the Kiarong area right beside GT Store (I think that's the name) and slightly beside the building where my hubby works. LOL!

Apparently ambuyat was one of the most famous and most staple of foods back then in Brunei during the WWII area. When the Japan dominated the food supply and most of the locals escaped into the jungle, they basically soaked starch with water, turning it into a gooey substance and hunt or grow whatever they can to be made as side dishes to flavour it up and go with the tehcnically tasteless ambuyat, making it something like a substitute for rice. Since then, it officially became Brunei's local delicacy, though my friend said that there was once a tourist who claimed to say it was the worst local food ever! XD Maybe coz he never came to this place before



This be the interior of the shop. It definitely has a Malay feel to it, and being that the population of people here were Malay, it really makes for the atmosphere. While making and waiting for our order, we noticed that the most gender that dominates this customer group was women! Guess it's true that we are getting more daughters than sons nowadays.


We got our ambuyat scooping chopsticks. It's technically a training chopsticks for beginner users, and I even have some at home that I use to cook instant noodles. Heh.

Our dish has arrived. This is our first side dish, which is a type of acar basically made from raw carrots and cucumbers with chili paste as dipping.

This is the official dipping for ambuyat. Guh! I have to be honest, I didn't like it. It's got a very terrible after-taste and it almost has a durian-ish smell to it. Blergh~! I let my friend have it all.

This is pakis, or fern. Tastes pretty good. It's fresh and crunchy, and the sauce is proven a better dip on the ambuyat than the official dip itself, along with sauce of other side dishes as well. It's been a while since I ate this though. I guess this is really one of those Malay dishes

Mince beef chunks on the house! And mostly the fatty part and the tendons too! Mmm~! Sinful indulgence!

Here's the life of the party: the grand ambuyat itself. It really looked like something we'd see inside those starch glue we saw when we were kids during arts and crafts. The way to get to it is to stab the chopsticks into the goop and twirl it around as you pull it up, almost like what you'd do if you're eating spaghetti, only it's a pile of goo. And speaking of which, it really is totally tasteless, and I am really just eating a pile of goo and the sauce is the ones that makes it tasty. Even real rice has more flavouring than this goo, but it's an interesting experience.

Mmm~! My favourite that I ordered as a side dish to go with the ambuyat, which is kangkung~! Ever since my mom-in-law fell for the story about kangkung having bugs that'll kill you in the gut in forwarded mails, kangkung was banned from the kitchen! My most fav veggie banned from the kitchen~!! GAH~!! And I thought you were supposed to eat all kinds of veggie

Then we have the fish which was also part of the ambuyat official side dish. Tastes pretty good. The sauce seemed like a mild version of the official dip, but tastes more of the sweet & sour kind, though I think they need more salt.

So, if you got a craving for ambuyat or just feeling a little patriotic and want to eat and get to know Brunei's local food, go to this restaurant to have the best.