Category Archives: Fruit

Nasi Goreng Dabai – Fried Rice with "Sibu Olive"

You’ve heard of Spam fried rice before…but olive fried rice? Well, not really olives but buah dabai – the indigenous “Sibu Olive”. Dabai is grown exclusively on the island of Borneo, in the Rajang River basin of central Sarawak, from the interior areas of Kapit all the way out to Sibu and Sarikei on the coast. It’s one of the unique foods of Sarawak.

Nasi Goreng Dabai - Dabai Fried Rice

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Cat’s Eye Fruit (Mata Kuching)

Another of Borneo’s unique tropical fruit, the Mata Kuching (Cat’s Eye Fruit) is a cousin of the Longan (Dragon Eye Fruit).

Mata Kuching – Cat’s Eye Fruit

Yellow Mata Kuching Cats Eye Fruit

On the day we went to the market in Serian, we found this fruit which we had never seen before. It was round, about the diameter of a dime, and covered in tough, bumpy, leathery, yellow skin. We asked the vendor what it was, and she said “mata kuching”.

“Is it good?” we asked. Oh, yes, she replied. She let us peel open a few to taste. The fragrance and taste reminded me exactly of longan (dragon eye fruit). I thought to myself, why not give it a shot? So we came home with a kilogram of these fruit.

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