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Umai is a raw fish dish prepared by the Melanau tribe in Mukah. It's a must try dish if you ever go to Mukah. It's the Malaysian version of the sashimi and is traditionally the working lunch for Melanau fishermen.



Umai is made of thinly sliced slivers of raw fish and served with toasted sago pearls. The popularity of the dish for the fishermen is pragmatic - it doesn't need to be cooked while deep sea fishing and the sago pearls provides the carbohydrates for a filling lunch.



The fish has to be really fresh for umai to be prepared since it's eaten raw. I tried my hand at slicing the raw fish and gave myself a nasty cut to the index finger.



Umai is readily available in the markets of Mukah and it's one of the flagship dishes that Mukah is known for (besides sago grubs). There are two different versions of umai - the traditional umai sambal campur and umai cecah jeb.

The sixthseal.com Guide to Eating Umai



Step 1: Ensure that a reputable umai stall is patronized. The fish needs to be really fresh for raw consumption to avoid uncomfortable conditions like E.Coli and explosive diarrhea.



Step 2: Find a comfortable place to mix your own umai. The ingredients for making umai can all be purchased at the stall and most of the stuff is prepackaged and premixed to the right amounts.



Step 3: Receptacles for the mixing of umai is essential. You would require a plate and a bowl in addition to forks. Sago pearls are eaten using your hand. Empty the raw slivers of fish into the plate. You can opt to retain a small portion of the raw fish for the the other version of umai.



Step 4: Inspect the contents of your umai sambal campur package. It should contain a bag of premixed ingredients essential to the umai experience containing raw onions and chillies. Calamansi limes should also be in the package for the original umai as well as a small packet of salt and the crunchy peanut cookies.



Step 5: Open the packet of crumbly peanut cookies and put it on top of the raw fish slivers. This is the secret ingredient in all good umai dishes that provides the sweet and crunchy texture to the dish.



Step 6: Crush the peanut cookie into a finely grounded powder using the fork. You need the peanut cake to be evenly distributed throughout the dish.



Step 7: Pierce the calamansi limes using a fork to enable a reasonable flow of the juice into the umai. Do not attempt to squeeze the lime without penetrating it with a fork (or another sharp utensil) first. Splash damage is likely to occur.



Step 8: Squeeze the calamansi lime over the raw fish.



Step 9: You need all the calamansi lime juice provided since the acidic nature of the fruit "cooks" the raw fish. I'll explain the scientific principles at the bottom of the guide.



Step 10: Open the small packet of salt and empty the contents into the umai. The salt offsets the sourness of the calamansi lime and makes it sweet.



Step 11: Open the plastic bag containing the thinly sliced onions and chillies and empty it into the plate of umai.



Step 12: Toss the umai with a fork as you would toss a salad. The motions are similar and so are the aims - to mix everything as evenly as possible. The traditional umai is now ready for consumption!



Step 13: The final step is to empty the sago pearls into a bowl for easier consumption. The sago pearls are eaten using your bare hands to go with the umai.



Step 14: Consume the umai with a handful of sago pearls. The umai should be eaten first and chased with the sago pearls for the authentic Melanau umai experience.



Guide to eating umai video

Optional:



There is a new variant of umai called the umai cecah jeb which is dipped into a sambal (spicy paste) concoction.



You're supposed to take a forkful of umai (raw fish) and then dip it into the special sambal sauce and eat it. It's delicious! The sambal really got oomph! Very spicy. I like!



Guide to eating umai cecah jeb video

Caution:



Splash damage is likely to occur even with the proper piercing technique as can be seen on Clare's top. Respect the calamansi lime and it shall respect you. ;)

Explanation:



The calamansi lime has acidic properties that "cooks" (cures would be a better word) the raw fish in the umai due to reasons beyond my understanding. It just works.
The left fork contains the raw fish before the calamansi lime treatment and the right fork contains the slightly "cooked" fish after being marinated in calamansi lime. You can see the difference in the coloration and texture of the fish.
The difference is clear (TM). ;)

Sago worms are eaten raw in Mukah, where it is considered a delicacy of sorts. Sago worms looks a lot like huge, fat maggots with spiny fangs.



The worms will actually bite you if you touch it's head, which is why it's advisable to tear the head off before consuming it raw.



Sago worms are sold live, in packets of RM 5 and you can still see the worms wriggling around in the packet.



The native habitat of sago worms is inside the trunk of a sago palm tree. The worms are kept in the sago flour and picked out and packaged into manageable sizes.

The sixthseal.com Guide to Eating Live Sago Worms



Step 1: Pick a big, fat and juicy worm. Care should be taken to not touch the sago worm's head since it has pincers that will bite you. The pincers are used to burrow into the sago palm trunk so it's quite sharp.



Step 2: Look the sago worm in it's eyes. You're about to pull it's head off and eat it so it's only polite to smile at it before doing so. Worms have feelings too.



Step 3: After the niceties has been done away with, it is time for heads to roll. Grip the squirming worm firmly with one hand and use the forefinger and thumb of your other hand to grasp the sago worm's head and rip it off.



Step 4: Insert the still wriggling worm into your mouth.



Step 5: Chew. Take the time to savor the taste of live sago worms. There is a burst of flavor when you first bite into the wriggling worm from the innards spilling out onto your palate. Delicious!

Caution:



Care should be taken when plucking the head off the sago worm. The innards can cause a bit of Splash Damage (TM) as can be seen with Clare's spaghetti strap top.



Thanks to the friendly people at the sago worm stall in Mukah for showing us the proper way to consume a live sago worm.



Sago worms are delicious! It's a little bit like Pringles, once you start, you can't stop. I ate a lot of the worms with Clare. She overcame the Fear Factor bit and ate a couple of the worms too.



Here's another video guide to eating live sago worms. I took three videos of the process just to get it right. Heh!



Sago worms. Mmm...tastes like chicken! :)

Rojak is a local variant of the fruit salad that is usually served with thick, dark sauce and topped with coarsely ground peanuts. It's a very popular dish for snacking on and Bintangor rojak is one of the most famous rojak concoctions out there, much like Klang bak kut teh. Keing managed to get hold of the rojak sauce from her trip to Bintangor and we decided to make some rojak at Joyce's house.

The sixthseal.com Guide to Making Rojak:

You will need:
Cucumbers
Pineapples
Potato cakes
Tofu
Rojak sauce



Slice some cucumbers into coarse chunks. You can peel the cucumbers beforehand if you don't like the skin. It is important to slice both ends of a cucumber first and use the ends to rub the cucumber - this somehow attenuates the bitterness of the cucumber through reasons unknown to modern science.



The cucumber should be processed to be roughly angular chunks instead of pure circular slices for authenticity. No one slices cucumbers into rojak - slicing cucumbers is better suited to sandwiches and eye masks.



The next thing to do is to heat up some oil in a frying pan. This is for the tofu and sweet potato fried in batter (optional).



The sweet potato slices in batter can be bought from your friendly neighborhood kueh vendor for RM 0.30 per piece. This can be fried (basically reheated) later for the rojak.



The tofu should be fried whole instead of being sliced. This is so the frying process only imparts a certain crunchiness to the tofu while maintaining a soft and sauce absorbing interior when sliced.



Joyce tells me that fried tofu should never be sliced - it flattens the entire thing. The proper method is to cut it using sharp kitchen scissors.



The build up of ingredients should be contained in a large base serving dish for easy tossing and mixing.



Next, the pineapples. Now, dealing with pineapples can be a bit of a prickly problem. This is due to the circumference of  "thorns" on a pineapple (which is one of the naturally occurring Fibonacci sequences in the world). The trick is to slice in an oblique direction down the entire length of the pineapple to cut out the "eyes". The de-thorned pineapple can then be further sliced into appropriate lengths...
(Or you could just do it like us normal folks and get the pre-sliced pineapples)



...and then chunks. Pineapple must be present in rojak despite the hassle involved. It's not rojak if there's no pineapple in it.



The essential ingredient in rojak is undoubtedly the rojak sauce. This is acquired from the famous stall in Bintangor and has a thick, gooey consistency. It's RM 7 for a bottle of the sauce.



Ground peanuts is an optional but highly recommended ingredient. You can get it pre-ground in hypermarkets and other supermarkets or just do it yourself in a food processor/mill.



Heap all the ingredients into the bowl and then add in the rojak sauce to taste. The rojak sauce should completely cover and saturate all the ingredients until it puddles down at the bottom of the bowl.



Sprinkle ground peanuts over it...



...and mix it well. Don't toss it like a regular fruit salad, the pineapples are fragile and would likely bruise. Just mix it carefully, blending in all the sauce into the ingredients.



We also had Coke chicken, prepared by Joyce earlier in the day. It's awesomely tender, the meat practically falls off the bone! It tastes great too. Katherine's mom also cooked some curry chicken, and she brought a pot of it over and made it into a meal.



Here's a closer look at the finished rojak.

I have received a few requests to compile a general list of the techniques (also known as skillz, mojo) I use to create content for my XX Chromosome entry. It has come to my attention that a lot of my readers are curious pertaining my methods of approaching and persuading a female (see synonym chicks, girls) to pose for a photograph to appear on sixthseal.com.

The sixthseal.com Guide to XX Chromosome posts

Approach a.k.a. Target acquisition



This is a very important, and often overlooked aspect of taking photos with strangers, especially girls. Your approach is key, since it's the first impression you make. It helps if you don't look like a stereotypical horny old man or gangster but even if you look like one, there are several disarming methods that can be applied.

Smile

A smile shows your friendly intent and Smashing Pumpkins sang "disarm me with a smile" for a reason.

Confidence



Look like it's the most natural thing in the world to be asking for, without being overconfident, pushy, or overbearing. It's fine to be friendly, but it's not okay to be assertive in situations like this.

Eye contact

Also related to confidence, always make and maintain eye contact when you see someone you want to put in the XX Chromosome category. Never break eye contact first, it's one of the rules of dating and also a cardinal rule in doing this. It makes you look unsure, shy, and even weak, not particularly attractive traits for a male.

Pitch



I tend to introduce myself first, touching the shoulder (the back and arms are fine too, but not other areas) to get the person's attention if she has broken eye contact. I say something along the lines of "Hello, I'm Huai Bin, and I like the dress/uniform/shirt etc you're wearing. You mind if I take a photo of you?"



It is important not to give misleading statements or potential minefields e.g. "I like you" but go for the non-animated stuff e.g. clothes, hair, eyes etc. I noticed that I have never gotten a "No" for an answer if I have already pulled out my digicam. It's this thing about people and handshakes - it's like how you never see someone NOT shake your hand when you've already offered it. It's something of an automatic gesture.

Lead in



Take one or two photos of the girl and then grab a bystander and tell the girl something along the lines of "Hang on a second, I want to take a photo with you too" and give your digicam to a passerby and start giving instruction on how to take shots. All you have to do now is to stand next to the girl, put your arm around her shoulder (optional) and pose for a photograph.

Rejection

This happens, I've had girls says "I really don't like taking photographs coz I look ugly in them" or something along that line. That's not a straight out rejection, the model just needs some convincing, so say something complimentary like "I think you look great, let's see how the shot comes out". Most of the time, they agree.

I've also experienced one or two straight rejections. The thing to do is to take it in stride. Perhaps she's had a bad day, is stressed out or just had an argument with her boyfriend. Don't take it personally. Smile, thank her, and move on. She might be receptive the next time. Always be polite, and chill out, it happens to the best of us. :)

Optional:



If you're single and unattached and you see a lone diner that's to your liking, sit down and make conversation. Who knows what it may lead into? You've gotta eat anyway, so might as well talk to someone while you're at it. Make the most of every day, live it like it's your very last.

Cheers from sixthseal.com and thanks for reading!

Happy Hunting! ;)

The midst of passion, sometimes love bites can occur at visible places e.g. the neck. This is usually not a problem for most of us. There's nothing wrong with a bit of passionate loving going on.



However, it might be a bit of a problem if the hickey in question was done by someone other than your significant other. I would think that your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife would be aware of inflicting a minor hematoma on your neck the previous night, temporarily bursting the blood vessels under your skin. It would be...problematic, to say the least to explain away the love-bite so this is The sixthseal.com Guide to Covering Up Love Bites.

Method: Foundation
(Wrong)



I had thought that using a flesh colored foundation would be sufficient to cover up the incriminating bruise. I got Maybelline Clear Smooth Aqua Gel Foundation in the Sand color (which is approximate enough to my skin color). It didn't work very well. It can cover it up to a certain extent, but it's still rather visible. There is also the need to constantly apply the foundation and it rubs off rather easily.

Method: Concealer
(Correct)



This is the SK-II concealer that is probably meant for something other than covering up love bites. However, I had shared my predicament with Joyce and she kindly lent me her concealer. She told me that foundation does not and will not actually cover up bruises (or hickies) and using a concealer is the proper method of...well, concealing the incriminating mark.



I tried using it and it works like a charm! It completely covers up the love bite. Joyce told me that the proper method of application is to rub the concealer on the love-bite and then using a heated finger (generated by friction from rubbing your index finger against your palm) to dab and pat the offending area.



Joyce is a bit of an expert in these things, being the owner of Envy Health & Beauty. She's my official consultant on things such as these. ;)

Concealer works very well, much better than traditional methods such as rubbing the love-bite (which sometimes makes it even worse). It passed the eagle eye of my ex-girlfriend, who didn't notice it at all...and she has an excellent eye for detail. =D