Ambuyat

Decided to try some of the local food at Brunei. So we head to a Malay restaurant that served this ambuyat. To me it's like eating glue with meat and vege. But to the Bruneian it seems to them it's staple food from the aborigine... So what the h*ll is this ambuyat? Surf down the internet and manage to find this info...........

Just in case, there are pockets of Brunei people who have no idea what ambuyat is. Look at the attached photo. The one in the middle is it. The ambuyat is eaten or rather swallowed using a two-pronged bamboo stick called a chandas. As it is quite tasteless, it is taken with a sauce made from sour local fruits like binjai (mango like fruit but very sour).

The ambuyat is rolled around the chandas until about the size of a small fist (children’s size preferably unless you got a really big mouth – physically that is), immerse it into the sauce and swallow the whole thing without chewing. Of course, ambuyat is always eaten with vegetables and dishes of fish, meat or prawn depending on your preferences.

Ambuyat is made from pouring hot water into ambulung or better known as sago. Sago is derived from a tree trunk, believe it or not. The trunk of a rumbia tree (scientific name, metroxylon), a family of palm trees such as coconuts, are used to make sago.

The trees are cut down. Then they are stripped of fronds and other coverings before being cut into several pieces. These cut pieces are stripped of their hard bark. The pieces are then scraped or grated by machine onto a sluice.

My bowl of ambuyat...