EMPURAU SARAWAK, (Tor Tambroides), mahseer, Wan Bu Liau, 忘不了

 EMPURAU, (Tor Tambroides), mahseer or in chinese "Wan Bu Liau (忘不了)" 

means Unforgetable, only obtained it's name few years ago. The name Empurau, originally called from Sarawak's native people. Initially some West Malaysian chinese had translate it directly "Enn Bu Lau", with no much meaning :"Red Not Old". That time this fish only worth of good value in Sarawak, especialy among the businessman and tycoons in Sarawak. Because of it's popularity, many people would give themselves a chance to try on the fish at least once in their life time. It's happen when a group of Taiwanese Christian, being invited for a lunch of the valued fish. Then, when they go home, they cannt remember the fish name but recall the fish with chinese charactor "Wan Bu Liau". This few years, many people had use the name with slang similarity in chinese charactor and ease of remembrance of the fish name.

That's a batch of good empurau.....

The empurau's flesh and skin is cutted a bit to be cooked to check the grade of the fish....

After the fish are cleaned properly, all the empurau were QC piece by piece to separate between the spoilt, loko (hard skin) and good quality aromatic smell fish. Only then, the fish are label with sticker as indicator for their grade.

                      That one is one of the example of "Loko" or Hard Skin fish. The fish normally become loko or hard skin because of getting old. This piece of fish is graded as "B" fish. There are still no picture for grade "C" fish, which is hard skin and hard flesh. Although, the fish is very hard, some of the famous cheft cook manage to cook it and become a finest dish. One of the way is cook as curry fish. For them it is a good way to gain more profit because price for loko fish is cheaper compared to the normal fine fish.
                       The "Loko" fish normally is very thick skin. For a expert eater, some time they prefer this loko fish because it's skin have some thing to be chewed, the thick and sticky skin means high in collagen. The flesh of the loko fish are also very sweet and tastefull simply because it's  a matured fish.! You wouldn't find this in a normally fine fish.

For inquiry, you can e-mail me through tangkieongkuc@yahoo.com.