Thursday 27 June 2013

0 My Top Five Food Encounters in Kuching

The title of this entry could somehow give you the hint that I might be a diet control person, whom always avoiding herself from food, seeing food as the enemy of being slim. As fit as it sounds, I have nothing against food. I love to eat. Why I chose such brutal entry is only because I thought that food are cheaper in Kuching. There's no cheap (or close to reasonable ) food in Sabah that taste decently good. No. There's none. I am quite cruel to my opinion on this because a plate of simple noodle fried with six slices of chicken breast meat could cost you up to MYR6 if you are in a restaurant. Fragrant rice or plain rice served with, few 6-8 slices of steamed or roasted chicken or crunchy three layers pork could cost you up to MYR 6. I don't mean to sound such stingy jerk on food but, I was in shocked to find such rice in a coffee shop in the middle of Kuching only cost MYR3.50. I hope you are shocked too if you're from Sabah. Please act shock even if you don't. Because that could only mean that you are just been there too or I am in the same shoes with you right after reaching Kuching.


Being in Kuching for  four days, none of us had ever complained about food. We were full like all the time and I had gained 2 kg during my stay here! Or perhaps the weighing scale in the apartment went crazy after my son banged it over and over to the floor. He did not do it purposely though neither will I let him do such vandalism act. He was trying to move it around the house so that, everyone can had some sense of how much we consume food a day during the vacation. Poor boy, the scale is too heavy for him hence, it fells off his tiny hands many times. Good intention, huh.

So, I have  came up with my top five restaurants that could serves the best cuisines either of Sarawak or influenced. If you're looking for seafood and crowds for dinner, I would go to Top Spot food court. There were a lot of stalls that served from Malay's , traditional native cuisine, chinese, western and coconut drink as well sugar canes drink.  We had to wait for good 35 minutes to get our dinner ready. No i didn't mistype the 35. It is indeed thirty five minutes. It was a lot of people having dinner here while food price for seafood was reasonable, so it made quite a sense why people are still coming. I mean, the reasonable price combo with good food and wide choices? Who would've complaint about the wait? By the way, I was too afraid that my son would be too tired so, we asked our dinner to be packed and we had it in the apartment instead of eating in the middle of chaos. It was chaos in there probably because of Gawai holiday.
Take away dinner from Top Spot. We ate til we dropped actually. All in the plastic to save water to wash dishes. Yay!
 A famous hang out place that i would suggest for lunch is Kopi O Corner which is situated at Pekan Satok and another one is at Kubah Ria. The Kubah Ria branch was developed into more food court like. We love the ayam penyet  so, we did go to both branch at Satok and Kubah Ria at two different days. However, I wasn't familiar with grilled ayam penyet which you can choose either to have the fried one or grilled one. But, I always go for the unfamiliar one. Taste as good as the fried one, only it taste to almost like the Mang Inasal's BBQ chicken in Manila, only lacking the ulam and sambal while Mang Inasal served it with plain rice and a small bowl of sour soup. They also have the most famous Sarawak laksa but i decided that it is best to hunt for the famous Sarawak laksa  at other place.


If you find yourself hungry in the midst of shopping spree in The Spring malls, head to Food Bazaar food court. Well, basically we went to The Spring just to have lunch here. It is a quite clean food court, I would've given 3.5 out of 5 star rating for the cleanliness. I could understand maintenance for such big place can be really hard. By the way, you could feast up your table with all kind of food , I mean cuisines from all over the world though not everything will taste as good as what you saw on food tv channels. They got Malay, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Sarawak's signature noodle cuisines, Western, Japanese, you name it. They've got it ( almost ) all. Well,  I choose to have my Sarawak laksa here, one has to get it from the Malay corner. It is not something that I have never had. I have my choice of Sarawak laksa back in Sabah but, not having it here , where it is originally came from is like a sin for me. Exaggerated, I know. First glance, I don't really put such high hope that it would taste off way better than I had in KK but, I was all wrong! This Malay corner in this food court served serious GOOD Sarawak laksa.  It has a punch to every taste buds that it was supposed to hit on the tongue. I thought that every ingredients served in the right proportions in a perfect size of bowl. I will foreverly dream about it.

If you craved for taste of Indian, Lyn's Thandoori Restaurant is the place to go.  It is situated right in the center of Kuching and within our walking distance from the hotel we stayed. I never taste beef cooked this perfect. Never! The boss who runs this restaurant was also very nice and friendly and really makes us feels like we belong there. My family and I had the best dinner there. Price also is quite reasonable considering the good food, service and the ambience of the restaurant was all perfect. Shame on me I fell in love with Indian food, especially with the Northern Indian because before this I always thought that Indian food was all about naan, roti canai, papadom , everything yeasted and everything sugary and spicy before that sweetness has to come by. Man, I was wrong. If I were to visit Kuching again, I definitely will find this restaurant first to have my dinnerthough actually Lyn's Thandoori was kinda out of our list to-go-restaurants. But, I am thankful that we chose this place for a dinner during our stay in Kuching. Bravo to Steven. He was actually the one who craved for Indian food after we spotted it when we were walking to a supermarket for some groceries.
You saw only a small bowl of nasi briyani there? The bowl has serious depth and all we could do is ate til you dropped. Steven saved himself from the wrath of fullness by taking the carbs from naan bread. However,  the rice was fragrant and deliciously cooked.

I never taste beef this good. It was so tender that you thought it is going to melt in your mouth. Perfect Bombay beef!

One afternoon after a sightseeing at the Waterfront,it is only natural if we looking for good restaurant to soothe the feet. It was tiring enough to watch every step my son made. He would chase other kids and even turn the spotlight to him from a quite outstanding street musician by dancing around the man. So, back again to food hunting around the  Main Bazaar , it is walking distance from Waterfront actually. Waterfront also had number of restaurants I knew but, we decided to try the authentic Chinese food particularly Sichuan's. The ambience of the restaurant was really calming, with fake bamboo plant at the centre of the shop and the restaurant's staff was also very friendly to us. Friendly and sweet at the same time as the time , we were not charged for a broken bowl. My son accidentally dropped it to the floor when he was enjoying the lotus soup. He felt guilty at that , I felt pity for him.He kept saying, "jatuh...jatuh...."(fell....fell). Well, who can blame a little kid. Even if they were mad, they will only say it at our back.  By the way, I have to apologize for not having pictures for the food from the Life's Cafe . Well, I was uneasy to take photo after that bowl fell to the floor.

After all my food encounters around the town , I think if you're a Malaysian , and going to Sarawak few times or maybe at least once, you know you can't go back to where you belong without "kek batik". These finely layered cake will entice your tastebuds like no other cake. They have wide ranges of flavors and I was overwhelmed by them to be frank. I tasted almost everything there and became undecided of which to buy. Of course  if I could , I would've bought each of every flavors but, it's not possible since I only had 45kg of luggage limit for cargo. And mom had too many stuff to be brought back to Sabah.

There were tonnes of testers here. These are just the one tenth of it. 



Heard of ikan terubuk masin ? Apologize I do not know how to translate it into English. 
 Another great food souvenirs from Sarawak would be the ikan terubuk masin. It was actually a salted fish but they are wet. Not like other salted fish you found in Malaysia, they were usually salted then dried under the sun. This fish can also be found at other place in Asia like Thai but, they said Sarawak's terubuk is the best. Well, this ikan terubuk masin tasted as better as the usual salted fish and actually tasted better! They still have the unbearable smell to most Westerners when they are deep fried but, the tasted makes me addicted to it. I could swallow the entire plate of rice with only this deep fried kinda salted fish and sprinkled with soy sauce.
They generally wrap it individually with old newspaper before packing them into boxes. It was unhygienic I know, so right after reaching home unpacking the boxes, I immediately rinse the fish with tap water before freezing it.
Okay fella. I think I had to stop now and start to mark students' exercises book. I do not really remember when is the last time I handed those exercises to them. Ha ha ha. I don't really know what's better way to end an entry in a better way than this. But, I really hope that you enjoy this entry of food hunting in Kuching and that you will find your way to these great food encounters too when you landed on Kuching.
 

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