Leading the wild into the ways of the man…
Kafe Up2U has such an attention-grabbing name that I had to check it out.
There were not much people around even during lunchtime.
I went for kampua mee since it’s up to me to decide what to eat.
It’s blasphemy to leave Sibu without eating kampua mee. This one
isn’t quite authentic though, it has meat slices instead of char siew,
but at least they use pork fat, which is the orthodox way of making
kampua mee. Vegetable oil is heresy.
Kafe Up 2 U. Nice ring to it, eh?
bing! is billed as a coffee company, similar to the
likes of Starbucks and Coffee Bean, except it’s not a franchise (unlike
what I mentioned in the video tour, my mistake). The front of the
establishment is designed with lots of see through windows to provide
natural ambient lighting and probably to allow the patrons to be seen,
I presume.
This is the real entrance…the door is not on the front of the
bing, but to the alley at the side of the coffee place. It’s a newly
opened venue, located along Jalan Padungan, Kuching, near the SOHO and
Grappa area.
This is the counter of the bing, they offer a variety of coffees as well as fruit juices and tea.
There’s a good crew to customer ratio and the service was good.
the bing also offers a variety of pastries, cakes and bottled drinks from the counter.
Here’s a shot of the interior, the view facing outwards (towards the
front). The seating arrangements varies from comfortable soft couches
to intricate rattan chairs, like this one below.
This is a photo from another angle:
The shot is facing inwards, showing the minimalist decor on the
walls, and the second compartment towards the back where al fresco
seating arrangements are available.
This is the drink I ordered – a caramel doused ice blended mocha (hey, it was a hot day :p).
Here’s a shot of their cappuccino – it comes with a slice of almond biscuit on the side, a very nice touch.
There’s some interesting decors on the tables, a recurrent motif is green bananas. These are not edible, if you’re wondering…
Here’s a video tour of the bing:
Download: bing tour [sixthseal.com]
It’s a great place to relax and have a couple of drinks with
friends…though I can’t shake the association of the venue’s name with
a certain club in The Sopranos.
Chillipeppers is a popular dining establishment here in Kuching. It
serves a variety of food – from local to other fare, and their menu has
a special section dedicated to “Chillipeppers Specialties”, which I
assume are the dishes they specialize in.
I ordered Baked Sambal Sotong with Rice, one of the options in the
Chillipeppers Specialties menu. It was pretty good, done in the
baked-in-a-foil style. It also has a chicken option, which one of my
friends ordered…and I declare that better than the sotong. It both
tastes good though.
The dish is pretty spicy, they don’t hold the chilli, pardon the
pun. That’s what makes it good though, and the spiciness is tempered
somewhat by the lady fingers that often come with this culinary dish.
I had ABC something or Ice Kacang something, and for the life of me,
I can’t remember what that something was. Ah Girl ordered it and it
looked good so I switched my iced lemon tea for it and then I was told
that it’s actually ABC or Ice Kacang something, so I switched again to
that one. It was good nevertheless – hot day.
Here’s a group photo of us. L-R: Huai Bin, Hui Ming (camera shy), Ah Lung, Miriam, Chen Yian (Girl).
Oriental Noodle House is located in Jalan Satok. The name is quite
confusing because it’s staffed by non-Chinese and it seems to attract a
similar clientele. Despite our puzzlement, we decided to patronize the
outlet and check out their menu offerings.
It appears to be a self-service establishment from the interior, but
we were handed menus and had our order taken. I had two noodle dishes
(it’s called Oriental Noodle House after all) and went for a drink called Nestomalt (RM 2.50).
L-R: Huai Bin (me), Daniel, Johnny
This is a photo of the three of us – Daniel is my high school friend
who dropped by Kuching for a short visit and Johnny is also from my
high school and he’s working here.
Here’s a photo of the standard sauce the establishment provides. The
left side contains chilli oil, the kind which comprises of an oil layer
with chilli pieces on the bottom, and sliced chilli in vinegar on the
left. It goes very well with both the noodles I had. Unlike the
emasculated sliced chilli most establishments serve, this one still has
its balls (well, seeds anyway) intact and retains the spiciness.
This is Chicken and Mushroom Noodles (RM 4.50). It was served piping
hot with a delicious flavor base with chicken and mushroom flavors. The
noodles tossed well with the sauce and it was soft and pliable enough
to slurp, just like the way God meant noodles to be eaten. 😉 This dish
has a nice home cook essence to it and is served with a generous
portion of chicken and vegetables. Not much mushrooms to be seen
though. Perhaps they’re on strike.
The second dish I had was the Roast Chicken Noodles (RM 4.50). This
one is drier than the previous dish, and it tasted quite different, but
in a good way. The roast chicken portion was generous and came from a
cut I like – the thigh. The noodles had a basic flavor, but it went
well with the strong tasting roasted chicken. It also came with some
vegetables and great grinded meat, and the final presentation was
dusted with fried onions and fresh spring onions. Delicious…
Nestomalt, which I strongly suspect came from a 3 in 1 sachet (just
add boiling water), is the Styrofoam cup you see on the table.
Hock Huat Chinese Pasty is an odd name for this establishment. They
have a couple of token pastries of Chinese origin but what the stall
really sells is chiffon cakes. It’s the flagship item.
Now, I’m not a big fan of chiffon cakes, coz I used to eat a lot of
mediocre ones when I was younger. However, I decided to try one of
these, since a cheddar cheese chiffon cake does sound rather intriguing.
The proprietor told me they specialize in two kind of chiffon cakes
– cheddar cheese and prune ones. It’s sold in halves for RM 5. That’s
half a cake, enough to fill most people, it went down just nicely for
me.
This is the owner of the place. I think he might very well be Hock
Huat, but I didn’t think to ask. Instead, I asked to go into his baking
space and take photos.
He showed me this large steel bowl which had a lot of oil (or melted
butter) and a tiny sprinkling of flour inside. There’s an automatic
beater preparing this one, which I was told is the first step.
Here’s the important second step – the one that really matters. I
know, coz he told me three times. I think it had something to do with
the indirect heating (double boiling) method. He was very enthusiastic
about stirring the chiffon cake mixture too. This one is the prune
chiffon.
I bought half of a Kraft cheddar cheese chiffon cake for RM 5. It
made me instantly discard my long simmering prejudice against chiffon
cakes. It’s delicious! The chiffon cake is very soft, with a
melt-in-your-mouth texture. The cheese flavors came through just
nicely. I was amazed at how soft the chiffon cake is, it practically
disintegrated when I put it into my mouth. Highly recommended!
Hornbill’s Corner Cafe is a popular steamboat eatery. The steamboat
at this place is not just the soup bowl kind, but the type with a hot
grill flanking it, as is the norm nowadays.
I went there with six other friends for dinner and I liked the
buffet style food layout where you take a plate and pile it up with
whatever strikes your fancy from the many food option areas:
There’s a seafood counter with whole fishes in a variety of
marinates as well as other seafood fare like cuttlefish, squid, clams,
crabs etc.
The meat counter has beef, lamb, chicken, pork and other more esoteric fare like liver, gizzards and so forth.
There’s also all kinds of balls, pardon the unsavory association.
There’s even a vegetable counter where all sorts of greens are
available. There’s also fruits like watermelon. I was surprised at the
sheer options this eating establishment provides.
The requisite sauces are also provided, as well as butter for
cooking on the hot plates. There’s also spare utensils for the clumsy
ones amongst us…I swear I dropped my chopsticks four times that
night…
Finally, there’s also an ice cream bar where you can something sweet to finish off your meal.
This place is usually very packed and business is very brisk…food
gets eaten at a rapid rate and it’s only replenished several times
before they close for the night. The way it operates is that your plate
is tabulated transparently when you go to the food counters and you get
billed at the end of the meal.
What I mean by this is that, it’s not a buffet ie eat all you can
for a set price, but rather, a self service steamboat where the waiters
unobtrusively adds to your bill when you stock up on food. I find that
this is a good system because all this is done transparently. [Edit: My mistake, this establishment is a buffet style bbq steamboat for a set price.]
I loved the place, the ambience is wonderful and the food is great. Do try their marinated whole fish. It’s delicious!
The crabs are good too. Steamboat and beer…mmm…
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Join us!
This is Hot Pot Herbs & Spices Mutton Soup, the newly opened
outlet which caught my attention when I went past during lunch hour.
It’s located in front of Ang Cheng Ho and the signage can be easily
seen while driving down Jalan Padungan. I decided to drop by and sample
their mutton soup just because I liked the sign board so much.
This is the very vivid mascot (of sorts) of the place. It’s a
harmless little sheep in a bathtub. The imagery couldn’t be more
gruesome – the sheep is not enjoying a luxurious hot bath, as its
shower cap would lead you to believe…it’s being boiled alive! You
killed it when you ordered your soup! Yes kids, mutton comes from
sheep, not your local butcher. 😉
The counter of this eating establishment is adorned with sample
dishes from their menu offerings. I opted for their specialty – the
Herbs & Spices Mutton Soup at RM 8. I must also mention that this
establishment gets two thumbs up for being photographer friendly. The
proprietor (photo above) jokingly asked for a copy of the prints since
she noticed me taking photos of everything. 🙂
Back to the ambience, the place was full of the typical crowd of 9-5
workers (except I’m 8 am – 5 pm), it’s common for newly established
outlets to be packed with people wanting to try the latest and
greatest. The seating arrangements consist of mostly 6 person glass
tables, and they were thoughtful enough to leave a Kimberly-Clark
tissue dispenser and a glass ashtray on every table. You won’t be
seeing any unsightly metal flimsy ashtrays or tissue boxes over here.
It’s worthy to note that they do not serve conventional drinks, only
“natural drinks” which includes things like red bean drink, green bean
drink, barley drink and the like. I opted for the barley. The food
turnaround was very slow, but that’s because they cook every single pot
individually as can be seen in the open kitchen. I estimate it took
about 30 minutes for mine to arrive.
The soup can only be described with a single word – divine! It is
spicy and hot and very substantial. This isn’t watered down
broth…it’s (very) hearty soup! I can only imagine about what goes
into the hot pot but I could detect a plethora of different spice
notes, and all of them good. The mutton was generous, there’s much more
mutton than can be seen from the photo, the dish is well worth the RM 8
and it comes with rice. There is a variety of different cuts in the
pot, so if there’s one you particularly favor, it’s likely to be in
there.
Hot Pot Herbs & Spices Mutton Soup. i’m lovin’ it.
I met up with Eric, whom I met through the blog, to introduce him to
one of my friends here. Eric is a Singaporean who flew in to Kuching
for a couple of days and I met up with him for dinner at Hot Seat.
This is Taj Mahal – a rice dish sauteed with curry powder, sliced
onions and chicken served with a sweet mango chutney, popadams and
banana prawn. It was good – the prawns were crunchy enough to eat whole.
We adjourned to SOHO for some drinks while waiting for my friend to
finish work and we ended up talking the rest of the night with him.
Eric was also kind enough to furnish me with some samples of his
product line, which will be reviewed in due time (which is to say very
soon since I drink daily).
I will be going to an event soon, so I’ll have to run.
It’s dubbed a Pit Party and I was given a ticket and a t-shirt by my
friend. All I know is there will be free flow alcohol and that’s as
good of a reason to attend as any. Catch you all later. 🙂
This dry and unbearably hot weather warranted a visit to Snow Flakes
@ Tun Jugah Food Court during lunch hour. I decided on Sour Sop.
Bring me ice! Lots of it. Make haste! I’m burning up…
This is what it looks like – it has dragon fruit (again! w00t!) over
a bed of nice, refreshing sour sop, pineapples and a lime in the
middle. It’s heaven. Heaven, I tell you…
Perfect for a hot day.
This is what one of my co-workers had. I don’t know what he ordered but I’m sure just looking at the photo will cool you down.
Here’s another one, the heat wave made us walk to this oasis. This
place is really good, the snow flakes (a pretentious name for crushed
ice) is milky sweet.
In other related news, I’m now Senior Systems Engineer. I just got
back from work. Go secure that RM 3 million in VC funds tomorrow, team!
Go go go! =D
I went on a site visit today to Choice Deli (Tabuan Laru) and
noticed this particular product on offer…NZ Herbal Lamb Soup. It’s
the plastic containers flanking the bottom left of this photo.
It retails for RM 5.00 per plastic takeaway bowl and it certainly
looks tasty from the photo. However, they didn’t have a spoon (and
neither have I, there is no spoon) so I had to pass this one by.
It was only later that I realized…I could just have drunk the soup
and then picked up the meat with my fingers and eat that. Doh!
I shall return, herbal lamb soup…
…and when I do, you’ll be like…er, lamb to the slaughter
or something. 😉
