Kuching Fest 2004 is the annual Kuching city festival which starts
on 1st August 2004. I was there last night with a couple of my friends
and this is the coverage of the event on the first day. The main focus
is on the food fest – that seems to be the most popular one every time.
There are also two videos for download – one with the fireworks display
and the other with two girls singing on the stage.

This is the video of the fireworks display to start of Kuching Festival 2004:

Download: Kuching Fest 2004 fireworks [sixthseal.com]

This is a video of the fireworks display of Kuching Fest 2004 on the
first day. It was good – lasted for about 15 minutes or so and some of
the fireworks were impressive.

The ground of Kuching Fest 2004 is largely taken up by a massive
open air food court. There were numerous stalls offering everything
from Iban Bamboo Cooked Chicken to Taiwan Sausages (with spicy, regular
and sweet options) lining the sides and tables and chairs in the
middle. There is also an indoor and outdoor area for exhibitors but I
did not find that noteworthy, so this will mainly cover the food fest -
the one which everyone goes to Kuching Fest for! :)

The stalls offer a staggering amount of food options and we were
spoilt for choice…so we had a bit of everything. I remember eating
crab claws, yam prawn, blueberry yoghurt, ice cream, nasi kandar,
Taiwan sausages, sour duck, lok lok, roti susu, and something called
“love noodles”. It was a feast!

L-R: Double Dragon Taiwan Sausage stall, Tenggiri + Pork Sio Bee/Mua
Chee stall (delicious), Iban Food stall with tuak (native rice wine at
RM 6), and chicken cooked in bamboo, amongst other things.

Here’s another stall selling Taiwan sausages at RM 2 each. Very,
very nice. It’s much better than the first one. I think there’s at
least 4 different stalls selling Taiwan sausages there.

Briyani Cafe offering different rotis, murtabaks and briyani dishes.

Lok lok!

Ching Chen and their Cinta Noodles.

Mukah Seafood Center was there too. They have umai, a local raw fish dish.

Sausages galore! This is the regular ones though.

Asian BBQ Seafood stall beside a hawker stall selling cha kueh, fried kueh tiaw and other staples.

Richmond Place offering New Zealand Fish and Chips. There are also other franchises like Sugarbun and KFC there.

There is a stall offering Natural Home Made Yoghurt. I was a bit
dubious about this, due to the odd color of the yoghurt. It looked more
like agar agar than yoghurt to me. However, I got one and was
pleasantly surprised.

The blueberry yoghurt is surprisingly good. It tastes like what
proper yoghurt should be and the blueberry adds to the texture of the
yoghurt.

Emperor Dragon Whisker Sweet. It’s those little balls of rolled confectionary.

Batu Kawa’s 1st Sour Duck.

Banana Leaf – offering dishes served on…well, a banana leaf.

Proletarians like us can only dream about seating in this cordoned
off area. ;) The tables are filled with the various stalls offerings
and are for invited “guests of honor” also known as the “I paid RM
100,000 for this Datuk title” club.

The proles had their own eating competition though.

Crab claw with minced chicken and yam prawns. The former didn’t have
much crab in it and but the latter was good – prawns fried with a yam
batter.

This stall offers a novel twist to the standard sweet corn snack – it’s barbecued. The stall beside is Emperor Grill Chicken.

This is an ice cream cone with two scoops of chocolate and corn
flavored ice cream. It’s topped with a wafer, a single cherry and nuts.
Divine.

There are all sorts of culinary delights at the fest – this one is Indon Asam Kari Mee. There’s a stall selling paus beside it.

Here’s another kind of feast – one for your eyes:

Download: Kuching Fest 2004 Stage [sixthseal.com]

This video shows two girls singing the Sha La La song with choreographed movements on the stage in Kuching Fest 2004.

The festival ground was packed – people, people, everywhere. Each
one of them jostling to walk past the mass of humanity that was
present. It seems that Kuching denizens came out in full force for the
first day, don’t expect to park anywhere near the location since the
roads were lined with double parked cars.

It was worth it though – Kuching Fest 2004 lasts for a month, and you won’t be disappointed if you drop by.