The culinary adventure of the silver ladies

 The plane landed at Kota Kinabalu international airport on time at 7.10pm but by the time my Singaporean friends reached my garden home with their luggage, it was past 8pm. 

Although I had planned to take them to a seafood restaurant the first night my friends arrived, the fresh, lovely "Basung" fish, I had just bought that morning was calling out to me, So I suggested to them that we dined in on a menu of fresh Basong fish. fried to perfection with rice. I also picked the luscious purple bird's eye chillies from my garden as one of my friends is a chilli lover. 😍

Simple dinner - Fried "Basong" fish served with hot rice😋.

I told my friends that the fish were special because not anyone can get them easily. My neighbour went fishing as a hobby and caught a lot of fresh fish from the sea . One of them were the basung. They were fresh and delicious because  no preservatives were added like those in the market.

Fresh Basong fish before frying.

Luscious purple bird's eye chillies. 

Our list of food to try on this Culinary adventure during the visit:

1. Tian Yuan fish noodles for the bitter gourd fish noodles and fish eggs.

2.Salim Roti Tissue.
3. Tenom Yong Tau Foo.
4. Rojak / Soto at Sri Rezeki.

5. Dami ABC dessert.
6. Uncle Hon coffee shop -Cockles Laksa noodles
7.Sunset Bar Shangrila Hotel Tg Aru.
8. Steam boat with DIY stove.

The next day we started the food adventure road trip in earnest.
The first stop was,  Salim restaurant for the "Tissue Prata" or "Roti Tissue" is how the people here call it.

My Singaporean friend, Amy said it was the tallest Roti tissue she ever seen in her life🤭. 

Next stop on our agenda was the Famous Tenom Yong Tau Foo but sadly the shop was closed. No worries, we still had other foods on our list and replaced it with the popular Jia Siang soup noodle. 

We had the lovely noodles and also the stuffed Tau Pok which we all agreed unanimously were delicious and so were the Fried stuffed Brinjals. Both dishes were fried to perfection, crispy  on the outside yet soft inside. If only we were not limited by our stomach capacity!

Lamb chop at cloud 9 restaurant at kokol hills kasih sayang resort.

 The lamb chop was perfectly done according to my preference and the sauce was so delicious. The fries was so freshly cooked and cripsy. The sunset view was worth all the effort and courage needed to travel up the steep hills beside satisfying our hungry stomachs. 

Ann ordered TomYam with rice.  

Before the last day, we went for"Uncle" Hon Laksa. To my friends, it's not the Traditional Laksa but curry laksa. Thus, the absence of laksa leaves garnish. Anyway the cockles made for it as they were fresh and a good size. She said in Singapore, the cockles are smaller than what we had here.

"Uncle Hon"  Laksa Siham Bee Hoon.

During the short stay in Kota Kinabalu, Ann and Amy also had the chance to taste the very 1st mango produced by the tree in my garden. Ann also managed to harvest the very 1st Mango from another of my trees to take it back to Singapore.😁What a delicious opportunity! We believed that any fruit produced by the tree for the very 1st time , always taste the best. Do give a try and see the difference.

I kept the mango in the freezer before their arrival. 

I suggested Ann to eat the frozen mango directly like smoothie.

Frozen mango .

Ann was so pleased with the frozen mango. She said its so sweet and yummy!

That really makes my day! ❤️

On the last day, we went for Yu Kee bah kut teh at Beverly Hill Jalan Bundusan.. 

Ann was on a Non-meat diet as it was Friday but that did not stop her from enjoying the herbal soup. She loved the tasty braised Tau Pok and blanched lettuce topped with oyster sauce and fried garlic. Meanwhile we ordered meat varieties e.g. Belly, stomach and ribs and each dish came with a set of Tau Pok. 

What Ann had:

Tau pok and lettuce in oyster sauce and rice and of course she had to have here chilli in black soya sauce as a dip. It was a balanced meal as tau pok is considered a protein too albeit second class protein, Anyway she enjoyed her meal as much as we did ours and that was the most important point.

Although my friends stayed in Kota Kinabalu for a week but still could not fulfilled some of the planned food adventure . One of them was the Popular Indonesian Soto and Rojak mee at Sri Rezeki due to fasting month period, the shop was closed on 10th April when we went there.

Due to the time constraint, we also did not manage to try Damai ABC dessert but we found something else just as exciting. It's a dessert too😁.

We happened to pass by a corner shop selling coconut drinks.

Ann, a coconut lover, decided we had to try the Coconut Shake Special. I was game.
The price was Rm 9 but we were disappointed that the shake came with a vanilla ice cream topping. We enquired why it was not coconut ice cream topping? We were told that we need to ask for it and also it cost another Rm5 for the coconut ice -cream.

Question: How can we request for Coconut ice -cream instead of Vanilla ice-cream when we were not aware of the need to do so?

 

A spoon and straw were provided.

First, use the straw to suck all the melted ice coconut shake. It's so refreshing especially during the current hot spell: sure brought much relieve for a while.

When the shake is gone, use the spoon the scrape out the tender flesh from the coconut to complete the "journey".

Even if we couldn't make it for the ABC dessert in Damai, we loved the replacement - the  cooling iced coconut shake. We enjoyed the coconut shake in style especially on a hot day. 😍

Writer: Beckie

Co writer : Antoinette S. 

Reference :

Cloud9 restaurant

Kasih Sayang Resort

Jia Siang coffee shop

TheRoyal Coconut

You Kee Bakuteh 

Salim Restaurant