Kota Kinabalu is a funny place – not funny “haha,” so much as, “that’s funny… Where’s the rest of it?” There is very little charm to the city (unless you consider aggressive four yr olds charming, in which case you should read my earlier post), but there are more options for food than there are paintings in the Louvre.
When we returned from Kinabatangan, we had a day to kill before meeting up with Kim, a former colleague and old friend from my London days, so we did what Rich and I do best: we ate.
The great thing about Southeast Asia is that the economics of food means that experimenting is ALWAYS an option. When some unfamiliar morsel costs less than a dollar, there’s very little risk; if you don’t like it, it hasn’t exactly cost you a week’s salary. With this in mind, we set out and began finding out what else KK brings to the table.
Our mission started on Beach St (aka Concrete Block) where we had a three-layer coffee and a three-layer tea. One layer coffee/ tea, one layer condensed milk, one layer of complete mystery – dark syrup of some sort. Rich’s tea was so sweet that he may be able to keep his dental hygienist in business for an extra couple of years; mine was so strong as to be almost unpalatable (keep in mind I am not normally a huge coffee drinker but I’m growing to like the sweet sort made in SE Asia). Combine the two, however, and for the next ten sips I was in three- (or is it now six?) layer coffee/tea heaven. By sip #11 my belly ached like a child’s after too much Halloween candy. Part hit,
mostly miss.
Next stop: Butterfly Bakery, its windows full of interesting-looking little bits of yeast-based creations. We opted for a spicy chicken floss bun and a pandan pastry. Let the games begin. Before buying, we were already familiar with the concept of meat “floss”: you salt and/or season it (making it savoury, not sweet – an important note for later), dry it, and then shred it so finely it looks like a tangled mess of ginger hair from a barber’s floor. So that part of the bun was all good. The part that turned out to be the surprise was the jelly holding the floss on the bun. Sweet jelly. And quite a bit of it. Taste buds totally and completely confused, I decided that the jury was well and truly out on that one and was unlikely to return any time soon. On to the pandan pastry.
Before buying it, I asked the shop employee what “pandan” was; it sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. When she answered, Rich heard “beef”, so he bought one cello-wrapped pastry about the size of your palm and bit into it. Enter confusing food item #2. Only one of us heard her correctly, and it wasn’t the person eating the pastry. She didn’t say “beef”. She said “leaf”, which I registered as soon as I heard it because pandan leaves are often used to wrap food items that are going to be steamed. The green filling wasn’t only not beef, it wasn’t very good, either. Miss. Still, we weren’t down a dollar in losses yet. Time for the next tidbit.
We wandered through the mall (Malaysians LOVE shopping, apparently) and came across a fast food-type shop selling Japanese takoyaki. What’s takoyaki, you ask? Well, maybe we should’ve asked that, too. They resembled those Timbits-on-steroids bits that I enjoyed in Kuala Lumpur, making them look pretty tempting. I knew they couldn’t be sweet because I was reasonably certain that the employees were squeezing Kewpie mayo (the kind used in sushi) and spicy chilli sauce on top of the balls. They looked interesting enough to make us stop, and we ordered a little “boat” of three. Leaving the counter with our box – or boat, rather, despite the box not really resembling a boat – in hand, we paused briefly.
“So, what’s in these?” we asked the server.
“Uhhhh… Octo..puss.”
Our resulting laughter confused her, no doubt. I tend to avoid things with tentacles; Rich tends to avoid mayo. We bought something with both. Awesome. Much to our mutual surprise, Rich liked them and polished all three off, minus a couple of bites so I could try them. Mostly hit.
We made our way down the waterfront, sans child bullies, all the way to the far end, where we found a hawker booth selling “soto ayam” – chicken soup, we were told. Two bowls, two iced lemon teas, two seats in the shade so we could escape the sun and catch some of the breeze blowing between the buildings. Our bowls arrived, filled with clear salty broth, rice noodles, chicken and some token bits of foliage, along with little calamansi limes and bowls of sliced chillies. Add a little of both of the accompaniments… et voila! A lunch time masterpiece. Definite hit! Finally.
Our food adventures for the day also included brown sugar cakes that we think may have been fried and then steamed to a rather gross-looking state of rubbery deliciousness (Malays clearly don’t subscribe to the notion that we eat with our eyes as much as with our mouths), a reddish-brown sugar-crusted oblong doughnut that turned out to be filled with glutinous “cake”, and a tube of steamed tapioca (wrapped in pandan leaf, I suspect) that I bought because I like tapioca pudding and thought it reasonable to want to try the root in a different form. We all make mistakes sometimes. I’ll stick to pudding in the future. Hit, miss, miss.
When it came time to meet Kim for dinner at the seafood market across the street from Lavender Lodge, we knew that the crabs were to be avoided and, after a prolonged chat and bargaining session with a waiter who had NO idea what kind of night he was in for, we stuck with old favourites: prawns and fish – in this case, chicken snapper (although I suspect there’s no such fish as chicken snapper). Both hits. Although, the fish came with a mysterious gelatinous substance sitting on the plate. Turns out its the roe sack. Mmmmmm…. Roe. Chalking that one up as “have to be local to have any hope of enjoying it”. We had a great time catching up with Kim over a very messy meal and some drinks with a lovely pair of Germans Kim met on her travels in the country.
We ended up in KK for a bit longer than strictly necessary, but the food was an entertaining – if not always tasty – way to pass the time. We headed for the airport the next day to catch our flight to Kuching, our bellies as full as our packs, our hard drive and one memory card resting comfortably at the hotel. Wait. WHAT?! Yes, indeed, we got to the airport and had 45 mins to spare when I realised that I’d left Rich’s hard drive, my memory card and reader all plugged into the guesthouse computer. Fortunately for me, the staff are exceptional and, by the time we called to see if a taxi could be sent to the airport with our valuables, they had already found them, called a taxi, and sent our stuff on its way. Needless to say, those ladies are treasures!
Grateful for: a strong stomach; the fact that most Malaysians speak at least some English, giving us some hope of knowing what we were eating; Lavender Lodge ladies
