Mee Sup Pipin

Last Friday I went to have breakfast with my parents and they brought me to a very unique place to try their noodle soup. It is situated in a village along Kota Kinabalu - Tambunan road with only a approximately 10cm x 30cm sign board written "Mee Sup Pipin" on the junction. Upon arrival, I was surprised that the place is fully parked with cars including luxury cars and the restaurant is so crowded. The place is actually converted from a private residence.

At first, they told me the "Sup Tulang" (Bone Soup) is good so I ordered one. At first I though it's the normal Malay style of Beef Bone Soup. To my surprise, it's Pork Bone Soup instead and it's just RM2 per bowl.

If you feel that soup alone is not filling enough, you can order their popular noodle soup with the same soup base. I tried it and found that it's not bad. The base is clear while tasty.

Other than the above, they also serve Pork Tail Soup (Sup Ekor), Stuffed Bean Curd (Yong Tau Foo), Stuffed Egg Plant (Yong Ai Gua), Braised Pork Belly with Yam (Kao Yuk), Wild Bore (Babi Hutan) and etc.

I tried the stuffed bean curd and stuffed egg plant. I like the stuffed egg plant better.


For those who like to try, sorry I don't know how to describe exactly how to get there. However, I managed to get the GPS coordination for those who have GPS Navigation device with Sabah Map. It's N 05° 56.359’ E 116° 05.774’

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Have you personally tried the food?
A. Yes. I have to teste the food before recommend it to readers.

Q. Why some of the pictures looks blur and some even without flash?
A. Most of my pictures are taken with only a 3 Mega Pixel compact camera or a N73 Nokia camera phone. I try to avoid using flash in order to go undercover. Sometimes if the restaurant owner suspected that you are doing review, they might provide you special service to put more efforts to prepare your order. This will result in different taste or service that people usually get from that particular restaurant.

Q. Do you accept advertisement?
A. Yes. Anyone interested can email me at foodsteps.sabah@gmail.com. However, it will only appear at the advertisement column. It won't appear in the review section unless I have tested the food and confirmed good.

Q. Do the restaurant aware that you are reviewing their food?
A. No. I always go undercover to before tasting. This is to ensure I tasted the taste that usually their customers are normally enjoying. However, some good chef deserves a praise; and I will only do it after I paid my bill and about to leave the restaurant.

Q. Do you get to eat for free?
A. No. I always pay my bill. Anyway, I always go undercover.....Where got free lunch in this world? Unless, its on a special invitation (some restaurants do invite food bloggers for food tasting).

Q. How can readers get more information on certain places to eat?
A. Readers can always email me at foodsteps.sabah@gmail.com for more information.

Q. Why you invested so much time in writing this blog?
A. Food is my passion, both cooking and eating. I would like to share it with more people and also to praise those chefs that have put in all they can to provide good food for their customers. Of course I also hope to get some advertisements advertised in my blog.

Q. How can readers help you?
A. Readers can help me by visiting those restaurants I featured in my blog, give their valuable comments and feedback; and also visit my sponsors' site.

Q. You said you like cooking. Why there are no recipe shared in your blog?
A. That will be in my second phase plan. Stay tuned! :)

Kedai Kopi Houng Kee

Kedai Kopi Houng Kee is situated at Damai Plaza, near the popular bread shop "Foo Yuen". They are well known for their mixed fish noodle. Just in case, mixed fish noodle is either noodle soup or dry style served with your choice of seafood like fish slice, fish ball, fish cake, fish maw, fish roe, fish stomach, fish lips and many more... You may also mixed it with other seafood like clam and prawn.

However, I prefer their Tom Yam Noodle more. Although it taste and style is totally different from the original Thai's Tom Yam, I still like the taste. Its very thick and very unique. Hmmm... I will prefer to name it Seafood Laksa Lemak Noodle...hehehe

You can choose to order either rice noodle, egg noodle or rice stick. My choice.....rice noodle. You can mixed it with your choice of fresh seafood...... Enjoy mixing.....

Kedai Restauran Kuo Man

Situated near Sunny Garden, 1.5 Mile of Jalan Tuaran, Kedai Restauran Kuo man serves the most popular homemade fish ball and homemade egg noodle. When someone mentioned homemade fish ball, they are the pioneer that no one are unaware of. Astro AEC's Jason also visited this restaurant for his food series which will be aired around October 2009.

The most popular on the menu will be the homemade fish ball "yu wat". We can safely says that most of the tables will order this item. Usually, they will eat it their popular home made egg noodle.

Usually people will order only noodle "kosong" and separately another dish. For me, I prefer to order noodle with something inside especially fresh prawn and fresh fish fillet; and then order separately a bowl of homemade fish ball.

Also recommended in their menu is the beef slice and beef tendon in herbal soup. Give it a try or else you have never tried a real "yu wat".

Gerai Mei Wah, Tawau

I believe many people heard of Crispy Fried Noodle "Heong Dai Mai Fun". It was done by firstly deep fried the rice noodle until crispy and then poured on with delicious gravy.

What so special about Gerai Mei Wah's Crispy Fried Noodle is that the noodle is deep fried covered with eggs to make tastier. Not only that, the gravy was slowly cooked until you can see small pieces of meat floss in the gravy.

Gerai Mei Wah is located at the Sabindo food strips next to the Tawau-Kota Kinabalu bus station in Tawau. However, there are other stalls that sell similar noodle with different styles of cooking. I still prefer Gerai Mei Wah which is situated at the corner nearest to the bus station. Give it a try and leave you comment. Enjoy!

Confusing Menu

After touching down from Labuan, my friends and I went to a popular restaurant to have our lunch. Looking at the menu, I can't find one of the popular dish in the menu...the Steamed Fish Head in Black Bean Sauce. Then I asked one of my friend and she pointed out at the Chinese Characters which does not translate to what I wanted. As I cannot read Chinese, she double checked by reading out the Chinese Characters to me and suprisingly it's the dish I wanted to order which the English name wrongly transalated to "Black Pepper Steam Fish Head". hmmm.....

After we thoroughly studied the menu, we found more wrongly translated dish names. See if you can regconise it:

I don't have a good English either, however wrong translation here is too much. If will be very dangerous for a person who cannot read Chinese to dine here as the chances of ordering the wrong food is very high. I believe it is very important to get the menu right for all the customers both Chinese educated and English educated.

The Boss Fast Food & Juice House, Sandakan

Sandakan, frequently referred to the town of good food. After few months stopped blogging, today I am going to introduce you, The Boss Fast Food & Juice House. Situated in Bandar Indah, Sandakan, this restaurant serves variety of selection normally served only in restaurant's main dish menu; like Fried Prawn with Salted Eggs; but with single individual portion. Even you go there alone, you are still able to order dishes usually for above 2 person without leftover.

Thus, it is popular among working class who love good food but have limited lunch break.

I have tried a variety of their dishes like Hainanese Chicken Rice, Fried Rice, Fried Noodle, Fried Egg Plants, Fried Prawn with Salted Eggs, Rice with Prawn Omelet, tom yam soup and etc... All reasonably good taste and reasonably priced.

My favourite dessert will always be their Mixed Fruits and Jelly ABC. The crushed ice serves with fresh local fruits combined with jelly and red beans, topped with sweetened milk simply irresistible especially on a hot afternoon. However, make sure to order a "less sweet" or "kurang manis" version unless you really like sweet stuff.

Not much to comment as all food are averagely good. Worth to give it a try.