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.

Nam Chai Restaurant Bah Kut Teh, Sandakan

Bak Kut Teh, Malaysia's own invention, is where pork is cooked with Chinese herbal soup. There are various styles of cooking. The most popular is the Klang styles where the soup is darker in colour and usually less soup compared to the KL styles.

In Sabah, people will prefer more soup. Ordering extra soup is the most common thing we will do when eating Bak Kut Teh. The style of cooking is a bit different from the one from West Malaysia. Not only more soup, its also milder in taste.

However, Sandakan is one of the popular place for its unique style of Bak Kut Teh in Sabah. The most popular is the white pepper soup base. Not only that, being cooked with seafood also make it unique.

Sandakan's Seafood Bak Kut Teh is cooked using a selection of fresh seafood in white pepper soup base. Customer have the choice of prawn, fish fillet, rabbit fish, fish ball and etc. All are served in individual serving/bowl. Thus, you can either order single selection in a bowl or mix it e.g. fish fillet and prawn.

The seafood being served are not only fresh, they are of good quality too. e.g. big prawn.

If you don't like seafood, they also serve traditional Bak Kut Teh selections like pork ribs, pork belly, pork intestine, pork kidney and etc. Sounds normal but with the white pepper soup base, its something special and worth a try.

My personal preference, I think their cook the best Bak Kut Teh pork ribs. It was cooked at the right timing where the meat is still tender and smooth. Not the over cooked rough type. They also uses only spare ribs not pork bones for soup. That also make it taste better as spare ribs has a smoother texture compared to soup bones.

Another special thing about Sandakan Bak Kut Teh, customer can either enjoy their delicious Bak Kut Teh with rice like normal, or they can choose to eat with noodle. My favourite is rice noodle. They too are cooked with Bak Kut Teh soup.

There are various popular Bak Kut Teh places in Sandakan. One of my favourite is Nam Chai Restaurant Bah Kut Teh situated at Bandar Nam Tung (Tanah Merah).

Bak Kut Teh in Sandakan is served both for lunch and dinner. Please try and give your feedback.

Syn Ming Hing Cafe & Cake, Sandakan

Many Sabahans like to "Yum Cha" or having a drink at coffee shops. Usually around 3-5pm, to have a break or simply building rapport with clients. People usually will go for kopi (coffee), teh (tea) and etc... and most of the time will complement it with confectioneries or pastries like roti kawin (bread with butter and kaya), cakes and etc.

Syn Ming Hing in Sandakan is one of the popular place for "Yum Cha". Located in the city centre, it is popular for its delicious cakes and pastry. Its something like restaurants and cafes standards but served at coffee shop at affordable price.

My favourite is their cakes, especially those with sponge cake base and chiffon, where it very soft and spongy. To my experience, this the place that serves the best coffee shop cakes.

If you want to try, please go before 4pm for better variety as its going fast.

Taiwan Restaurant, Kinarut

Many people does not realise the existence of a Taiwanese restaurant along the way to Papar from Kinarut. When heading to Papar from Kota Kinabalu, there is a small signboard on the right-hand side with the name "Taiwan Restaurant" pointing to the direction of a small junction leading to the restaurant.

Many people when reaching the car park, are surprised with the uniquely simple design of the restaurant. It's an opened concept with no fancy layout, furniture and even without air conditioning. All it has is natural sea breeze as it's situated on the beach front.

Well, anyway, who cares about the design and layout if it serves good food. Well, the serve ONLY good food. Service? No way! Don't expect any good services except good food in this restaurant. Surprisingly, many people are willing to tolerate the type of services for the exchange of good food. One of them is me, myself.

The most popular dishes they serves is the Braised Pork Trotter. Slowly cooked for hours until all the sauce being soaked into the meat makes every bites a sensational taste. Uniquely, it is cooked with pineapple to gives a bit of extra kick in the flavouring. Best served with steamed rice.

If you planned to go and try their pork trotter, make sure you go with at least 4 person; else, the owner will REFUSE to serve you. Reason being you can't finish the big portion and you will waste the food. Funny isn't it? No matter how you argue, or telling them you are big eater, she just won't serve you the amount of food she thinks you cannot finish. That is why I cannot show you the pictures of more delicious food from this restaurant like their popular Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, Stir Fried Fragrance Mushroom and etc.

Well, want to try strange services with good food? Just pay a visit on the way to Papar, Beaufort or Sipitang. Last but not least, I also found their blended chilies are unique too. They added in preserved soya bean in the mixture of chilies.

Lok Kyun Restaurant, Tuaran

During my outstation trip to Kota Belud, I usually stop by Tuaran town for lunch. Tuaran is the town for the popular Tuaran Mee (a hand made egg noodle). Tuaran Mee is not only popular among the locals, many of my friends from West Malaysia, Sarawak and Brunei like it very much too.

Tuaran Mee is a hand made egg flat noodle. The texture is tender and usually fried to covered with eggs. It's usually cooked with simple ingredients like BBQ Pork (char siew), eggs roll, veggies and pork. Some stalls might use a more expensive ingredients like prawns.

Although it's very popular, many people when asked, are unsure of the origins of this Tuaran Noodle (the shop that invented it) because too many people are selling it due to its popularity. However, when one visited Tuaran town, many will be introduced to Lok Kyun Restaurant. It's noodle is hand made by their own restaurant. This restaurant has been visited by Jason Yeoh (Ah Sien), the host of Astro AEC's Taste With Jason which introduce good food around Malaysia. When one visited the restaurant, one can see all the pictures taken with Jason and posters around.

Kudat Yong Tau Foo, Kudat

Most of the Chinese population of Sabah are of Hakka dialect. Popular dishes among the Hakkas includes Ground Tea (Hepo Lei Cha), Rice Wine Chicken, Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetables (Mui Choi), Pig Trotters with Vinegar, Stir Fried Brinjals with Basil, Fried Meatballs and more. Hakka Yong Tau Foo (stuffed bean curd) is one of the most popular dishes not only in Sabah, but the whole Malaysia.

However, there are differences between the Yong Tau Foo we get in West Malaysia and the one in Sabah. The one the get in West Malaysia usually cooked in soup while the Sabah style are braised. I personally prefer the Sabah's braised type as its more flavourful. The bean curd also usually have finer texture.

One of the most popular place to try Hakka Yong Tau Foo is a nameless shop in Kudat. It is so popular that when you ask any Chinese in Kudat to lead you to good Yong Tau Foo, 99% you will ended-up in this shop. This family business has been operating more than 15 years and people usually refer to it as Tau Foo Shop. If the person you asked don't know about this shop, most probably he/she is not a local from Kudat.

Until today, they are still using the traditional way of cooking the Yong Tau Foo; using fire wood. Thus, it gives an extra taste to the gravy. This shop is not only good in their Yong Tau Foo, they also serves good stuffed egg plant and stuffed curry fried bean curd (Tau Foo Pok). The egg plant are braised until it is soft with all the flavours soaked into it. Every bites are full of flavours. The taste of the curry are just nice with the stuffed fried bean curd. One can feels the gravy flowing out from the fried bean curd with every bites.

If you like a variety, the also have other stuffed dishes like stuffed filament sticks, stuffed sausages, stuffed bean curd skin, stuffed wood fungus, egg rolls and etc. usually cooked in soup.

Restoran Wun Chiap, Tamparuli

Everyone heard of the well known Tuaran Noodle & Beaufort Fried Noodle. There is another well known noodle which is as good as the prior two....the Tamparuli Fried Noodle. All these noodles are named after the town where it was originated.

Tamparuli is a small town nearby Tuaran along the way to Ranau and the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, Mt. Kinabalu. There is a restaurant in the centre of a row of shophouses called Restoran Wun Chiap. This family-run restaurant, located next to Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN), is where the famous Tamparuli Noodle originated. There are many other restaurants offering Tamparuli Noodle in their menu, but none of them got close to the taste of its original creator, the Wun Chiap family. Its customers are willing to travel as far as Kota Kinabalu just to enjoy a plate of the original Tamparuli Noodle.

The noodle is hand made and usually fried with BBQ pork (Char Siew), Egg Pork Roll (minced pork rolled with egg, only available in Sabah), eggs and veggies. Sometimes after enjoying a plate, people will order some extra to take-away (tapau) either for their family & friends, or for their own consumption later.

This shop is a must stop for myself everytime I travelled to Ranau for business. No matter where I am heading to, I will stop by to have a plate of Tamparuli Noodle at Wun Chiap. Its a practice since my family brought me there more than 20 years ago.

Have a try and I believe you will never forget the taste! However, please don't go so early as it usually opens late.

Kedai Kopi Fong Seng, Labuan

Labuan is a duty free island where you can get imported products such as chocolates, cigarettes, wines, liquors, beer and many more at a very low price. Some brands you get in Labuan is not available even in Kota Kinabalu. The beers sometimes are even cheaper than soft drinks.

I have to go there to visit my customers every two months. I like the shopping but not the flight schedule. We have to depart as early as 7.05am which means that we have to wake up as early as 5.30am. The flight will take 30 minutes and arrived at the hotel before 8.00am. Sometimes there are no rooms to check-in such an early hour, what we can do is to have our breakfast at the most popular "breakfast restaurant" for salesforce, the Kedai Kopi Fong Seng.

Situated just across the road from HSBC Bank, it serve the popular Foo Chow style dry noodle "Kon Lo Mee". The noodle is originally white colour because it never darkened using dark soya sauce as normal dry noodle do. It just use ingredients such as onion oil and etc for its flavour. However, recently it has started to use dark soya sauce, so we have to special request not to darkened it.

For me, prefer the fried rice noodle with additional sunny egg. I like complement my noodle with my favourite Soup Hati (Liver Soup). The first look will be just a simple bowl of soup. However, when you taste it, immediately the taste of the rice wine will boost your appetite for the rest of it. The soup contains eggs, pork liver and sometimes pork kidney with a dash of rice wine. The rice wine they use is not the common yellow type "wong chau"; its the Foo Chow style "ang chiew".

I don't know how to describe its taste. Just come and try it out!