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!

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.

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 Melainan, Kota Kinabalu

When one talk about Pork Noodle "Sang Yuk Meen", everyone will know Kedai Kopi Melainan in Lintas. There are many Pork Noodle stalls in Kota Kinabalu, and this is one of the popular one.

Pork noodle originated from a town called Tawau and originally cooked with firewood. Firewood cooking usually taste very nice due to the extra flavour from the burning of the firewood (should be). It can be in soup form or dry (gon lou) from the choice between rice noodle (mee hoon), egg noodle (mee) or rice stick (koew teow). The ingredients consist of pork products like the meat, intestine, liver, kidney, tendon and pork ball. It also contains pork dumpling (wonton), veggies and etc.

To judge whether its a good pork noodle, we first aimed at the soup. The soup should be tasty from the pork, not the MSG. Next, we judge the texture of the dry noodle (kon lou). The noodle should not be very sticky and too soft. The sauce they use for the noodle should be able to blend well with the taste of the soup. Next the ingredient used.

Kedai Kopi Melainan is popular in its dry rice noodle. It is well done by not getting noodle sticking together. The soup also tasty and you can see tiny pork meat in the soup from meat boiling.

Another popular dish in this coffee shop is their Stuff Bean Curd (Yong Tau Foo). It is cooked in Hakka style (most people in Kota Kinabalu is Hakka). The texture of the bean curd is very smooth. Next is the Chicken Feet with Mushroom. However, I could not finish the whole things so I did not order this time. Thus, no picture to show you this time. Sorry! I will order in my next trip.

Of course as Malaysian, we like to eat our food with dipping especially chili padi. In Sabah, we like to blend it with other ingredients like garlic, ginger and etc. The result, very hot (due to Sabah chili padi is hotter compared to other region); very nice when eating with pork noodle.

Kedai Kopi Len Sheng, Tawau

Kedai Kopi Len Sheng, situated along Chester Road, Tawau; near the popular old Kuong Ming Book Store, serves the most popular Seafood Noodle in Tawau. One you entered the restaurant, there are 2 popular food stalls in front. The left is selling the Tawau's most popular Mongolian Chicken Rice and the right hand side is the most popular seafood noodle.

The Seafood Noodle comes with 2 styles; dry or soup. You can either choose rice noodle (beehon), rice stick (koew teow) or egg noodle (mee).

Not only there are options for the style of cooking, you can choose the ingredients you wanted to be in your soup too. All are very fresh; anyway fresh seafood is the trademark of Tawau. If you got no preference, you can just have a sit and order through the waitress by asking them to mixed all "campur-campur". If you like to choose your ingredient, you have to go to the stall yourself and they will show your the fridge that keeps all the fresh seafood.

You can choose from fish slice, fish ball, fist cake, prawn, fish maw, fish stomach, fish head, sea cucumber, 8 claw clam (don't know the exact name), fish egg (sometimes), squid, scallop, cuttle fish, dumpling (wonton), many types of shell fish and many more....

However, when you have choose your ingredients, we must stress that we don't want it to be mixed with other ingredients. Else, they will like to add in other cheaper or less demanded ingredients like wonton.

For me, the taste is good and special due to the fresh seafood. However, the standard is not consistence. Sometime too salty and sometimes too much MSG. Anyhow, its still Tawau's all time favourite. Give it a try and let me know your comments!

Restaurant Yu Hing, Kota Kinabalu

If you love seafood and noodle, you should try Yu Hing's Seafood Fried Noodle. Situated at Hilltop, along Jalan Lintas, serves my all time favourite fried noodle.

Not only the taste is unique, it also uses good quality ingredients like garoupa for its slice fish. The prawn and squid are of big ones and fresh. The frying style of the noodle is something like the Beaufort style with alot of green veggies "choi sum". Not only the ingredients are of good quality, the noodle also tastily covered with gravy from the fresh seafood.

Because of its quality ingredients, you are expected to pay a higher price. For me, its worth it once in a while for its great taste. In addition, don't expect very good services; but its acceptable to me.