<b>Kuching</b> Waterfront and Top Spot Food Court | The Food <b>...</b> |
- <b>Kuching</b> Waterfront and Top Spot Food Court | The Food <b>...</b>
- Sleepy <b>Kuching</b> ( Malaysian Borneo) | Our Adventure
- 15 teams expected for <b>Kuching</b> volleyball tournament – BorneoPost <b>...</b>
- Urban Sketchers <b>Kuching</b>: Sketchcrawl - September 2014
| <b>Kuching</b> Waterfront and Top Spot Food Court | The Food <b>...</b> Posted: 16 Oct 2011 02:31 PM PDT After a brief rest and shower, I take this photograph from the window near the lifts near my room on the 16th floor. Our group meets in the hotel lobby and then we're off on a walk along the Kuching Waterfront. Dinner time approaches.  Another view of Kuching from another hotel window For those who don't speak Malay, "kucing" (pronounced "koo-ching") means "cat", which is why Kuching is sometimes called "cat city". There are a number of cat statues and sculptures around Kuching. This one at the grassy area next to the waterfront is my favourite. I didn't make it to the Cat Museum but hope to next time, when I return to Kuching with Jac.  Cats sculpture The Kuching waterfront is approximately 1km, dotted with stalls and adorned with colourful lights that are switched on when it gets dark.  Kuching Waterfront There are stalls selling popcorn, noodles, burgers and hot and cold drinks – but we are drawn to the rainbow of colours at a layer cake stall.  Layer cakes for sale There are free samples to taste, with flavours such as lemon, chocolate cheesecake, Milo, strawberry and pandan. They are as sweet as they are colourful. To be honest, I can't really tell the difference in flavour from one piece of cake to another. But I love the bright, pretty coloured layers of sweet, moist cake.  Layer cake samples All along the water's edge, people line up to board boats.  Lining up to get on a boat  Boats on the Sarawak River This grand building by the Sarawak River is the New Sarawak State Legislative Assembly Building.  In the photo below, the skyscraper second from the right is our hotel – the Pullman Kuching. The wide building to the left of the Pullman is the Hilton.  Top Spot Food CourtFor dinner, we're off to Top Spot Food Court. It's an open air, partially undercover food court located on the top level of a multi-level car park. Look for the big red prawn with TopSpot in neon letters! If you have read my previous post featuring Fairy Cave, you can probably guess what I'm thinking when when I see this…  Top Spot food court (on the roof of a multi-level car carpark) Yes – OMG, MORE STAIRS! After climbing to the top, we walk into a spacious dining area. Some diners are clearly tourists like us but most look like locals, which we take as a good sign. Staff move briskly to deliver steaming plates of food and to clear dirty dishes from tables. It smells delicious here.  The stalls are numbered and lit up with luridly dazzling neon signs.  Dazzling neon signs Every stall has an abundant display of fresh vegetables and seafood, some on ice and some still alive and swimming in tanks. You select what you want, choose how you'd like it prepared and with what sauce, and it's cooked to order for you.  Fresh produce at Top Spot food court At every stall we see gleaming glassy eyes and shiny scales. It all looks gloriously fresh.  Fresh fish at Top Spot food court – choose your dinner!  Fresh fish at Top Spot food court – choose your dinner!  A staff member selects prawns to give to the kitchen to cook for a customer A few of us notice the enormous prawns with huge spiky bright blue "claws" and are keen to try them. But what else to have? There are so many delicious ingredients everywhere it's hard to decide.  River prawns After walking around the food court looking at all the stalls, we settle at No.33, Ling Loong Seafood.  No.33 – Ling Loong Seafood The woman in charge at No.33 shows us to a table. She is very friendly and happy to answer all our questions and chat to us about the dishes. We don't hesitate to order some of those magnificent large blue prawns (she tells us they are river king prawns) and ask if there are any Sarawak specialties we should try. She suggests we order midin, Sarawak's famous jungle fern that grows wild in swampy forests. She recommends midin stir-fried with oyster sauce and garlic. None of us have eaten midin before. I really like it. It's more stalk than leaf, with an enjoyable crunchy texture. There's a slight sliminess to these thin curly frond-tipped shoots, reminding me of another green vegetable that grows in water, kangkong. If you ever visit Sarawak, definitely give midin a try – you won't find it anywhere else. There's more midin to come on this trip – stay tuned for a post to come where we cook midin with sambal belacan at a Malaysian cooking class.  Midin (jungle fern) with oyster sauce It seems like every second table has ordered a oyster pancake! The pancake is crispy, thin and brittle and it's hard to break off a piece without causing major ruptures. The clear savoury sauce in the bowl in the centre is loaded with white pepper.  Oyster pancake We order a serving of razor clams with chilli. We have to hunt around the pile of shells to find the rubbery yet tender white clam meat.  Razor clams The claypot tofu includes soft pillows of Japanese-style silky egg tofu, carrots, chunky cut spring onions, Chinese cabbage, straw mushrooms and large black juicy Chinese mushrooms. The garlicky sauce is delicious on my steamed rice and (not sure if anyone notices!) I can't stop drinking it!  Claypot tofu Our giant river prawns are cooked with butter and garlic and smell amazing. They have been sliced in half for easy access to the succulent tail meat. I love how the blue and grey has been transformed to vivid Sunkist orange.  River prawns cooked with butter and garlic We're keen to try some of the fresh fish and order a whole fried snapper in black pepper sauce. The fish is butterflied and crispy, topped with a dark peppery sauce and a sprinkling of chopped fresh spring onion. The teeth of the fish are still intact and I'm sure its eyes are still there somewhere. The skin of the fish is crisp but the flesh is beautifully tender.  Fried snapper with black pepper sauce The drinks sellers come right to your table to take your order, but if you prefer, you can go to them. This stall sells fresh coconut juice served in the coconut shell, but as far as I can tell, ice-cold Tiger Beer is the drink of choice for the majority of the Western tourists at Top Spot that night.  Fresh coconut juice stand It's a fantastic meal and a relaxed, social atmosphere. All around us, families and friends are sharing dishes and enjoying banquets of their own. It's all very reasonably priced, so design-your-own seafood banquets are the best way to experience Top Spot.  At Top Spot food court On every table, there are bottles of soy sauce and chilli sauce, bowls of freshly chopped garlic and chilli, and not napkins, but wet wipes! We see locals putting their prawn shells, fish bones and other scraps directly on the table. Just eat and enjoy.  At Top Spot food court I can't sit still, and after dinner while the others finish their drinks, I take my camera for a walk around the food court. I bump into the friendly No.33 lady, who asks me if we've enjoyed our meal – I assure her we have. She tells me she runs both No.6 and No.33 and is busy working at both stalls. The food court is still buzzing when we leave. There's evidently a lot more cooking and eating still to be done at Top Spot.  Top Spot Food Court, Pullman Hotel in the background Top Spot Food Court Déjà Vu bar at the Pullman KuchingBack at the hotel, we stop at Déjà Vu, the Pullman Kuching's bar, for a quick drink before retiring for the night. It's cocktails all round.  Barman at Déjà Vu, Hotel Pullman Kuching Except for me. I order a Lychee and Pineapple Fizz, a mocktail made with lychee, pineapple juice, yoghurt and honey. It's thick, creamy and frothy and needs constant swizzle stick action to keep it drinkable. It tastes like a Lychee Pine Splice ice cream (if such a thing existed) – my favourite ice cream is a Pine Lime Splice, so this is delicious!  Lychee and Pineapple Fizz After I finish my drink, I'm well and truly ready for bed. When I get up to my room, I find a plate of complimentary buttery cookies waiting for me. It's been a great first day in Kuching. TFP visited Kuching, Malaysia in September 2011 as a guest of Malaysia Kitchen, MATRADE and Tourism Malaysia. I won a place on this trip as part of the Malaysia Kitchen Blogger Summit. More Kuching postsRead the posts in my Kuching Trip 2011 series Where is Kuching, Malaysia?  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sleepy <b>Kuching</b> ( Malaysian Borneo) | Our Adventure Posted: 04 Sep 2014 05:02 PM PDT Afte an overnight stopover in KL we've spent the last 4 days in Kuching exploring the national parks and trying to see Monkeys! There isn't much to write about our visit to Semenggoh nature reserve apart from the advice not to go during fruit season. The orangutans don't come out to feed so there is little chance of seeing them, most guide books say the fruit season is during Nov – Jan but it's actually in August! Never mind, our visit to Boko national park proved more…fruitful! In kuching there are many tour operators offering day trips to Boko for around 220 RM per person, but we managed to get the red number 1 bus there (3RM) entry and return boat (120RM) and return taxi for 5RM. For the day itself we got there fairly early and were lucky to catch a plethora of wildlife within 15 mins of getting off the speed boat ride to the main park! First we spotted the bearded pig wandering around the bins, at first it looks like they've got a tiny face but that's actually an illusion and their face is the whole head on the front!
Then we stopped and snapped a small family of macaques having a morning grooming session…
Followed by a bunch of the famous proboscis monkeys with their beaker like noses hanging out in the trees right on the main route of one of the hikes!
We then followed a trail to T.Paku where there was meant to be a nice beach. To be honest the hike was ok but there wasn't a great deal to see as we spent most of the time looking at the floor so we didn't trip over branches! The beach was nice because it was empty but the water wasn't too appealing so we paid 7RM each to a boatman to take us out to sea and see the sea stack along with some other rocks which looked like they had various faces built into the side. He then dropped us off at the Pandan Kecil beach where we could hike back from an alternative route. We spent a bit of time on this beach first but had to get out of the water as we were getting stung / bitten by the tiny plankton! It was a steep climb to get a great view at the start of our 2.6k walk back… After that it was pretty plain sailing. We didn't see much wildlife again on the trail but did see the proboscis monkeys hanging out by the cafe! They are apparently quite shy so it was nice to catch them so close to the walkway.
Apart from Bako kuching didn't have a great deal to offer. It was meant to be high season but half the shops / restaurants were closed and there was nobody about. We asked a few shop keepers why it was this way and they didn't understand either so it beats me! We did take a little river boat which was nice but all in all I'd say we spent just the right amount of time there before moving on to Damai beach area, blog to follow… | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 15 teams expected for <b>Kuching</b> volleyball tournament – BorneoPost <b>...</b> Posted: 06 Sep 2014 09:47 AM PDT KUCHING: The Kuching Division Volleyball Association (KDVA) will hold an Open volleyball tournament from Sept 26 to Oct 5. Entries are now invited for the event to be held at Sesco Indoor Stadium in Pending. The tournament aims to promote indoor volleyball, unearth new talents and enhance ties among the players. Participation is open to all clubs, societies, schools and universities. The organising committee is expecting 15 teams to participate in the men's and women's categories. Entry fee per team is RM150 and entry forms are available at Kasumi Company at No. 6, Jalan Ong Tiang Swee (Tel no. 082-426499). The closing date is September 24 with the team managers' meeting and draw of lots on the same day at 7.30pm. Prizes will include trophies, medals and cash incentives. Interested teams can contact Andrew Ting at 016-8607338 or Liew Guo Chen at 016-6590388 for further details.  We encourage commenting on our stories to give readers a chance to express their opinions; please refrain from vulgar language, insidious, seditious or slanderous remarks. While the comments here reflect the views of the readers, they are not necessarily that of Borneo Post Online. Borneo Post Online reserves the right not to publish or to remove comments that are offensive or volatile. Please read the Commenting Rules. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Urban Sketchers <b>Kuching</b>: Sketchcrawl - September 2014 Posted: 10 Sep 2014 03:17 AM PDT For this month's sketchcrawl, we got ourselves into the Segu Bungalow. Segu Bungalow was said to be originally built at Kampung Segu which is also known as Kampung Benuk, about 30km from the city at Puncak Borneo, as the last Rajah's as his summer house. But since he hardly had the time to visit the village, when he became the Rajah, he had it dismantled and reassembled – piece by piece – on the hill top along Park Lane in 1936. Museum curators used to stay at this bungalow.   We ended the morning with a show & tell by Louise, who told us stories of the old bungalow, over some morning tea with local kueh & fruits. 
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