Restaurant

砂煲伊面 (RM5.00) — This is probably the best Yee Mee I had in KK. There was a period I was so addicted to the noodle, I automatically woke up at 6:30am and be in the restaurant by 7am sharp.

Not kidding.

It’s awesome to have a bowl of hot noodle to start off the day.

“YES! I am energized now! Start to work! Ushhhh!” << I say this to myself every time after I had a great breakfast

Kedai Kopi Xing Wan did a major renovation recently. It used to be a small stall in the corner.

“Do you know the pan mee restaurant at Damai?”

“Which one? the one with the tauke wearing plastic googles wan?”

“Yes, him. The one who never takes a day off”

“Agree. Now he own the whole shop already! 袋他發¹”

Now the restaurant operates in more systematic way.

Make order at the counter > Given a number plate > find a table. You get your own chopsticks.

Food will be served within 5-10 minutes.

Very efficient. I LIKE!!

You can also try 板面, which is their speciality and also favourite of the crowd.

Address:

Ground floor
Lot.18, Block F,
Damai Plaza Phase 4,
Luyang Kota Kinabalu

Business Hour:

7am-3pm daily

袋他發¹ (dai3 ta1 fatt1) — Deserve to be wealthy, in Hakka slang.

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I was invited to LAVA Resto Bar to do a food review, by my friend, Jovy. She’s the event and marketing manager.

“Bing!! Our pub club restaurant place bar serve food liao oh, come do review eh!”

“What?! Your place got serve food? seriously bahh… I thought bar only serve finger food and alcohol? good or not first?”

“We serve main course lo! The chef previously works in hotel, very skillful one. Also, bring some guests over laa”

“Sounds good to me, OKAY I AM COMING!!” <— I am a cheapskate.

And so I went to LAVA to do a proper food review.

Every time I get food review invitation, I usually invite friends to tag along.

PS: Whoever want to join food review with me please leave your comments below, say “Ah Bing you’re very handsome, please invite me to food review next time”. Anyone can participate

I invited Hong Yi to join our dinner. I was fans of her blog and always wanted to meet her in person— since 2 years ago. Finally, I get to meet Hong Yi in person! *happy*

Hong Yi is sporty, outgoing, talented and also very sweet. She just graduated Masters last year.

Whole night my heart beat was like, buk buk buk buk buk buk buk, lol.

Hong Yi also lent me a book, “Sweet Poison” after reading my diet post.

Also, go check out her latest post, the “I love KK” project. Prepare to be inspired.

Hin Ching blogs at KKeats.com and several blogs that he never wanted to reveal, “wait first.. I’ll tell you when it’s on track”.

I hope I can help him in adding more content to his new website KKeats.com so I invited him along. He was judge from American Idol.

Caesar salad (RM10) — The ice lettuces are pre-mixed with salad sauce before placing on plate. The chicken fillets are moist and tender, eggs are chopped finely and sprinkled with dried bacon.

Lots of effort gone into preparing a plate of salad. Love it.

Cream of mushroom soup (RM8) — “Tastes better than Party Play‘s mushroom soup”, according to Hin Ching.

Spaghetti marinara (RM16) — Spaghetti is well cooked. Balance flavour between spiciness and sourness.

This is not tomato based nor cream based that you usually have in typical Italian restaurant. I was expecting a tomato based marinara spaghetti (my favourite).

Worth a try if you’re into new food.

Oven Mojito Chicken Chop (RM17) – Chicken thigh is grilled to perfection, with nice burnt scarring.

Surprisingly the vegetables goes well with the sweet sauce, especially red peppers. Love to bits.

I reckon the potatoes taste better if deep fried than roasted.

Baked Norwegian Salmon (RM26) — The salmon is very niceeeeeeeeee!

The vegetables pretty much the same, only the sauce is different. The cream sauce goes well with salmon.

The salmon still retains the fish oil, every bite I took is juicy-juicy one. Ohhh sangat bagus.

I have to praise the chef for his awesome skill in preparing the salmon. I know how difficult it is to prepare salmon — I personally cooked salmon many times but always ended up with a tough and dry salmon

Caramelise Pineapple (RM8) — I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS.

Bulu kembang when I had my first bite. Go try.

Family with kids are allowed in the pub until 9pm.

Happy hour is from 6pm-9pm.

Live band starts at 9pm.

We were sitting in front of stage, we looked like American Idol judge.

Hin Ching and me were having hard time focusing on their face.. we keep looking at their chest. Hahhahaha. But their performance is really good.

Hong Yi asks, “which one is your favourite?”

“Whoever comes under the spot light looks gorgeous” I replied.

And it’s true!

I immediately text my buddies, “Oi come LAVA Resto Bar, the singers are very sihat!”

I asked Jovy, “Ei, what exactly is resto bar?”

“Restaurant Bar, in short form..”

o.O” no wonder they serve food.

Address:
G-0-7 and G-0-8
Ground floor, Block G, Karamunsing Capital
88300 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Contact:
088-487990

PPS: Jovy don’t want to expose her identity in this blog post, very mysterious ha

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A friend of mine, Don Arthur Sario, recently opened a new Vietnamese restaurant with his wife, Starr Nguyen.

The restaurant is called Origin – Cafe, Food & Lifestyle.

I decided to check it out during the weekend (and put my diet on hold).

Their mission statement is,

To create a cafe with a personal touch between staff and customers.

To offer a less corporate, “anti-franchise” place where ideas and life experiences are exchanged.

Chicken Baguette (RM7) — Don recommended the Chicken baguette since I cannot consume beef, which was among the favourites of customers. The tasty fillings were sandwiched with French bread, and Don added a twist to the bread by toasting it. Brilliant.

The portion is huge, almost like Subway foot-long size. The creamy sauce and tender chicken breast complimented with each other, and dipping the extra sauce makes the bread more savoury.

If you are sandwich lover, you’ll love this.

Don also told us brief story about the food culture in Vietname, how French colonization affected the culture and, hence the existence of baguette fusion in Vietname cuisine.

Dry Rice Noodle RM8 — The konlo mee of Vietname! Don’t be deceived by this photo, there are plenty of beef slices hidden under the ice lettuce. Good combination of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables.

Mix the noodle with extra sauce before consuming — taste salty and mild sweetness, with some fried scallion to boost the taste.

However in my opinion, probably they are serving an authentic Vietnamese way, and is not suited to local taste. I am fine with either way though. I have an easy tongue to please

Fried Spring Rolls (Beef) RM5 — Don also recommended this deep fried beef spring roll. My eating partner, Chris, commented the sweet sauce complimented with the spring roll, but the spring roll itself was over-fried. It would be perfect with shorter frying period.

I guess Chris preferred to cook it the Chinese way, until golden brown and crunchy. Heh.

From my observation, the whole spring roll is filled with beef.. it must be damn nice to be chewing a whole piece of beef with juiciness of the sauce, well that’s my thought la since I cannot chew it myself.

Black coffee (Mai) RM3.50 — Origin offers different types of Vietnamese coffee, all imported from Vietname. I ordered Mai, which taste milder compare to Trung Nguyen, a denser version.

There’s also milk coffee available.

The metal cup on top is a coffee filter, the Vietnamese style, bebeh!!

“Eh Don, if I lazy to wait for the coffee to filter, and wanted to drink immediately, can ah?”

“No, you have to wait until the coffee finished filtering, then the coffee only taste good”

“Har? why so mafan one?”

“This is only to show off jehhh. I will serve filtered coffee next time for immediate consume. Customer can choose”

I prefer this kopi more then Nescafe ones of course.

Origin Restaurant is officially launching the business on April 2011 (from what I heard), so for now the restaurant is still pre-soft launch period. Feel free to communicate and give feedback to Don, he is a cool and nice guy.

You can identify him with a tattoo on his wrist.

Oh also, live bands play at his restaurant too! Join his Facebook group and check the updates there for further information.

Phone
0109318869 Mobile
0168177856 Home

Website
http://www.facebook.com/Origin.vn

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Kin Hwa Restaurant is a Chinese restaurant my friend recommended long time ago. It’s situated directly beside Inanam main bus stop.

The roast duck (燒鴨) and roast pork (燒肉) is very nice. Probably one of the best in KK, in my opinion.

Wanted to blog about this 3 months ago, but decided to test it few more times before posting on blog.

(Actually, laziness is the main reason)

I believe Kin Hwa Restaurant speciality is roast duck, there’s a HUGE picture on the wall — showcasing shiny roasted ducks. Looks succulent and delicious.

The shiny skin is very tempting and I don’t know why.. ^^;

(Shit! my saliva started flowing in mouth as I am writing this)

Errr… roasted duck is on the other side of the plate. My bad ^^;

I ate this noodle for many times. So far, their food standard has been very consistent. Kin Hwa restaurant easily serves the best roast duck in KK.

I usually replace the noodle to flat noodle (扁面), I found that flat noodle has more flavour.

The sifu is very young handsome dude ( *cough* I am not interested in man, mind you). He usually wears a wrist band and baseball cap while chopping the food.

And, again — I don’t know why I have mention it in my blog. I guess I am running out of shits to say, lol.

Don’t be late — I went there around 2pm and everything is sold out.

I learned that the hard way; I ended crying in my room that day. /emo song

If you’re lucky, you can see one dog sits there obediently waiting for the food. I don’t know how frequent the dog goes there, but it’s very interesting

Go try.

And here’s the exact location.

Address:
DBKK No. 7-0, Block C, Ground floor,
Inanam Business Centre,
88450 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

Business Hour
6:30am – 3pm

Contact
013-8562265
016-8410969
Mr. Lo Chee Chung

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