Yu Kee Bak Kut Teh

I found this place through Google Places and Bloggers. The Google Places coordinate on Google Map is a little off and we had a hard time finding the place the first day. As in all Malaysian Bak Kut Teh restaurants, all kinds of Bak Kut ingredients are available with sides of tofu and assorted vegetables. Sadly, the vegetables we ordered did not come. Each of the dishes are presented in small plates and the prices are based on how many plates you consume. The Bak Kut tea has a very strong medicinal taste with a pack of heat to it.  Its very different from those had in Peninsula Malaysia and its a must try for those who visits Kota Kinabalu. Even the Chinese Tea (Tie Guan Yin) was served on a tiny cup and the flavor was foreign to me.  It complements the Bak Kut Teh well. Yu Kee BKT Facebook.

Fook Yuen Cafe

I We took a cab to this restaurant for breakfast and the cab fare were more expensive than what we spent on the food.  This is the sad state of Malaysian Taxi where out of the capital of Kuala Lumpur, metered taxis are almost non-existence or the meter were never used. We later found out that Fook Yuen Cafe has a branch at Gaya Street and we had our subsequent breakfast there. This restaurant offers Bread, Pastries, Toast/Steam Bread with Kaya and Fried Noodle/Rice with assorted sides such as sausages, yong tou fu, etc.  We started with the recommended Butter Kaya toast and Milk Tea (Teh Si).  The Butter & Kaya Toast was better than the steam ones and was much more generous compare to Old Town Kopi Tiam. The Milk Tea need some getting used to. We later develop a liking to it and found that it goes well with oily food where it helps to wash away the oily after taste on some of the food offered.  Fook Yuen Cafe Facebook.

Five Star Chicken Rice

I stumble upon this place while searching for Yu Kee Bak Kut Teh on the first day. This was the brightest lit shop at Gaya Street and with a few patrons. We decided to try it out and was not disappointed. The chicken was very smooth and tasty.  We also had the soup with fish cakes, though it is not the best, it complements the Chicken rice Well. Five Star Chicken Rice Website.

SEDCO Complex Seafood

Can’t come to Kota Kinabalu without trying out the Seafood. We just had to try out one and found this Sedco Complex at Kampung Air, Kota Kinabalu. Coming from Penang (Andaman Sea), we were very interested to try out the local (South China Sea) catch. We tried the 4 dish above, RM50 for Tiger Prawns, RM50 for Sea Crab, RM50 for Rock Fish (with green bones) and Sabah Vegetables fried in Sambal. There were various types of seafood, and since there were two of us only, we couldn’t try all, plus, we were not that adventurous. At Sedco Complex, there were about 3-4 Seafood Restaurants there, with each concurring their end of the complex. Some bloggers said this place is cheap, we thought it was ok and definitely cheaper than the Chinese Seafood restaurants scattered around the city.

Tuaran Mee @ Seng Hing Coffee Shop

On our last day, we went to Seng Hing coffee shop which was famous for it’s Tuaran Mee and Laksa. Tuaran Mee was indeed unique and we have not come anything like it in Peninsular Malaysia. Its yellow egg noodle fried with sausages, roast pork and egg. The laksa or Curry Mee is also unique where it is sour, more like a fusion of curry powder, coconut milk and tom yam. Tuaran Mee comes in Fried or Soup version and it is the most ordered dish among the patrons there. Tuaran Mee from around the web.

We enjoyed our stay at Kota Kinabalu as much as we enjoy the food there. Mostly, the unforgettable Tuaran Mee and Bak Kut Teh marks Kota Kinabalu as one of the Food City of Malaysia.

This is a persistent problem I have with Coffee Bean.  Why can’t they get their tea spoons clean?

On the other extreme, I have never encounter such coffee bitches at Starbucks.  I patron Starbucks in every city I visit and always, never fail, greeted with a smile, friendly voice and always made to feel like home.  I’ve read “How Starbucks Saved my Life” by Michael Gates Gill and finally understood why there’s a smile at the back of every Starbucks counter.  It’s their culture.  Now, why can’t coffee bean be more like them.  Then again, if coffee bean would embrace such cultures, then coffee bean wouldn’t be coffee bean today.  At the end of the day, these coffee bitches are human after all, and thanks to Coffee Bean, they have a job.  If there were no coffee bean in the world, and only Starbucks, these coffee bitches would have been discriminated, or worst being forced into doing someone that they are not.  So, the next time, I encounter these Coffee Bitches, I would just smile, and glad that these bitches are working in the coffee shop and not in my company which I have to deal with more often than visiting the coffee shop.  Maybe they will smile back and dont spit into my food.

 

Windows trash can that is. For a coffee lover, it couldn’t trill me more to have a trash can with the starbucks brand trash can, a constant reminder to get my java to fuel my day…Speaking of starbucks, I was required to travel next week to audit one of the newly setup factory in China. Considering which hotel to stay at, the first thing I did was went to google map, and search for the city’s name. Next I type in ‘Starbucks’, to search for business at the city. To my dismay, the city was not listed in Google map, to have this service, too small, so I stayed in Shangri la ShenZhen without any starbucks near by. Fear not, there are 13 starbucks stores in ShenZhen, a quick cap will do my fix.

Get your trash can here.

Jack Johnson have recently released a new album titled ‘Sleep Through The Static’. Not knowing what that meant exactly, I got the album as I have been a fan of Jack, ever since ‘Thicker Than Water’. His previous album ‘In Between Dreams’ was a little dissapointing. Though he stays true to his music, the catchy tunes were un-inspring and none stuck. This new album on the other hand was much better. Again, the entire album is laidback, perfect to accompany you anytime of the day when you feel like mellowing. A good album to add to your collection or Ipod, Jack is back with this one.

River: The Joni Letters by Herbie Hancock won the 50th Grammy Awards as the Best Album. For winning the best album of the year, I had to get it to check it out. Its Jazz, if you have not known it yet, and extremely suttle. All the songs are 5-8 minutes in length and the entire album will take you more than the hour to finish. i am not an advent fan for Jazz, so the album did not strike me that much. I will let it grow on me, since I only just got it.

These are the highlights of this weekend.

What do one do while the significant half spends hundreds on hair that takes half a day to complete? Well, spend more money myself of course. I park myself at the nearest Starbucks and booted up my laptop to pace across the hot Saturday afternoon. The hairdo is taking 4 hours to complete, and blogging was on my mind. I got myself a mocha and log into WordPress to check for comments. I remembered seeing in the papers that Starbucks was promoting gift cards for the Christmas season, and I made a note to myself to get one. I am one of those junk collectors that loves to collect interesting looking stuff. When I was in the states, I collected giftcards from everywhere possible, not that it worth any money at this moment, I just like the look of it and the joy of admiring the design.

I took out my RM20 and handed over to the cashier, and he handed the card over to me. Hold on, it’s a paper card? Damn, its not plastic. Oh Crap, it expires in Feb 2007. I was disappointed as I expecting a plastic card, where we could reuse again and again, like what coffee bean has. Anyway, the paper card do look nice, and can complement my car collections, if it last the 2 months of usage before expiry.

Can there ever be a quiet coffee shop? From the mamak stalls, to the Kopi Thiam and up to Coffee Bean & Starbucks, there is no peace and quiet. Mainly it is a place for mingle, business, and pure Malaysian style lepak, all these coffee shops are always vibrant with loud customers. This is not only in Malaysia, its the same over in the US too. After all, what could one expects, it is a public place, and a public place is never quiet, only the library I guess…

If you been to the Old Town Kopitiam, you would probably have tried their Kaya Toast bread. Today, I made a startling discovery, the toast butter is just a tiny weeny piece and only covers the side, for cosmetic purpose. From the side, the toast looks great with a huge piece of butter, but then, once open up, its just a butter strip. I was expecting the butter to cover the entire toast, I guess my expectation turned into a disappointment.

The title may be superficial, but this is the observation that I made on my morning romp at e-gate Starbucks. Of the 9 laptops seen in the Seattle’s best, 5 of them were Dell, 2 HP, 1 IBM and 1 Asus.