Tasty Drink House

Tasty Drink House is located somewhere in the heart of town, I have to admit that you will need a sharp eye to spot this shop. It's at a corner, behind Sandakan Foto and next to AIA Building. It's really a small corner, it can be call as a stall not a 'drink house' as it does not provide any place to sit at all. It's like a take-away counter. Kinda hard to notice actually. It's really a small shop that sells drinks and ice cream. They used to sell sandwiches. Not sure if they do now or not. Their sandwiches are superb too.

Vanilla Ice-cream

They usually serve vanilla, rarely chocolate but anyways this is different from you ordinary soft ice cream. I love how milky it is - yeah, just like eating milk ice cream! ><>

Yau Char Kuey/Ham Zhim Peng/Lo Mai Chi

Few of the more famous food in Sandakan..located in Bandaraya Kim Fung Mile 4 pasar/market..actually that market is such an attractive place always full of people eating..most of the best food of sandakan can also be found here :P

Here one of the stall located near one of the corner of the market is famous for selling their delicious hot, crunchy, fluffy and fresh Yau Char Kuey, Ham Zhim Peng and Lo Mai Chi..
These people are constantly kneading, cutting, shaping and frying more and more of these delicacies and it can be interesting to watch while waiting in line to buy them especially if you'vr never watched the process before! they work pretty fast too woo~

Yau Char Kuey / Fried bread stick / 油炸粿
Can be bought and eaten just like that without any filling, or served with porridge (of course, porridge is not provided ^^) or you can try how we Sandakan-ians usually eats it, which is with kaya and planta <3>

Yau Char Kuey with Kaya and Planta

Ham Zhim Peng / Savoury Spiced Fried Bread / 咸煎饼
This is made using 5 spiced powder which is incorporated into the bread in a spiral manner..just like how you would make a swiss roll then cut it into pieces

Crunchy at the outside, Fluffy in the inside <3

Lo Mai Chi / Glutinous rice filled fried bread /
The bread is crispy and fluffy on the inside with the slightly sweet, sticky and chewy center glutinous part. ><

*Im actually reposting/rewritting entries or food that i have reviewed :)

Pasir Putih Seafood Restaurant

Located in Pasir Putih before Ocean King restaurant. Pretty easy to go..just continue straight from the Prawn Roundabout if you are coming from town.

Salad Prawn/水晶夏
According to Tsa, the only place that can make proper 水晶夏 is Equatorial where the coating of the prawn is supposed to be crystal clear >< ..however the taste of this salad prwan is still superb!

Sabak / 沙白 / Clam
A popular dish as well, usually fried with spring onion and ginger. The sauce is delicious and goes well with rice

Tung Fung Lo / 东风螺 / Snail
Another very popular dish in Sandakan xD.. all you need to do is just grab it's sharp end and slowly pull it out. Not only a delicious dish but also a fun dish tho it can get really annoying if the snail is stuck inside ><

Steamed Sek Ban / Grouper
This is one of the best fish to steam and eat. I personally think steaming is the best option to experience to freshness of the fish (unless u are thinking of sashimi right after catching the fish). See how the fish meat seperates nicely from bones whuaaa..thinking of it just makes me crave for it moreeee ><

The fish of this size costs rm39 (rm42 per kg) , enough for 4 people to eat- or 5 if you are not greedy heh. Though compared to steaming it yourself at home it only costs +/- rm20! but i guess it is worth it because this dish is nicely done

Sweet and Sour Flower Crab/ 甜酸花蟹
A very appetizing way of cooking or in malay it's very 'membuka selera'. The more you eat the hungrier you get! Although flower crab has less meat than the bigger usual crab (i think it's called Mud Crab/Sek Hai).. however flower crab has got more fine and fluffy meat.

The crab itself is already very sweet! Also very good for just steaming ^^

Lotus Leaf Wrapped Chicken
Besides seafood, this restaurant also offers variety of other non seafood dishes, also as delicious. This chicken is very soft and well marinated with herbs. Recommended. But of course, spend your stomach on seafood first before you try this!

Jiu Pai Tofu
To be honest.........This picture was taken a long time ago and i forgot about how it was like but i think it is nice..tho i have eaten very badly done Jiu Pai Tofu in other places ><

Lobster Yi Mee / Lung Ha Yi Mee
Errr, only order this if you have enough money..at least it was expensive for me!! (one plate of this for 3 people costs about rm114) but I just thought, as a Sandakan-ian i have to at least eat lobster once in my life so...wargh!

Not too bad, it's taste and texture is somewhat a mixture of prawn and crab..also very juicy and 'crunchy' (song! in cantonese haha)

I shall eat this again when i can finally earn my own money, for now it is just too expensive for me ><

Semi-hiatus

Sorry dear readers for the hiatus. Both of us are kinda busy, EMQ is busy with her studies/intern..whatever term you call it.. Tsa's computer had been acting up; it even crashed when uploading photos and so on.

Will be updating soon.

QQ Ice

Unable to tolerate the ultra hot sizzling weather of Sandakan? Quench your thirst easily at QQ Ice! This is my survival kit here because I get so hot and thirsty all the time and just wanted to look for something nice but not too expensive. However nowadays I limit myself with the amount of cups I drink per week because of the fear of my health.....but that's just me! (if you are in Sandakan for just 1 week, WHY NOT SPAM DRINK :p)

Anyways back to the point. QQ Ice is located at one of the corners in the centre of Mile 4 Indah (Head towards inside Indah's roundabout and spin your way~ and there you will see it)

Variety of drinks with pearls
Asides from the original Pearl (Milky) Tea, you can have your pearls with other teas or drinks such as Red Tea, Green Tea, Ice Blended drinks, Juices. Or you can even order any type of drinks with added black jelly, magic jelly, etc.. Play with the combination!

I still like my rm2.50 Pearl Tea best
The pearl is not sweet and chewy enough for me. It's not easy to find a nice big cup of Pearl Tea with only rm2.50 outside of Sandakan.. (i think)

Ps ; I do prefer Pearl Tea here over Cool City :p



-emq-

Pulut panggang

Hari Raya was around the corner and the annual Bazaar Ramadhan is up ; which is a good opportunity to grab malay delicacies!

Here I introduce you to Pulut Panggang.

Pulut panggang is a traditional malay snack made from glutinous rice flavoured with coconut milk and it is filled with coconut flesh and shrimp (it might varies, depending on the stall) and barbequed to perfection.

Tear off the banana leaf; and you get to see the glutinous rice.
(it does look like a banana in this pic, just different colour...if you get what I meant)

I never heard about chicken and beef flavour but I finally get to taste it the other day at the Bazaar Ramadhan. I was expecting it to have meat, but no, instead of meat, it is just coconut flesh in chicken curry and beef curry. Disappointed with no meat at 1st, but I'm wrong. I actually like the taste of the curry. Chicken curry and beef curry do tasted differently. That one stall offers shrimp too. Their shrimp flavour is the normal ones; the common flavour.

The shrimp filling with coconut flesh

Pulut panggang is very filling because of the glutinous rice. It is pretty cheap and it taste great! It's only 50 cent per roll/stick.Now, if you ask where do I get it, I'm not sure to be honest. There are a lot of stall selling them during the bazaar. I guess you can get it in malay markets. I never see them in malay eateries; or maybe I just missed it.

-Tsa-

Kedai Kopi 2020

Located in Bandaraya Kim Fung Mile 4, you can hardly miss this shop located at one of the corners of the shoplots a few blocks behind the Supermarket. I also believe that the owner of this shop is a strong believer of feng shui because you can spot a whole lot of charms and fengshui decorative items,..quite an interesting collection ^^, well as long as they work! - since this shop has been doing quite well since years ago judging from the amount of people who eats there every time i pass by.

Specialty of the shop? I am not too sure but my own family members recommended their fried noodle (wet) to me. But I myself am not a frequent customer of this shop because of certain reasons.

Sap Chao Min ( wet-style fried noodles)
As you can see, the style is pretty different from the typical well known Sandakan Sap Chao dishes. Here they used ingredients such as tomato so the sauce tastes slightly sour. I guess some do prefer their Sap Chao like that, but personally at the end of the day I will prefer to eat the usual Sandakan style Sap Chao.

Sap Chao Dai Fun (wet-style fried kuey teow)
Also, one serving of this costs about rm10 (or more, i forgot because this was last year) - which is also one of the main reasons why i don't frequent this shop that much. They do have a reason for charging so much, due to the big fresh prawns, fishes and other fresh ingredients used...but still, i personally think that it's not that worthy, at least not all the time.

-emq-

Ba Lin

Ba Lin is one of the very very few places in Sandakan where you can drink cocktails or alcoholic drinks in a quiet and peaceful environment (without loud music, people dancing and flirting around, smoke, and no perv people). SOOOooo anyways, Ba Lin is located in town, straight down from the clock tower roundabout and pass the second fountain roundabout in town. It is located on top of NAK Hotel.


You can opt to have your drink on the open air top floor, enjoying the night sea breeze and night sky. If you are as lucky as me, you might even be able to witness beautiful lightning before you actually get too scared of being strike by it that you eventually move down one floor

Open air~
However, from what they told me that time, you need to spend above a certain amount to be able to enjoy those nice couches, but for poor students like me, we only get to sit on tall unstable chairs TT, with an overly romantic dim lighting that i eventually got annoyed with because i couldn't read the menu TT

Downstairs
Better chairs at least, better lighting

Didn't take really good pictures of the place due to poor lighting and lousy camera

Cocktail menu

Mocktail menu for those who are driving :)

Midori Colada
A blend of Midori Melon liquer, white rum, pineapple juice and coconut milk.


Mojito
A slightly sourly sweet drink with a combination of white rum, lime juice, sugar, soda water and mint leaves.

I do prefer the Midori Colada because I am not a fan of sour taste ^^

Planter's Punch
A very refreshing mocktail

Planter's Punch is actually a classic rum drink but the non-alcoholic version of it is common as well. It is made with a mixture of frozen peaches with freshly brewed floral tea

-emq-

Sim Sim Floating Eateries 2

This place was previously mentioned, and you can check it out here ! I would just like to further introduce this place not only as a restaurant but also as a place for you to buy any types of seafood available in the nearby sea.

Newly built pathway outside
It does look alot nicer but..they could have cleaned d water instead/also -.-

I did not know this is a kampung ^^;;

Hoi Sin Gao
Seafood wonton, this is also quite nice and you can order one whole bowl of it to share~

Nice and compact filling :D

Other than the food, just at the side of this restaurant, they sell seafood freshly caught from the sea (they fish on a daily basis from morning till somewhere around noon or after so they are damn fresh!), if you are able to reach there early you can even wait for the little boat to come and bring even fresher fishes and handpick your fish right away! (not like the fishes they have there aren't fresh heh, most of them are still alive)

Sa Bak

Fei Lo - Scallop
Mind you these little things are painful to clean TT, need patience

Prawns
boxes of them!

Bigger fishes such as Chuk Chim (for making fishball) , eel, etc

Sharks
Dont flame me for these if you are protective-of-sharks type of person, I'm just taking pictures and show you what are the types of fishes you can find there ^^

Other than those that you've seen, there are also normal fishes that all the housewives, mothers, grandmothers cook at home and also alot of stingrays (ikan pari) for delicious ikan bakar and curry.

Useful tips in picking a fresh fish: Red gills are better, check the eyes-cloudy eyes are no good, harden meat/body is no good also..of course, a jumping fish will be the freshest

Man cleaning sharks

Man chopping and cleaning fish for customers
Such service is included, no extra charges!

Dunno what fish meat used to make salted fish

-emq-

Mile 4 Market Tau Fu Fa

Tau Fu Fa is a cantonese name for soybean custard/beancurd/douhua. For all that dont know, it's basically like a soft tofu, usually eaten with either sugar water or soybean. In places like Sichuan they eat it with chili oil and soysauce (don't ask, i have no idea does it how it taste like TT).

In Malaysia itself, it is usually eaten with clear sugar syrup, black sugar syrup or soybean milk. As for Sandakan itself (or at least this store here itself), it is served with or without the clear sugar syrup.

This is the near perfect tau fu fa that you can find in Sandakan Mile 4 market (Pasar Kim Fung). I have been eating it since i was a little kid and it is only after I have been tau fu fa deprived, and tried other tau fu fa that i can finally appreciate how smooth and fresh this tau fu fa really is.

This store also sells other chinese desserts such as..................... (i'll get back to you once i remembered ^^;;)

Tau Fu Fa

This stall is located next to the char siew, and siew yuk in Mile 4 market.
It is kept warm in this huge container and you can either eat it there warm
or dapao it and bring it home and serve it chilled :D
Or, you can dapao it home and serve it with evaporated milk :P

Dapao-ed Tau Fu Fa

Alternatively, you can bring your own container and dapao the Tau Fu Fa
It's healthier because plastic bags aren't that good for storing hot food.

Seriously smooth and slippery Tau Fu Fa

Just as a comparison, have you ever heard of the Funny Mountain Soybean curd that is located in Ipoh?

Funny Mountain
Packed with human beeline all the time and is recognized by the 2 stripy green umbrellas located outside of the shop

Dapao-ed Funny Mountain Tau Fu Fa!
Sorry for the ugly image of it, the car ride was bumpy ^^;;

It is really famous and it got featured in the newspaper but personally after tasting it, I still think that this Sandakan Tau Fu Fa is smoother in comparison. Now don't flame me Ipoh people, I am just stating what my mouth registered :P. Nowww, anyone is welcomed to fly to Sandakan and try this soybean curd and if you still think that the one in Ipoh is smoother offfff course I will let you win hehe

-EMQ-