Upperstar Restaurant

Upperstar is a very successful chain restaurant in Sabah. Credits are given to its reasonable price, good food and cosy dinner environment. Just a few weeks ago, we went to its Damai branch restaurant just after it is opened for business at 10.30am. We had our family Christmas party meeting there. Gathering is not complete without food, we went there empty stomach after Sunday morning mass from church. 

I ordered a cup of coffee, they serve our local Fatt Choi Tenom coffee (I like the idea of them supporting local produce).

Fatt Choi coffee sachet is very thick and kaw, I can make a pot of coffee instead of a mug using one sachet at home.

My cheesy girls ordered lasagne and

spaghetti carbonara for breakfast in the morning

on the side we ordered the mixed sandwiches - Tuna and Egg sandwiches

and curry buffs

On the meeting table

We were sitting at the open air, this little fella came around, not asking for food, simply hanging around.  My girls always wanted to have cat at home, they are still waiting for my green light to have a cat.

I might adopt a cat to scare away the rats around the house since our dogs could not do their job.  Still considering.

At 1M UTC

My better half lost his wallet 2 weeks ago, after making a police report, he has to redo his ID card and driving licence.  We went to 1Malaysia UTC to get these 2 things done within 2 hours.  The fine for first time lost of ID card is RM110 and driving licence is RM20.00.

While waiting for the cards to be done, our girl asked to go to the library situated at the next building, there is a 1M store too where I can find cheaper can food like sardine and condensed milk. The eatery is just outside the 1M store, initially we just wanted to have a drink but ended up ordering food as early lunch at 11am+. 

The eatery

my eldest ordered her favourite plain chicken rice

soto for my better half, I like it too

I ordered the Gado Gado.  My better half spent his childhood time in Tawau, he is pretty sure that only those from Tawau will serve Gado Gado, after chit chatting with the lady boss, we confirmed that they are indeed from Tawau, a place famous for its Gado Gado.

let's dig in to find out what's Gado Gado. It is served with lots of beansprouts, cucumber, boiled egg (halve), ketupat (rice cake), spread of peanut sauce and crackers, I feel full after eating this because of the rice cakes.   

Wholesale fruits market

last weekend, I followed my better half to this wholesale fruit market to buy some fruits.  Buying stuff from wholesale places are usually cheaper.  They do sell their fruits to individual with a slightly higher price than to the traders who buy in higher quantities.

Fruits are perishable goods, they have to sell fast, frequent buyers will be able to get good price from the wholesalers.

We can only find local fruits in this wholesale market.

Soursop, RM6.00 per kg.  Other place sellling RM8-9 per kg.

we bought some honeydew, there are sweet.  I took some to my classmate reunion in the evening.

Pisang Sabah, famously used for banana fritter

Will come back here for local fruits again.

Soursop, Graviolo or Custard Apple

I bought 2 fruits from this batch of soursop from the Tamu.  One for my father, the other one for our own consumption. Most of the soursop fruits are sold in Tamu market places, hard to find them in the supermarkets. 

The fruits were still not ripen yet when I bought them.  It was overripe when we checked on it after 3 days.  We quickly placed it into the fridge.  My better half and our girls like their fruits cold.

Soursop is a not a nice looking fruit, it has thorns all around the fruit but they won't hurt much when you touch them.

The flesh is soft and creamy, that's why it is also called Custard Apple.  Not many people like its sweet and sour taste.  My girls will take a bite or two if it is served cold.

there are seeds wrapped inside the flesh.  Soursop can be made into juices, and also into soup.  It contains Vitamin C, B, thiamin, riboflavin, naicin, calcium, phosphorus and small amount of iron,  There are many health benefits can be obtained by consuming this fruit.

The seeds look like this

Beaufort Mee 保佛面

There are several districts in Sabah have got their signature mee.  For example Tuaran mee, Tamparuli mee, Tenom Mee and Beaufort Mee.  To me there are similarities among them which at times make me confused which type of mee we are eating.

Today, I would like to introduce our girls' favourite mee, the Beaufort Mee...

Lots of sawi with slices of char sau and pork in starchy gravy

I was told that these yellow spring noodle is handmade locally

I am not a mee person so I opted for meehoon instead

with the same gravy and cooking style, I could enjoy the Beaufort style fried meehoon.

There was one time we drove to Beaufort to look for the authentic Beaufort mee, unfortunately it was a public holiday, the coffee shop was closed..now without much hassle, we could easily find Beaufort mee around KK.

Beaufort is a quiet town some 95KM away from KK.  It is about 1.5 hours drive on the highway or 2 hours by train from KK city. Here is where Beaufort is located in North Borneo, you can read more about it via Sabah Tourism's website here.

Tenom Coffee "Kopi 'O'

Introducing Yit Foh Kopi 'O' from Tenom of Borneo Island. Kopi 'O' simply means black coffee without sugar and cream.  No colourful fancy packaging, simply silver and black.  

A big pack consists of 12 small packets of 10g sachet 

This black coffee reminds me of my grandparents who always have a mug of black coffee sweetened with sugar on the dining table every day.  As a kid, I do not drink coffee but out of curiosity I tasted it, they made it so sweet, probably that's the way to provide them with enough glucose to work in the farm and padi field throughout the day.  During that time, they used black ground coffee powder, unlike now, it is packed into sachet.

Tenom Kopi 'O' in a sachet. Thick & black, it is enough to make a big mug of coffee for the family.

Famous Pastry from Sandakan

My colleague brought us some tau sar piang and tau yung salted egg pastry from Sandakan as promised. 

These pastry are selling like hot cakes in Sandakan. This was the first time I have tasted these pastries and they are really nice..soft and smooth, the sweetness is just nice, honestly much better than those selling here in KK, even after 3 days, the texture is still soft and smooth.  For the 1st time I enjoyed eating tau sar piang and recommended it to my husband :D.  I brought one back for him to try.

 Tau Yung with Salted York filling.

The price of a Darab fruit

It is hard to find a good and cheap darab around the city nowadays.  We used to buy a darab for only RM2 to RM3 many years ago.  The price now shot up to RM20 for just a small one. 

I met a dishonest trader at Gaya Street Fair on one of the Sunday, after much bargains he sold to me a small darab for RM5, we waited for a few days for it to ripe, much to our disappointment that it is simply not edible, the fruit were still hard and tiny.  I wouldn't have bought it if not for my girl who kept asking for it.

Clet bought this darab from Kinarut tamu early this morning for RM10. It is the type of quality we are looking for.  

Sarawak local produce

It has been a long drive from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah to Kuching, Sarawak. After the first trip about a month ago, Clet told me that he would not want to travel to Kuching by road again. However, due to work commitment, Clet and his nephew Mitchell drove to Kuching last week, it took them 9 days for a return trip this time. Haha...the journey to Kuching by road does not take that long, don't be misled by the numbers. They took a few overnight stops along the way to and back from Kuching. They have to go through Brunei, Miri, Bintulu and other towns before reaching their destination. The good thing about driving instead of flying is that they are able to visit their business counter parts along the way; Mobility is the main reason why they decided to drive despite of the long journey.

Clet bought back many types of Sarawak local produce, all are dried food, very hard and crunchy snacks. There are two types that I have not seen and tried before, that's the vegetarian goose meat and bird's nest with rock sugar sweets. The goose meat is very hard and dry while the bird's nest sweet is overly sweet.

(Bottom left to right) Bird's nests with rock sugar sweet, biscuit telinga, ring biscuit, assorted crispy rice biscuit, Peng Piang, (Top right to left) vegetarian goose meat, keropok pisang