Sabah Trip - Tawau still

Our most expensive meal here was our seafood dinner. That evening, the stretch of Sabindo seafood stalls were plagued by generators malfunction except this restaurant. It shone like a beacon while others were plunged into darkness. Large banners depicting a favourable review done by our local English papers, The Star, flapped in the breeze. Sceptical but being newbies in town, we homed in.

We scored a bag of rambutans and mangosteens while walking around town. Our appetisers. The staff there was most alert. Upon seeing us peeling the fruits, they immediately brought empty buckets over to our table for the skins and seeds disposal. A few ordered Fresh Coconuts as drinks while others shared 4 bottles of beer.

The live seafood we chose from the displayed tanks was served as:-

Steamed Seven Star Grouper (Ching-cheng-7-sing-pan). We adopted the belief that must take the chance to eat this type of fish in East Malaysia as over here, in the Peninsular, heard the price more than doubles. Unfortunately, our fish was a tad undercooked rendering small parts of the smooth succulent meat stick stubbornly to the bones.

Salt and Pepper Mantis Prawns (Chiu-yim-lai-lui-ha). It was ..err. salty and quite cumbersome to peel off the shell to get to the sweet meat.

Oyster Omelette.

Steamed Pearl Clams with Garlic

Sweet and Sour Flower Crabs. Pity they do not have buns or 'mantou' to eat with the gravy.

Over all, the seafood though fresh, the cooking was not impressive.

Non-seafood dishes were:-

Stir-fry Sabah 'shu-choy'. The default greens for every meal we had in Sabah. Offer me some now and I'll run and hide. No kidding.

Steamed Eggs

This was our favourite dish. Yeah, in that seafood restaurant.

Steamed Beancurd (Tau-fu-fah) was given as free dessert. I only did 2 spoons. Not smooth and had a bit of 'smoky' taste.

We were told many times before our trip that seafood in Tawau is EXTREMEly cheap. Either we went to the wrong restaurant or those who thought they were in the know last visit was incredibly long ago. Maybe my expectation was too ridiculous. 2 of my travelling companions believed it was due to the substantial petrol price hike.

Our bill:- (the list on the left is the itemised billing. I have arranged the above dishes accordingly. Just cannot recall what is the 5th item on the list.)

Address on bill & calling card of Kam Ling Fresh Seafood:-

To remind self and for those who may be curious, we stayed here in Tawau which housed the Travel Agency that arranged our trip to here .Not too shabby for a standard room without window for RM90.00 huh. (oops a friend just informed it was RM100.00)