'The Secret Spots of Sandakan' - could only be about food!

I have been to Sandakan quite a few times and, as everyone says, the food there is delicious.  But you know what it's like - as a visitor, you feel that you're not really getting to the places that locals think are the BEST places to eat.  And 'best' here can mean taste, freshness, quality, value for money - not usually anything to do with the decor, the service, the desirability of the location...it's ALL about the food.

Bak Kut Teh - our first evening meal - fantastic!

So I finally got to visit Sandakan with some locals.  It was a great trip.  The first thing that is funny - funny-ha-ha, not funny-weird - about Sandakan is that everything happens in doubles.  As you come closer to the east coast, it all starts with the town of Dum Dum.  There's Dum Dum Besar (big) and Dum Dum Kecil (small).  And so you sit and wonder to yourself whether it's said Dumb-Dumb or Dawm Dawm.  Well, some of us wonder about things like this.  It's something to do before you start eating!

Sim Sim, the kampung air, for seafood breakfast

Our first eating stop was at a shop called:  Siang Siang and it was here we had our first taste of the kway teow goreng and mee goreng - fried noodles.  They are really good.  I've had them again since then and can say again that they are: really good.  Even my friends who had hardly any space left for more food thought they were REALLY GOOD!

We went on to visit the brother of our friend who has a shop called:  On On.  As it's an electrical shop, we thought it was better to be called On On than Off Off or even On Off!  And it didn't stop there - we ate at a place called Yum Yum and visited the 'kampong air' or water village called: Sim Sim.  Fantastic seafood!

Other treats included Portuguese egg tarts that come fresh from the oven every hour.  They are fabulous!  With coffee, of course.  And then the varieties of ABC - a really Malaysian iced snack that is basically shaved ice with lots of tasty bits added!  Makes you cool from the inside.  Perfect in this climate. 

Shaved ice (ABC), mini homemade hamburger, Portuguese egg tarts

We did make a search for UFO's or Cow Pats - you can imagine the general shape!  These have a thin, round layer of sponge on the bottom, then a toffee-flavoured filling, and a topping of soft meringue.  The old man who was famous for making UFOs in Sandakan couldn't persuade his son to join him in the business and wouldn't pass his secret recipe on to his daughter who did agree to join him - so the magic went with him to the grave!  And I have to say that I think the UFOs we get in KK are better than the many we tasted in Sandakan.

So there it is!  I was so busy eating on this trip that I didn't take nearly as many photos as I should have.  Ah well, I guess I'll just have to go back - for the photographs, of course.

If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear from you!  jude@astsabah.com

Malacca - design, colour, history, food

Griffin and I have just made a short trip to Malacca (Melaka), in West Malaysia. It is a place with a long, interesting history that includes Malays, Chinese, Indians, Portuguese, Dutch and, inevitably (somehow) British influences.

Perhaps it is the intermixing of all these cultures that has lead to such interesting decorative elements in Melaka - starting with the handmade beaded slippers that are made for Nyonya weddings (both the bride and the groom might wear them), as well as for other special occasions. In the photo, you can just glimpse the graph paper on which the design has been drawn. It is attached to the cloth and then each bead is hand sewn over it. Very beautiful work and with lots of wonderful designs.

Then there are the tiles found outside a lot of the old houses in the centre of Melaka. The ones for walking on are, of course, plainer and more utilitarian-looking than the ones that run along the bottom of the front wall of the house in various lovely colours and patterns.

If you stand back and look up, you are likely to see some very interesting ornamentation around the windows as well. Something like Melaka rococo? Such a fantastic combination of elements from both the west and the east.

Notice the vertical bar on the open window used to move the louvres up and down to regulate light and the breeze.

Not all the older houses in Melaka are well preserved but those that are provide a feast for the eyes. The usual house front is very narrow - about 21 feet - but this is made up for with the length of the house which can be up to 200 feet! The skyline created by the roofs of the houses was reminiscent of Hanoi in Vietnam. Wonder what created this kind of building? Taxes on the width of the house perhaps?

These particular houses are along the Melaka River that runs through the centre of the old town and creates its own special atmosphere, with people loitering on the bridges and lights glimmering in the water at night.

Melaka is also justly famous for its food, including the Nyonya cakes (the Nyonya people being a Malay-Chinese mix) and the rice porridge. This is eaten for lunch, rather than breakfast, and the basic rice soup is sharpened up with the addition of lots of extras, including small salted fish, eggs, pickles, fried onion, boiled chicken - in whatever combination you like! There's a huge cuisine in Melaka that we only just touched on. You could spend ages working your way through all the delicacies on offer. There seems to be an endless variety of cakes alone!

In the collage, you can see the varied opportunities there are in Melaka for photo-taking. It's a very picturesque place and the museum there gives a very full overview of Melaka's most interesting history.

If you have any comments or questions, please get in touch with us: ron@astsabah.com and jude@astsabah.com. We'd love to hear from you!