Kuching: Culture & Seafood

Helloooo! Now that I'm done with the Game of Thrones series, I'm back to finding something to fill the void. Looking at old photos and laughing my butt off was short-lived cz it lasted me only two or three nights. Ideas are welcomed!!

Now on to the second day of my Kuching trip. With breakfast in mind (although Mich and I certainly did not enjoy our first taste of Sarawak Laksa on Carpenter Street), we decided to give it another shot by dropping by the famous and approved Sarawak Laksa stall at Choon Hui Cafe.

This particular Sarawak Laksa is freshly approved by celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain during his recent visit to Kuching! Choon Hui Cafe is not only known for the laksa, but also the wet popiah rolls.

Being all enthusiastic for a high-chance-of-tasting-good Sarawak laksa, we quickly found a place to sit. But guess what?! We have the best luck in the world when in Kuching....that particular stall was closed. WTFFFFFFF?!!! Seriously?! Like seriously seriously?!! FEEEEEEEEL MY WRATHHHH!

Perhaps it was our fault for going on their rest day, or maybe they just decided to not be open then. Either way, we decided not to make a huge fuss.. don't want negative energy in the morning hahaha So we got our safe breakfast- half-boiled eggs and toasts. And a bowl of tasteless fish porridge.

Fish porridge (RM3)

Choon Hui Cafe

34, Jalan Ban Hock, Kuching

5am-11.30am

Ate up and quickly left by 10.30am cz it would take around half an hour to reach the Sarawak Cultural Village by car. Initially, we were undecided about making the trip cz though it's a tourist attraction, transportation there is very limited. But since we rented a car...no problem!

peaceful road

Mount Santubong in view

The journey mostly consisted of straight roads with trees and greenery on both sides, Mount Santubong in the front, and a super nice blanket weather.

We got to know about the Sarawak Cultural Village from Char when I asked what she'd recommend us do when in Kuching. Quite glad we made the trip cz the town is very much like Malacca town..can be done in a day or two. Plus, experiencing the aborigines' culture is never a bad thing (not that they served us their delicacy :P)!

Ticket price as follows:

Adult- RM60

Child- RM30

Student- RM15 (Bring student ID!!!)

Below 6- Free

Back in KL when I was packing my bag, I told Michelle to bring along her Student ID for the Cultural Village. I read a blog post on getting a discount although it was quite some time ago and the terms might have changed. Mich was skeptical, but she took my advice anyway. And we were so happy we did!

At the counter, they told us it was RM60. Somehow Mich managed to put on a pitiful I'm-just-a-student face and they asked if we were students. Presented our Student IDs and guess what?! It was a quarter of the price!!! So bring your mighty student cards!!

We arrived by 11am to catch the first slot of the cultural show. They have two timings: 1) 1130-1215, and 2) 1600-1645.

I thought the show would be in an open air venue, but nope! It was actually held in an air-conditioned theater haha The cultural show is basically to introduce the different ethnic groups in Sarawak and their culture. And they start on time, unlike most Malaysian events :P

got our seats

that's a 20kg mortar

blowpipe danger

The show lasted for 45 minutes of entertainment. After that was just roaming around the compound to absorb culture and..take pictures XD The Cultural Village reminded me a lot of Mini Malaysia, where they have different houses you can step into. I remember being so freaked by the mannequins in Mini Malaysia houses when I was a kid. I'm glad there wasn't any fake people (as I used to call it) this time round.

yes, she's afraid of heights :P

It was a scorching hot day, but we managed to visit almost every house there. Before leaving, we wanted to go on the Bamboo Bridge, which is basically a small bridge made of bamboo for visitors to experience the Sarawakness.

Michelle went on it first and made if halfway before backtracking haha She's afraid of heights and though it wasn't that high, the bamboos for foot placement were uneven at certain parts and there was a tiny river under it. Kudos to her for trying though! :)

Sarawak Cultural Village

Damai Beach Resort, Kuching

9am-5pm, daily

Website

Bid farewell to the Cultural Village before rushing to our car for aircon and gulped down water. It was soooo hot! Since we were just a roundabout away from the Damai Beach Resort, we made our way there although it was skin-melting hot. I mean, we have to see the beach and since it's just next door, might as well, no? Plus, we weren't gonna be there for long anyway...just enough time to finish up an ice cream, that's all.

Speaking of the killer weather, we actually witnessed a family out on the beach, playing in the water! I was major cringing at the fact that the Sun was burning their skin and brains while they're playing in the water. What were the adults thinking?!

SugarBun is the McDonald's of East Malaysia. Since we rarely see McDonald's, we thought we should try SugarBun to see if it's as good! On the way back from Damai Beach, we found ourselves one as soon as we made our decision. Yes, it was that easy :P

For a fast food chain, it's not all that fast..maybe because the branch we went to doesn't have many patrons, so they didn't have much ready. The Fish & Chips came quick, but the fried chicken took quite a long time. We got it freshly fried, so no complaints.

Honestly, both the fish fillet and fried chicken tasted like regular frozen food you can find in the supermarket. I'm aware that KFC and McDonald's comes frozen too before being fried, but what I mean is that SugarBun's didn't have a distinctive taste to call their own. Like I think even Pacific West's fish fillet and Ayamas fried chicken taste better O.o

I did like their coleslaw with raisins in it though. Price was reasonable, slightly cheaper than McDonald's.

SugarBun

Website

Plan was to visit the Sarawak State Museum when we got back to town, but as soon as we arrived at the lodge, the exhaustion from super hot weather and lack of sleep made us take a nap. Nowadays I don't really nap anymore, but I freaking slept for two hours! That's how tired I was O.o

No regrets though! Woke up fresh and energetic again, which is always a good feeling. Dinner time was just around the corner, so we freshened up and drove over to a seafood food court called Topspot (which I weirdly call it "Topshot" a lot. Just a heads up if I have typos later on and you get confused).

There's many "restaurants" or stalls to choose from, and the tables are segregated by the colour of chairs. Eg. if you're buying from Stall A, you should sit on orange chairs.

our choice

There's plenty of seafood and veggies to choose from! You can either make your own choice, or get help from the crew. Since we don't have seafood very often, it's hard to estimate the price..so we leave it to the very friendly lady boss to decide for us.

Topspot is halal, so there were many Muslims there with lots of seafood on their tables awaiting to break fast. Our eyes were just darting at their food as we passed by to get to our table lolol

sugar cane juice, honey dew juice, herbal tea

Midin veggie

This particular veggie was top in our must-try list when in Kuching. It's a kind of fern that's apparently found only in the East of Malaysia...cz I've never seen this in West Malaysia. Midin is highly raved about on blogs when Mich did some food research, so we just had to try it!

It's one of the best food we had there! We ordered midin with belacan, like how we would with kangkung..and it was the bomb! It was so yummy (mostly cz I like kangkung belacan, and this was similar lolol) and crunchy! Think kangkung, but less leaves and super crunchy. So crunchy, you can hear the crunch when you munch (rhyming unintended :P).

Black pepper crab- my favs! Dad used to buy us black pepper crab as midnight snack when he came back from working afternoon shifts in Singapore when we were kids. Since then, I was just hooked to this style of cooking!

We seldom have it these days cz crabs are expensive..so since we were in Kuching, we were ready to splurge! The seafood there is cheaper anyway hehe

The crab wasn't the regular ones we eat (not sure what its called) with big meaty snappers, it was flower crab. They only had flower crabs and those are pretty meh...cz not much flesh.

happy anyway!

butter prawns

Their version of butter prawns was different. It was dry and there was a strong milk powder scent. The milk powder added was a rather refreshing taste, but after a while it gets kinda muak and jelak (queasy and satiated).

fried squid rings

Mich thought we should order fish too, but I'm glad we didn't cz we kinda over-ordered O.o It's not a lot of variation, but for just two people, we couldn't stomach all of it. Ended up having to pack the sotong cz too full.

Overall, dinner was fine. We felt like we could get better tasting seafood back home. The winner of the night though...was the midin veggie! hahaha The cost of dinner was RM87, which was pretty cheap considering we had crabs and prawns.

Topspot Food Court

Jalan Bukit Mata Kuching

A chillax night it was, we ended the night by driving over to CityONE Megamall to catch Dark Places. The story line was not bad lah, but when it reached the ending and everything made sense..then you realize it's actually quite silly.

The summary of the movie:

Libby Day's family was murdered when she was 8 years old. She grew up convinced that the murderer was her brother, Ben Day who is now serving time in prison. Now a woman in her thirties, she's still a mess and doesn't hold a proper job. So when she really ran out of money from donations, this guy approached her to help solve the mystery of her case..and he'll pay her if she helps him and his team, The Kill Club (who solve crime cases as a serious hobby).

In the end, the brother was found not guilty cz the mom was the one who hired a murderer so her kids can claim insurance..as their dad was just an irresponsible jackass and they were struggling financially. The plan was only to kill the mom, but since one of Libby's sisters witnessed it, the killer shot her too. At the same time, Ben's crazy Satanic girlfriend was strangling Libby's other sister in the room cz she hated her lolol Yes, two murderers in one night. And Ben didn't bother appealing in court anymore cz he failed a couple times, plus he wanted to protect his crazy ex and their illegal child lol

The end.

Although same author as Gone Girl, the latter was more interesting lah. Not that the movie was super good, but it was psychotic..with an ending much better than Dark Places. No happy ending in that one, more like the husband was stuck with a psycho murderer wife hahaha Okay, my reason for preference to Gone Girl makes me sound a bit scary O.o

Watch out for day three of Kuching, where we spent the most! Knowing us (or me), guess what we spent the most on, out of the entire trip? hahaha No prizes for guessing! :P

Hint: (per person) Day one, we spent only RM28. Day two, Rm44. Last day, we spent approximately RM150. It's name has relation to a kind of textile XD

Now, time to watch Spy cz I'm dead bored out of my mind. Movies and TV series suggestion, pleaseeeee? Or something I can do which can make me some money or learn some skills haha