: : Gourmet Safari : :

I first saw an article about this in the Sarawak Tribune last Sunday but couldn’t find any other mention about it in the newspaper. It was by luck that I managed to get a free pamphlet at Carvery today. An impressive endevour, if I do say so myself.

There are 12 restaurants listed in the pamphlet with the 13th restaurant having a special mentioned. The 13th restaurant is located along Ban Hock Road, hence the aptly named Ban Hock. I drove past tonite and the renovations were amazing! This was an old colonial house with a beautiful patio that was very rundown for many years. The Grand Opening is this Monday (or so I heard) but unfortunately, it’s by invitation only. Still, I intend to check it out pretty soon.

Let’s see, there are 3 theme eating places within this establishment :

Luna : Contemporary, Fine Dining Mediterranean Restaurant

Suria : Traditional Sarawakian longhouse style restaurant (thoughts of a kitchen with open fire for cooking comes to mind… hehehe… just kidding)

Ban Hock Bar : Name speaks for itself. Says in the book that it’s a longhouse bar. Hmmm…

Details :

Lunch : 11:30 am – 2:00 pm

Dinner : 6:30 pm – 11:00 pm

Bar : 11:30 am – closing

Closed on Sundays

Tel : +6082-245684 (most important detail!!!)

Well, enough about promoting a new place in town. Onto the Gourmet Safari!!

Well, it’s RM200 for the entire dinner but one gets to travel using the open-air tram (or rather bus) to travel to a total of 6 different restaurants for your dinner. I’m seriously impressed by the entire concept but the cost of the meal is a bit too hefty for me (perhaps a sponsor? ;p), not to mention the dinner portions(6 stops!!!). Here is a rundown of the two different tours offered :

Tour 1 (12, 19 Sep)

Holiday Inn Kuching : Pre-dinner Cocktail (Miguel Torres Santa Digna Sauvignon Blanc)

Magenta : Special Canadian Oysters (Lindermans Bin 65 Chardonnay)

Brasserie Kuching Coffee House, Grand Continental : Creamy Lobster Bisque with its own meat (Frescobaldi Albizzia)

D’Alif Restaurant : Crispy soft shell crab D’Alif style

Cafe Majestic, Crowne Plaza : Fillet of Beef with Candid Chestnut Puree, Caramelized Shallot, Wild Mushroom and Ginger Flower Confit (Miguel Torres Sanda Digna Carbernet Sauvignon)

Serapi Restaurant, Holiday Inn : Mango Chiboust Gratin, coffee or tea and pralines (Champagne Bollinger – Special Cuvee)

Tour 2 (13, 20 Sep)

Merdeka Palace : Pre-dinner Cocktails (Penfolds Thomas Hyland Shiraz)

Carvery : Smoked Salmon and balsamico mussles with fresh greens (Fleur du cap Chardonnay)

Cafe Harapan, Harbour View : Soup power with Sarawak Pepper (Kressmann Sauvignon Blanc)

The Junk : Ravioli with prawn meat and smooth cashe nut puree (Rosemont Shiraz)

Tsui Hua Lau : Twin delicious combination of Roasted Duck and Baked Chicken (Rosemount Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon)

Hilton Kuching’s Club lounge, 12th floor : Luscious trio of sweet temptation (Amarula Liquor)

Looking at the extensive list of wines available, it’ll be a wonder if everyone comes back SOBER! To make reservations, contact is Ms. Fiona at +60-82-425400 or call +60-82-258000 for more details.

If you’re looking for a website for more details, there isn’t any, even on the Sarawak Tourism Board website (incidently, STB is one of the major sponsors for this event and there isn’t enough promotion in the newspapers. Cheh!). Pamphlets can be found at the Tourism Centres, participating hotels (Merdeka Palace, Hilton, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Grand Continental, Harbour View Hotel).

Anyway, that’s it for now! Cheerio!

: : Mooncake Festival, Part IV : :

Here are some more pictures of the Mooncake Festival along Carpenter Street on Wednesday nite.

Thought this was really cute. But, I don’t quite like the taste of egg tarts. Still, looks good enough to eat.

This was something different : pulut panggang (barbeque glutinous rice). The filling inside the glutinous was spicy pounded dried prawns with spices. Very nice but very oily.

Okay, these were samples. They fried the ice-cream only when someone ordered it. Pity that it wasn’t Haagen Daaz filling but Nestle ice-cream.

Some laterns in front of a Chinese Temple.

Famous hawker center in front of the above Chinese Temple selling delicious tang hoon soup with lok-lok and pork satay. However, they only open during the day-time. The stalls that were opened that night was the porridge and kolo mee stall.

Check out the babe in the middle. He he! Granny was so happy to be in the picture. A kind middle-aged man saw me taking the pictures and Granny watching on. He organized the gals to take the picture of them with Granny. Gals were pretty shy in front of the camera. Granny offered to pay him but he just laughed and said no need. 🙂 Good on him!

More pictures tomorrow. The event is over now. For another year at least.

: : Mooncake Festival, Part III : :

Again, another nite session at the Mooncake Festival. And again, poor Wena is too tired to post pictures. Another day lah so please be patient.

However, managed to get some videos up of last night’s do. The last batch of movies for the nite.

Disco time! Even the older ladies got into the groove. They’re seriously into line-dancing.

Bubbling good luck fish charm! Can’t believe it was RM10 for one.

Miniature liondance! Pretty noisy if you ask me. Can hear it 5 m away!

More Chinese muscians.

3 Malay ladies playing the gendang. Pretty dark because no street lighting nearby.

Falafel cooking at Little Lebanon booth! The people manning the stall didn’t like me taking the movie from their faces. Hmm… guess they don’t want promo. Oh well.

A local band that sounded pretty good to me. 🙂

That’s all. Apologies to those without bandwidth. :p

: : Mooncake Festival, Part II : :

Feeling kind of tired today after a 2nd trip down to Carpenter Street.

So, only thing here are the videos. Apologies to those who do not have broadband. :p

Emperor’s Dragon Whiskers Sweets

Part I (9.2MB)

Part II (14MB)

Part III (6.6MB)

Lanterns at a Chinese Temple in Carpenter Street (5.8MB)

Exercise time! (2.4MB)

Chinese Musicians

Part I (4.0MB)

Part II (4.0MB)

That’s it, folks. Will do a proper posting with pictures tomorrow.

p.s. Can compete with Quicklah? LOL!

: : Mooncake Festival, Part I : :

3:30 p.m.

Wena : Mahmah! Get ready ah! We’re going to mooncake festival at Carpenter Street! Will pick you up after work at around 6 p.m.!

Wena : Never mind. We go one day only lah!

6:00 p.m.

Well, we left nearly home on time and managed to find a good parking spot behind Harbourview Hotel. The streets weren’t so crowded yet as it had just stopped raining and people haven’t started to arrive yet.

One of the first things we saw was this stall. I actually read about it in Vampire’s posting so was curious to find out more about it. They were making popsicles by turning the containers in iced water. Looks like hard work to me. They were freezing Fruitade and Cherry Ade. It came out as a thin popsicle on a satay stick. 🙂

Nearby was a drink stall selling coconut drinks and sugar cane drinks.

I decided not to buy some after seeing how the uncle was making the juice. He had a cigarette in his mouth! Wasn’t taking the chance of drinking cigarette ashes in my drink.

Thought these mini fruit tarts looked so tasty that I bought some. Unfortunately, by the time we got back home, the fruit tarts were a messed. Oh well.

I actually have more pictures and videos but have to sort them out first before posting them. 🙂 So, that’s for tomorrow!

: : Hilton ~ Wedding Banquet : :

I went to a wedding banquet today as my cousin from my father’s side was getting married. Was a pretty packed dinner and my Dad and other cousin thinks there were about 60 tables alone! It was pretty hard to get to our table as there was very little space to move. Definitely tough to go to the washroom.

The pictures aren’t that great because :

-Lighting was bad

-I was shy to take pictures with flash at a major wedding

-Too lazy to edit out the yellow colour

So, please bear with me.

First dish to come out of the kitchen was the appetizers. It was the traditional Chinese cuts where we had 4 different varieties. From the left, clockwise, it was :

-imitation abalone with fruit salad

-jellyfish that was crunchy, sweet and spicy at the same time

-a roll with chicken meat and crabsticks

-cold prawns with salad cream and lettuce

It was a first time for me tasting imitation abalone and Dad explained that it was a Japanese idea. Well, it still tasted good and very tasty. Then again, I’m not that fussy about shell food.

Next on the list was the Shark’s Fin with Seafood and Assorted Mushroom soup. Not a lot of shark’s fin but a lot of sea cucumber slices added in. A very starchy soup but goes great with black vinegar.

After that, came the the Steamed Sulta Fish “Cantonese” style i.e. a lot of soy sauce and ginger+garlic. The flesh was very sweet and delicious but slightly boney. Not as bad as terubok but one has to be careful when eating this sort of fish.

Roasted Chicken is a favourite amongst the Chinese especially when the chicken skin is very crispy. We had this with plum sauce and some sea salt. However, the lime juice was missing. Usually, lime juice is added with the rock salt to give it a tangy flavour.

This was very nice. It’s Fried Prawn with Honey Sauce and was pretty sweet. Crunchy too.

The Yong Chow Fried Rice came next. I asked Dad what it meant and he said it was Cantonese cooking? Anyone can verify this?

Next was the Broccoli with Double Mushroom. Well, it was mostly sliced black mushroom (rehydrated dried mushroom) and the oyster mushroom (can’t remember the Japanese name. Anyone?).

This was the 8th and final dish of the night : Snow Fungus with Dried Longan and Lotus Seed. I just love lotus seed and fungus. Yum yum. A cold and sweet dessert dish and it was a nice way to end a very big dinner.

I enjoyed watching the Powerpoint presentation of the bride and groom. It’s always interesting to see how they look like while growing up and always good to have a good laugh.

Dinner finished at 10 p.m. which was fine by yours truly. Later left with my parents to my Auntie’s place. Had some coffee and then later came back home to blog about the dinner. Hee hee hee!

Nite nite people! Don’t drool too much! :p