Sandakan - Day 1

I am blogging from my iPad so gonna make it short. We touched down at Sandakan Airport just in time to enjoy mama's home cooked lunch. I had a good time catching up with my parents and siblings while the boy was so excited to see all his cousins again.

We then went to the market to get some fruits with my mom and sister before going to my uncle's house to pay respect to my maternal grandparents.




while waiting to board the plane



The cousins having a dip in the pool in the evening.

We took the kids to the swimming pool in the evening and they all enjoyed the time together before heading home for mama's home cooked meal. :)

Peking Duck @ Ming Restaurant, Sabah Hotel, Sandakan

I had dinner with a bunch of my old buddies, some I have known since the kindergarten days.  For a table of 5 adults and 2 kids, we ordered peking duck set, yes, all duck dishes. Hahaha...

Peking Duck, or Peking Roast Duck is a famous duck dish from Beijing that has been prepared since the imperial era, and is now considered one of China's national foods.

The dish is prized for the thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. Ducks bred specially for the dish are slaughtered after 65 days and seasoned before being roasted in a closed or hung oven. The meat is eaten with pancakes, spring onions, and hoisin sauce or sweet bean sauce. Source

The pancakes as wrappers

The crispy duck skin

cucumber

Roll everything together with a spread of hoisin sauce.  Yummilicious.. but why no lettuce geh?

What was to be done with the rest of the duck?

The roasted duck dish

Duck porridge

Salted vege duck soup - the duck bones went into boiling the soup.. no wastage!

And taugeh stir fried with deboned duck meat 

I did not take my boy along as he had other plans with his cousins.  My brother and sister in-law took them for a KFC treat after the cousin's tuition class was over.  I had a swell time chatting and catching up with fellow buddies all night long without the boy. LOL.. 

The "Once A Year" Friends

Playing with Jian's toys

Every year when we "balik kampung", Ian will get to meet up with his "once a year" friend, Jian, only child of my girlfriend of more than 20 years.  We would have pizzas at Pizza Hut for lunch and thereafter headed to her house to catch up on each others' updates while the kids had fun playing.  Being a fulltime homemaker like me, she appears more busy having to juggle church activities, transport her son to tuition classes, different subjects at different places on weekdays, not to mention music classes and church activities over the weekends.  What a busy and hectic life..

Coil Spring Noodles @Sim Sim Seafood Restaurant, Kg. Buli Sim Sim, Sandakan

Kampung Buli Sim Sim - I spent first 8 years of my life here since birth  in this place I called home.  We moved out after my father got the family a landed house.  I can still recall those days when my father was a fisherman and due to the nature of his work, he was only home after a week out at the sea, back home for 2 days and back to the sea again.  We were lucky to have been blessed with good neighbours who would lend their helping hands whenever my mom and her young family were in dire need of help.

We bumped into an old neighbour while on our way to the restaurant.  She was all excited and invited us in and even showed us her family photos with some of our childhood playmates, now all grown up with their own families.  Those were the days.  Most of our good ol' neighbours had moved out and settled themselves on landed properties. The once Chinese populated water village is now left with only a handful of them, mostly dominated by Malays and foreign (Indonesian/Filipino, etc) immigrants.

"Dan Kung Meen" literally means Coil Spring Noodles in English.  Taste wise, it was good but you really need to have a set of steel teeth and a good digestive system to savour it.  Hahaha.. just kidding.

The lobster supplier with his young family in the sampan.  Can you spot a baby in the arm of the mother? Life is hard!

Live Lobsters!

The cousins

Sandakan Central Market

When I was in my hometown, I suggested that we had a BBQ dinner at our parents' house.  My siblings had been playing hosts by turn and there was no way I could be one.  Organizing a BBQ dinner would do me just fine as I did not have to worry about fighting to pay for the bills.  I just had to pay a visit to the market and supermarket and grab whatever needed.

What fish is this??  Anyone cares to enlighten?

This Malay fishmonger was kind enough to pose and explained that this fish tastes more like chicken meat.

We bought some of this cut stingray.

Xiang Xiang Pan Mee @Prima Square, Batu 4, Sandakan

My boy with boy boy..

We took the 7.15am flight from LCCT last Sunday and touched down at Sandakan Airport slightly over 10am.  We went for brunch at Xiang Xiang Pan Mee with my sister and hubby and my mom.  All of us ordered soup pan mee except me who ordered curry laksa pan mee.  The pan mee was slightly different from what we had in KL.  It was served with fried wantons other than minced pork, anchovies and spinach.  I tried some of my boy's fried kuay teow, the taste was satisfactory though a bit too sweet to my liking.

My eldest brother who was nearby with his family dropped by to have a drink and at the same time settled our bill. :) 



Playing "Masak"

Getting the "Grill" ready for BBQ;)

Like a big bro only.

In fact, he is 1 yr+ younger than Mei Mei

While we were back in hometown, Ian and Mei Mei liked to play masak together. My parents' house has a spacious backyard. While waiting for the PSP to be recharged or on ocassions when it was taken over by my nephew (Ian's elder cousin), two of them would go out to the backyard and played masak.

The weather there was so freaking hot, with no rain but drizzles for mere few minutes when it did since months ago, according to my sister. I had to change Ian at least thrice a day and luckily I brought along half a dozen of his singlets;) My boy is prone to sweating more than others and to make things worse being super duper active that he is.

Ocean King Seafood Restaurant, Sandakan (Revisited)

A New Face Lift of the signboard

The night before we flied back to KL, my brother hosted a dinner at Ocean King Seafood Restaurant, yet again.;) My last visit there was a year ago where we had our breakfast and dinner there. I personally reckoned that the standard of food had dropped and could it be due to the big crowd when we reached there about 8.15pm. The tables at the verandah which overlooks the ocean has all been taken and that left us no choice but settled for a table inside the restaurant.

Business Hours

I think they now open earlier than last year.

The front part of the restaurant

The place where we dined as the verandah was full. We did enjoyed the strong wind that blew in from the side window and the view from the window was great too. I tried many shots to get Sandakan town view from the window but all came out blur.;(

The extension from the verandah

The new extension from the main verandah, there was a vacant table but could not fit the 12 of us in. We get to have a closer view of the live fishes reared in the ocean itself though confined and guarded by netting in cubicles.

Live lobsters

Mantis Prawns

Garoupas


Crabs

White Clams

Prawns


Boy Boy, my sis's 2 1/2 yr old son

Ian and Mei Mei


Sea Snails (tung fung luo)

Closer shot

The flesh.. after being removed from the shell

Deep Fried Seafood Tofu (Beancurd)

This one tastes yummy

Steamed Garoupa

a bit overcooked

Fish Maw Soup

not bad

Crispy Chicken

the meat was quite tough

Butter Prawns

preferred unshelled, quite tough though

Stir-fried Vege, tastes right

All of us agreed that the food at KeranaMu was far more satisfiable than what we had here.