Tawau, London and Manchester - Part 1: Tawau

 After my longest holiday trip in 2007, I've finally have another chance to go on a holiday courtesy of my family.  This time, the journey will begin at my home town, Tawau, Sabah.  I won't be explaining so much about Tawau in detail as the related information can be found on the Internet; instead I'll be focusing more on food and some changes made since my last visit in 2010.  Now, don't expect too much from this write-up as I only spent 2 days 2 nights in Tawau.


The Place

And it shall begin from this place, where my family shops are located.  That orange color building is where the Hokkien Association is located.  The buildings are newly painted.

Further down the road is a building by itself, where the cinema is located.  It used to be called Empire Cinema, and it used to be closed for business.  It has been reopened for business few years ago.  It is also the place where the first KFC in Tawau is located.  In the past there used to be a lot of cinemas in Tawau, but they are slowly out of business, to the point where there are no cinema at all.

Now, speaking about the bus stop, it now has a shade and much more systematic (I guess).  There was no shade and not even the concrete pavement with parking marks last time.

The other side of the street is still the same.  Near the end of the shop lot (right side of the picture) is a shop that sells nice ABC (Ais/Air Batu Campur).

There are also shops that may look like in the picture above, separated between each other by a huge gap.  It used to be a row of shops, but because of a fire accident, some of the shops are burnt down, resulting in the later development of that place in such a shape.  The burnt shop location will look like the second picture above.


The Food

As for food, I've been craving for the wor-tip (a type of fried dumpling), the wet fried noodle, the raw fish slices, and a lot of other foods that I can't find in Kuala Lumpur.  So food is definitely one of the agenda when I was there.

Firstly, the wor-tip.  Not to say that wor-tip cannot be found in Kuala Lumpur, but just that I couldn't find a good one, and most of them would be sold in the form of snack like the dim-sum, i.e. RM 4.50 for 3 pieces only.  In comparison, the wor-tip in Tawau is much bigger, much meatier, and can be ordered in as much as you like, i.e. 5 pieces, 10 pieces or 15 pieces.  In average it is sold at RM 0.70 per piece.  It used to be only RM 0.40 per piece.  I usually have it for my supper during secondary school years, and every time my minimum consumption would be 15 pieces.

Then there's the wet fried noodle.  It looks like the Cantonese style fried noodle but it's actually not.  It is not possible to find this dish in Kuala Lumpur.  My secondary school teacher from Kuala Lumpur used to tell me that the first time she ordered the fried noodle, she didn't expect the noodle to be fried like this.  But since then, she loves this dish more than the one that she usually eat in Kuala Lumpur.

This is also the wet fried noodle.  However the difference is that the noodle is made by the cook.  In Tawau, most of the time the noodle used for the fried noodle dish is made by the cook themselves.  Fried noodle like this one or the one mentioned before is considered as a common dish in Tawau, just like how char kue tiaw is a common dish in Penang.

There are 2 types of fried dishes in Tawau, the wet fried or the dry fried.  The wet fried is the mentioned above, whereas the dry fried is the type that's similar to the fried dishes in Kuala Lumpur.  Both can be done for either noodle, bihoon/mihun, or kuey tiaw.

As for dessert, this is what I ate, ABC (Ais Batu Campur or Air Batu Campur), literally means ice blended (not the Starbucks type of drink).  The ingredient is usually chendol (the green jelly), jelly, black herbal jelly, red bean paste, and sometime sweet corn.  The one shown on the picture above is from the shop that I mentioned earlier, which made the best ABC because the ingredient esp. the chendol is freshly made everyday.  Sometime the shop won't serve the chendol if the owner do not make it that time.

This is what I have for supper, a plate of raw slices of fish meat.  In Chinese it is called Yu Sheng.  It is similar to the Yu Sheng that people would eat during Chinese New Year celebration, except that this one is served with only the meat.  It is not hard to find seafood here in Tawau, therefore it is a common sight to see such a dish being served in restaurants and hawker stalls.

Lastly this is a dish that made by my mother.  It is green pancake roll filled with brown colored sweet ingredient, which is made from brown sugar & some coconut shreds (I don't really know the term well).  I have this for my breakfast before my departure back to KL.


The Thought

It is great that I'm able to visit Tawau not during the festive season, esp. Chinese New Year because most of the shops would close for nearly a week.  There are some developments being done to Tawau, i.e. more street lights being installed to the road leading towards the outskirt, and some new commercial and residential area as well, and a sport stadium.

There's even a McDonald now in Tawau.  My sister told me that there was a long queue in the drive-in section because it was something new to the people in Tawau who have never seen a drive-in.

In the mid of the development though, I do hope that the uniqueness of Tawau would not fade away.  It might be cool to bring in new elements i.e. Starbucks into Tawau, which is a common thing in other parts of Malaysia, it would be great if the uniqueness of Tawau is preserved because that's the thing that would attract people to come.