Moving onto Kuching, Sarawak, the only two dishes I was excited to try was Kolo Mee & Sarawak Laksa. When it started to get boring, my colleagues saved our dinner by offering something different, that locals recommended, and we headed over to 101 Premier Food Centre, which is probably the largest food court in Kuching.
There were so many stalls open that as a tourist, I didn't know what to order. Again, colleagues swooped in and saved the dinner with not only amazing dish choices, but dishes that every tourist should try, which are the REAL DEAL. My names might be wrong for the dishes as they're based on what I was told, but here's what we ordered:
For our main dish, we ordered a sambal belacan ikan bakar to share - while Sabah might be more famous for seafood, this was pretty fresh and the sambal belacan was slighly sour and not too spicy. The fish served was quite meaty, and was shared among a table of ten with other dishes below. For a seafood dish, quite refreshing to have.
We also ordered a serving of grilled chicken thighs and skewers, which were also pretty meaty. The glaze sauce was not too sweet nor salty, and was nicely caramelized which enhanced the juicy taste of the chicken meat.
Until now, I don't quite know what this dish is, but it's some sort of fried clams in crispy batter. It's a nice dish and I really enjoyed how crispy the batter was, it felt a bit like eating prawn crackers, but this also meant I couldn't really taste the clams much, since they were mostly gathered in a few parts of the batter instead of entirely spread out.
We also tried their fried radish with egg, also known as fried lobak here in Peninsular Malaysia. Again, yummy dish but nothing too spectacular compared to what we have here.
There are a few vegetables native to Sarawak that you don't often get to taste in other parts of Malaysia besides as an embellishment for other dishes, and one of them is manicai. Hence, we ordered a plate here where it was cooked in egg sauce similar to wat tan hor, which gave the smooth vege an even slimier texture but easy to swallow. I expected it to be bitter, but the egg balanced out the taste quite well. Worth a try.
The other is a wild vegetable called midin, which honestly looked a bit like a kangkung dish to me. The stems were surprising pretty soft and easy to bite and swallow. All veges were of course very fresh as they would be farmed, collected and cooked fresh here in Sarawak.
The food court also serves stinky tofu with spicy mala topping, similar to the viral ones in China. While I was not brave enough to try this, my colleagues did mention it would have tasted better with more mala topping.
If you're visiting the 101 Premier Food Centre in Sarawak and are not sure what to order, here are some suggestions for you! Even if you're not keen on them, there are a lot of other stalls available that are ready to serve you anything you feel like eating - hence do drop by and give them a try!
101 Premier Food Centre
📍 154, Jalan Kempas, Tabuan Heights, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak.
⏱️6pm - 12am
📱+60 17-213 2138
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