Kuching, Malaysia

My favourite

Yes, yes and YAASS 😭

Best noodle texture this trip. Feels like this is what all wonton mee should be like. But the heaps of fried onions and oily scallions make it kolo mee, the Sarawakian special.

Teh, evaporated milk and a glug of gula melaka at the bottom 😵/😍

Unlike the coconut buns we find in Singapore for two reasons; 1. The bread is denser, tougher and provides more heft (not that that's a bad thing cos i could have this for a meal, and i did), and 2. The grated coconut filling isn't soaked in gula melaka syrup. Notice how it's fairer? It's still sweetened and doesn't weigh down as much. I can really appreciate this ☺️ tip: many locals buy one or two buns to tide them over the waiting time for the famous Kolo mee two doors down. The wait is usually 1-2hrs.

A more traditional version, with a deeper, richer, fuller-bodied stock (higher concentration of red wine is the way to go) complete with a fancy-ass poached egg.

My first brush with kampua and it's damnnnn good. I can see why this is such a hit among locals who have this for breakfast. They sell out by 10ish and we were lucky to be saved the last bowl. The noodle quality here is top-notch, and the sauce doesn't look like much but is savoury and hella fragrant, in a scallion oil noodles/zha jiang mian kind of way.

These guys fry off beef, lamb and chicken patties off a makeshift grill along a dark and empty five-foot way of a row of shophouses. Super questionable but that's how they do it in Kuching, and is a much sought-after drunk food. The beef patty was super peppery, which really brought out all the flavours well and it remained sufficiently juicy. The chicken one was jazzed up with some slices of grilled pineapple. Impressive.

An equivalent of our Hokkien mee but obviously done so, so differently. What i'm taking away from this trip is just how varied the food influences across the Chinese dialect groups can be. The gravy of this dish was a much, much richer, yet cleaner-tasting version of hor fun.