I would be joining the Sabahans, especially the Kadazan Dusun people, in celebrating their Harvest Festival, or Pesta Kaamatan, in Koisaan Cultural Village in Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association (KDCA). The opening hours was specified as 9am to 5pm, so I would have breakfast before grabbing a car to KDCA around 9am.
At 8am, I came to Kedai Kopi Kinabalu (京那巴鲁咖啡店), just round a corner from ATAP Hotel. Their signature dish was the Hakka ngau chap (牛杂面), or mixed beef soup, so I tried it with tendons and kway teow. There were a lot of beefy ingredients in a nice beefy broth. I noticed that they served beef laksa too, a rather unique dish. I would give it a try before leaving Kota Kinabalu — how many promises had I made?
The ngau chap stall were also selling their homemade yellow rice wine (lihing samsu) that were unsweetened. Curiosity won again and I bought a bottle and deposited it in my room.
At 9am, I took a Grab car to KDCA about 7Km from Gaya Street. The KDCA entrance was packed with people, mostly in black, police and military personnel. It seemed like they were waiting for some VIP with a red carpet. But that was not my concern so I walked further in with the crowds. I did not realised that I had missed the entrance to the Koisaan Cultural Village that was being obstructed by a line of welcoming party formed by various indigenous tribes.
The next thing I knew I was in a hall with a big stage and audience sitting on chairs and benches. Seeing that all of them were dressed quite formally and I was in half-pants, I turned around and wanted to leave. But I was stopped at the entrance by a police officer, she said the VIP, Prime Minister (of Malaysia) Anwar Ibrahim, was walking in. And there was no other ways to leave the hall! What?!?
I found a seat almost to the rear of the hall, waited for their PM to take his seat, rose to the National anthems of both Malaysia and Sabah, and the MCs started addressing the audience in Malay. I had no reasons to stay further so I walked out of the entrance. No one stopped me this time.
I came to Koisaan Cultural Village eventually. Tickets were not required during the Kaamatan on 30th and 31st May — otherwise, it would have cost RM65 per foreigner adult. But free entrance also meant that there would be tons of people. The hot sun could not stop crowds from pouring in and roaming around the various “villages” of each ethnic tribe to watch performances and tour long houses. I went round the villages twice before fleeing the hot and crowded place.
My biggest catch from the cultural village wes a small bottle of “Tambunan Premium Lihing” (RM15), that took 3 years of fermentation. There were several types of wine and the friendly stall owner — or assistant? — had let me tasted almost all the different types without me asking. I would have bought a couple of bigger bottles if I could bring them back to Singapore.
I also bought a black dry-tech T-shirt (RM25) that resembled the indigenous people’s attire with colourful symbols. I had spent a total of RM40 and still had RM25 left from the saved entrance fee.
Outside the cultural village, but still within KDCA premise, there was a food section where many makeshift stalls were setup to sell food and beverages. In contrast to pasar malams across Malaysia, this food market had the most number of stalls selling grilled pork, pork burger, pork satay, sinalau (smoked pork), lechon, etc. There were Kadazan Dusun food too.
I was fascinated by a stall, named Chef De Kambing, roasting lambs on a skewer and in a metal barrel. I bought a box of the lamb meat, about 200 grams, for RM30, sat at a nearby table to eat and got a bottle of drinking water from the beverage stall that owned the table. The tender roasted lamb was well-seasoned but not salty and I could finish it without any staple.
I had spent the "entrance ticket" and it was time to leave. As expected of a crowded place, there was a traffic jam on the roads outside KDCA. Hailing a Grab here would result in ultra-long waiting time, and no guarantee that drivers were willing to accept bookings in a congested location — I needed to get away from the area before hailing a Grab car. I saw a restaurant called Fong’s Cottage (喷火鸡面) — selling “fire-breathing chicken noodle” if translated literally — on Google Maps and decided to walk there.
I knew about Fong’s Cottage since my last trip to Kota Kinabalu in 2023, but did not get to try it since it was way out from the city centre. Now that I was so close to it, I would not want to miss the chance. Wouldn’t it be too much since I just ate 200 grams of lamb? Well, if dinner was to be 6~7 hours away, I would not be overeating.
7 minutes later, I stood outside Fong’s Cottage. It was located in a light industrial estate and being a public holiday made the restaurant voided of people — and also because everyone was in KDCA on this special day. I did not browse the menu and simply go for their signature dish, which was mee ayam bakar, their signature chicken noodle, and an ice-cold kit chai ping. It was a pleasant dish without too much seasoning with super-thin noodle, nicely grilled chicken — or was it torched? — and minced chicken. Nice! I did not regret coming for it.
I left Fong’s Cottage at 1pm and walked for 6 minutes to my next stop. I came to Fatt Choi Coffee’s outlet in Kota Kinabalu, which was a showroom-cum-cafe. I ordered a hot Americano using Fatt Choi’s Robusta coffee bean and sat in the cafe to cool off. It was an irony that while staying at Fatt Choi Coffee Cabin several days ago, I did not have a chance to have coffee at the beverage kiosk due to misalignment between their operating time and my activities. And finding Fatt Choi Coffee's cafe — and Fong’s Cottage — here was sort-of fated since I just wanted to get away from KDCA.
I learnt from the lady behind the bar counter that there were 3 major coffee-suppliers in Sabah. Both Fatt Choi and Yit Foh, in Tenom, were in the commercial business selling instant coffees in supermarkets, shops, etc, whereas a third coffee-maker (couldn’t remember the name), supplied coffee powder to most local coffee shops. There were other smaller roasters making their own brands of coffee too.
After the coffee, I hailed a Grab car back to Gaya Street, saw that Mee Young Holiday was opened and went to chat with them. I told them about Fong’s Cottage near KDCA and they told me about King’s Mee about 10 minute's walk to Jalan Haji Yaakub — I had two mornings left to go for it.
Back at the hotel, I was so tired after being fried by the sun. But I was too excited to sleep. I had a bottle of unsweetened yellow rice wine and a bottle of premium lihing. It was the moment of truth and to satisfy my own curiosity on whether both rice wine would taste similar.
I tried the yellow wine first since it was unsweetened as claimed. The wine was dark-orange in colour and slightly murky due to ultra fine rice residue. It was indeed less sweet than the first bottle I bought in Day 2 from a market and had the similar mellow taste of glutinous rice wine. The aroma was rather pleasing too.
I was able to take a shower without feeling drowsy after a cup of the yellow wine.
The 3-year lihing was super-clear with a transparent dark-orange colour, less sweet but the alcohol content seemed to be higher. It had the characteristic glutinous rice wine taste as well but lighter. Like the montoku that I tried in Moginum Restobar, the stronger the alcohol, the lesser the fragrance and taste of the wine. Maybe a lesser-premium lihing would satisfy my preference for less-alcohol, less-sweet and more-fragrance local wine.
In conclusion, both yellow wine and lihing were similar, since they were made using the same ingredients, just some differences in the fermentation period, quantity of glutinous rice and yeast and whether other flavourings were added.
I fell asleep after the stronger lihing.
At 7pm, I don on my flight suit, applied some insect repellant and went out for dinner. Gaya Street was transformed to Api Api Night Food Market again, but I had an objective to meet in Little Sulap. So I skipped the food market and walked over to Australia Place. The last time I was in Little Sulap, it rained heavily and I was kissed by some nasty mosquitoes that had me itching for days. I was prepared this time.
At Little Sulap, I checked with the staff if they had butod, they did and pointed to a box that was placed near the bar counter. I requested for one live (raw) butod and two fried. My main dish was “Chicken Delight”, which had 2 fried chicken wings with rice. I would have ordered a glass of lihing to go with the butods but I had too much wine for the day, so I got an iced drink called Ocean Mint instead. The price of three little worms (one for RM5, three for RM14) was more than my main dish (RM12).
The butods, or sago worms, were served before the main dish. It took me seconds to down the two fried butods but more than 10 minutes to get the live one into my mouth. It had jaws that could bite and I had trouble trying to catch it by its small head using my thick fingers. I had to resort to using two prongs of a fork to hold the head of the wiggly worm before I could bit off its body and chew. The skin was a little chewy and crunchy and there was no weird taste — quite tasteless actually. That was the original taste.
I used to watch videos where some people would feed the worms with sago before eating them so the worms would taste like the mild-sweet sago — hence, they were called “sago worms”. More than 10 years of yearning to try the live worm, I could close a long chapter now.
It started drizzling when I left Little Sulap but did not last long. Back at Gaya Street, I took a walk round the night food market for digestion before going back to the hotel at 9:30pm.
I had an idea for the two bottles of rice wine I had. I poured half a cup from each bottle and mixed them. The yellow rice wine would maintained its mellow sweetness while lowering the alcohol level of the 3-year lihing. The end result was a nicer cup of rice wine. I left with about 2 cups for the next day.
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