Keng Wan Hing (琼万兴) is a coffee shop along Gaya Street, Kota Kinabalu, that looks more modern than other traditional kopitiams in the area. It is popular among locals and often crowded regardless of weekdays or weekends.
The coffee shop has a single long bar counter, not individual stalls, and sells quite a number of local dishes, including rice, noodles, buns, pastries, beverages and Chinese traditional desserts.
Keng Wan Hing has been in business since 1984 as depicted by couple of colourful drawings on the wall. These drawings also tell the whole story about Keng Wan Hing and what they do.
There are steamed buns, polo buns, egg tarts, curry puffs, soft buns, mung bean biscuits, wife biscuits, etc, and all available at a take-way counter. Keng Wan Hing’s steamed big buns, pastries and polo buns are highly recommended by netizens.
The name "polo bun" was coined from the pronunciation of its Chinese name "bo luo bao" (菠萝包), meaning "pineapple bun", but the original Hong Kong creation contains no pineapple at all — it is the pattern on the top crust that looks like pineapple.
Keng Wan Hing's polo bun has a bigger crispy crust on top of the bun.
Unlike other polo buns that I had tried before, Keng Wan Hing’s polo bun is unique as it contains pineapple puree as its filling, making it a truly pineapple bun. The pineapple puree in the freshly-baked bun is molten and flows out of the bun when pulled apart. The mild-sweet pineapple filling and crumbly crust gives the bun a nice taste experience.
Keng Wan Hing has two types of curry puff: chicken and beef. The chicken curry puff (bottom-right) has sesame seeds on its crispy crust and the curry flavour of the potato filling is prominent and not spicy. The beef curry puff (top-right) has no sesame seeds and has a tasty filling, not spicy too. Both are nice snacks to munch on anytime.
The steamed big bun has pork, chicken, egg and mushroom in its filings. It is meaty and juicy and its size is just nice for a meal. It is no wonder that most locals are here for the big buns with coffee or tea.
The char siew noodle, apart from barbecued pork on the dry-tossed springy noodle, comes with big and tasty wantons (meat dumplings) and slices of lean meat in a bowl of soup. A nice, hot meal on top of the pastries.
I want to try Keng Wan Hing's beef noodle too. There is always a next time since Sabah is so close to Singapore.
Address:
80, Jalan Gaya, Pusat Bandar Kota Kinabalu, 88000 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
6am to 5pm (Saturday till 4pm, Sunday till 1pm) | Daily
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