Dining With Jewelle

I knew that it’s a common belief that spice or curries can trigger labour and I had Eu to vouch for this. I had an Indian meal with a friend when I expecting her and within a few days, I went into labour.

So as soon as 2009 arrived, I went for dinner with the same friend - and this time, since I am ready to go into labour, we went for my first Indian meal at a simple eatery at Api Api Centre (just behind Marina Court and Promenade Hotel) called Devi’s Cafe.

My sister recommended this place long ago and the only thing that keeps me from coming here is because it is not air-conditioned. But since it was in the evening and less heaty, we chose this place for the meal-that-will-trigger-my-labour.

When we arrived, an Indian family was just leaving and we took that as good sign - if Indian’s themselves frequent the place, it has to be authentic. Besides us, there were only 3-4 tables occupied.

We decided to have their banana leaf set meal with 3 vegetables, 1 meat dish with biryani rice.

My friend had some chicken curry and I had their mutton curry which the waiter stuffed inside the bowl of rice. We were disappointed that they did not have the potato dish and we were puzzled when the waiter did not understand “aloo gobi” and said that what we meant is “potato masala” (which I have never heard of before).

The accompanying vegetables dishes were nothing special. My rice and mutton were good but it was the mango chutney and another condiment that made me polished my whole bowl of rice - so good we even asked for second helpings of these two condiments!

I was satisfied with my meal (except they could have re-heated their vegetables) and for both of us including a bowl of poppadoms and iced drinks only cost us RM24.

The place itself is simple but it does have some nice ceiling decorations that sets it apart from normal Indian coffee shop.

And again, Indian meal proved to be potent with me as two days later, I delivered my third child!

What more when I’m back in Sabah.

So when I was home for a short trip last weekend, I finally dined at the Spice Garden with my sister and her fiance as she’s been there before and thought I should try it.

When we arrived for lunch, we were the only patrons - and I’ve noticed that this is also the case for most of the Indian restaurants that I’ve visited in Kota Kinabalu. So unlike most Japanese restaurants - at the same building was the Umai Restaurant and that was packed then.

I was craving for chicken biryani so I ordered their version.

The chicken was buried deep inside…

My verdict : Either their biryani is the authentic version or it’s simply is not that good because I definitely preferred the biryani at Choice Restaurant. For one thing, at Choice, you can see the chicken leg straight away while you had to fish your meat out from the depth of the pot in this.

Anyway at the Spice Garden, we were recommended this plate of tandoori of all sorts - from seafood to meat. While it’s reasonably good, I did not fancy it much because generally I don’t really fancy tandooris.

When they arrived, they were smoking hot!

Of course, whenever I had Indian food, the one must have thing is the Aloo Gobi. And again, this must be the authentic Northern Indian taste because the kind that I fancy - as in the type cooked by my friend’s Southern Indian mother - is different. And those gingers seemed out of place in this dish…

My sister ordered some soup and ordered other biryanis - which I’m sure she will blogged about herself soon.

The place itself was beautiful with lovely paintings of Indian ladies adorning its walls. The service was good and the prices were reasonable - for 3 biryanis, 2 extra dishes and 1 soup plus drinks costs RM100.

Still, Spice Garden is a nice place to dine at and although I was not thrilled with this first try, I think I will come again.

However, since my circle of family and friends are mostly seafood fans, I have had the pleasure of knowing about obscure-out-of-the-way-known-mostly-to-locals seafood eatery such as the Gayang Restaurant.

This place, which is along the route to 5 stars hotels such as the Nexus Karambunai and Shangri-La Rasa Ria is a good 20 mins drive from downtown Kota Kinabalu.

It’s located on a huge plot of land as they also rear their own fish and prawns. The whole restaurant is built on stilts on water and when we first arrived there in the afternoon, it was low tide and crabs were swarming the riverbed. I was told that you’d get lovely sunset here too.

Even though it’s way out of town, it’s popular with local diners. This is also one of the eatery which serves tourists and when we were there, 3-4 busloads of tourists also came for lunch.

On that day, we had the usual seafood fare of clams, fish, prawns, vegetable and one of my very few seafood favorite : soft-shelled crabs.

The meal was fine but the crab was sure expensive. That plate cost us RM45.

One of my favorite destination for shopping in KK is the City Mall which is along the Kolombong-Penampang highway, which means that it’s out of downtown KK.

But don’t think that makes it jam-free. I was told that during certain times of the day, it is better to go through the city rather than use this highway! However this area is usually alright on mid day and being less than 5km from my house, of course I had to visit it for some shopping expeditions…

So a few clothing items later, we hit one of the eatery here.

My sister didn’t recommend the City Mall Food Court and judging from the smell that was coming out of the place as we walked by, I think they have slight ventilation issues and you know what that means to your clothes.

Instead we went to another one of those chain-restaurant called the Olde Station KopiTiam, located on the ground floor.

When it comes to eating outside without the kids, it means only one thing : Spicy Food!

And once I spotted the word “curry mee” of course, I couldn’t pay attention to whatever else they have in their menu! So curry mee was what I had while sis Caneeliea had the “nasi lemak” - which she said was super spicy.

They looked and tasted good : Caneeliea

When we were there the place was busy but we I waited until everyone left I took these pictures.

One funny thing I noticed about this place was that they adopted the customer greeting style you’d usually get at Japanese restaurants and it was a boisterous “Hello!” and “Bye!” by all the staffs to any incoming and leaving customers.

This restaurant is located on the ground floor of Kompleks Asia City, more popularly known as KAC and you can’t miss the tusk like structure that decorated the front entrance.