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Mess Kantin @ Tiku White House

Yup, the power of social media has done it again. This residential home turn Airbnb accommodation plus hipster café has been on my radar as of late and frankly it was hard to ignore them. Initially i had a hard time visiting them since they only open at noon (because I’m still at work) until night time (too dark for any pictures to be taken with my low class phone). But luckily I got wind that the breakfast extraordinaire 101 Breakfast will be doing a one day collaboration of sorts with said premise. So obviously that meant that they will be opening sooner than expected and I wasted no time in dragging my partner to their place just last Sunday.

Now it’s quite hard for me to explain the actual route to their secluded place, other than it being somewhere on Jalan Sin Onn Tiku and quite near to the Summer Leisure Garden. But rest assured that you are in the right place, should you come across a 3 storey white house with lots of cars parked outside of it. And if you’re there mainly for their café, you actually need to take a side entrance to enter, as you can see from the pictures below (and that explains why their main gate was closed all the time – and our initial confusion as to whether they were closed for the day). The overall feel of the place definitely oozes calm and serenity but their space was quite limited as the café only occupies half of the actual ground floor of the house. 

Holding down the fort was a team of very friendly and polite young people (ehem…). And if you come during their regular business hours (1pm – 10pm daily except Tuesday) you can pick their selection of coffees, teas and cocoa while munching on their cake of the day. When we were there, we tried out their Hot Cocoa and Ice Mocha and it was lovely and non sweet. But do visit their FB page for any updates on special events such as the one that I’ve mentioned above. We ate the 101 Signature Sandwich and 101 Chicken Burger provided by their food truck collab-partner and both were simply scrumptious and juicy; with big portioning to boot. 

** Current status – Still in operation (as of July 2019) 

*FYI, these are the pictures of the insides & outsides of the place...












 ... and below are pictures of the side entrance leading towards the cafe.
***From the parking area outside of the house, look out for the signage that says Mess Kantin...

... where you just follow the path...

... that will eventually lead you to this entrance

****And here are some pictures of the accommodation provided by Tiku White House via Airbnb
(pictures 'borrowed' from their official FB page)


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Starbucks Seafest Square (Semporna FoodieVenture #5)

And just around the corner to our previous restaurant was this (much) unexpected find. I mean, we don’t even have one in Tawau (sob sob…) and there it was, sitting prettily facing the sea in front of Seafest Hotel. And yes, I’m majorly disappointed here folks. But on the bright side, at least I can now get my caffeine fix by driving one and a half hours to Semporna right? (again, sob sob…)


Putting that aside, there was obviously no way that I was going to go home without getting me and my partner our favourite Frappuccino and that was what we did. We ordered our usuals (Dark Mocha for me and Chocolate Crème Chip for him) and let me tell you, the place was pretty vast. Also, their drink sizes only comes in 2 sizes (Tall and Grande only) and I could’ve sworn that my Grande was suppose to be ‘taller’ than my partner’s Tall order but it was the other way around. And it wasn’t a mistake made by their staff either; it was clearly stated on their menu board. Well, maybe they did things differently in Semporna huh?   








... Also, here are some of the morning views that we had taken recently...



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Row Row Lepa (Semporna FoodieVenture #4)

Barely a week after I got back from KK, my partner had something to do in Semporna so he brought me along with him for a day trip. And since the last time I’ve been to Semporna was around 3 years ago, I was startled to find a new building (and not just a building, a mall mind you; albeit maybe a small one) right in front of the Seafest Hotel. But since it was quite obvious that the mall (dubbed the Seafest Square) is still brand spanking new, only a handful of the shops were occupied when we were there. And one of those is this particular restaurant.


What initially attracted us to the restaurant was when we noticed that they have live Bajau traditional dance for all patrons to see. And the dancers repeat their performances everytime new customers came into the vicinity so kudos to them (for not only prioritizing the foreign tourists). They had this Seafood and Bajau food combo sets from their menu but since both of us were not in the mood to eat that much, we just ordered their Fried Mee Hoon and Nasi Goreng Tomyam instead. The portion of our dishes was big and the tastes were satisfying. Also, I would like to add that the staff was friendly and attentive, which I think is a positive thing. 







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Seoul Garden HotPot (KK FoodieVenture #108)

After a not so good first experience with another Korean franchise restaurant before this, I admit that was pretty reluctant to step into this eatery. But in a weird turn of events, it was my partner that was insistent on trying them out. So as we take our seat (they’re located on the 1st floor of Suria Sabah and is a part of the new Food Hall), we were told that we must use the Samsung tablet provided to order. Mind you, this is the first time we’ve encountered such an ordering system anywhere (yup, so ‘jakun’ of us indeed) so it took us quite sometime to finally make our choice.


And once we figured out how to send our orders (ehem…), service was pretty swift. The friendly staff took out our set order (which was called the Super All Day set for 2) items one by one and everything was better than expected. They first brought out the drinks (which was the Iced Peach Mango Tea for me and Iced Lime Tea for my partner), followed by the Marinated Beef HotPot (the soup was on the sour & spicy side and can make you sweat a bit), fried mandu and lastly Chicken Bulgogi Bibimbap plus its kimchi namui. Man, the bibimbap was delicious and flavoursome that I was instantly hooked. My partner also ordered the Hot & Spicy Drumettes separately and he said that it tasted similar to that of its Pizzahut counterpart, although on a higher level of spiciness.   











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Todak Waterfront Hawker Center (KK FoodieVenture #107)

I was actually in two minds as whether or not I would like to include this post since I lacked the necessary pictures (my bad folks – I was so into my food at that time that I totally forgot to snap any pictures until after I finished). Needless to say, I decided to just go with it and use whatever was at my disposal. I’ll try to update this post with more pictures in the future since I’ll be most likely be going back to the place again anyway. So this Jalan Tun Fuad Stephen hawker area has actually been around for a while now. I was initially a bit put off by the puddle and not-so-clean environment to frequent the area before this. But this past year saw the makan place’s outlook has drastically improved, what with the newly cemented area and bigger canopies being provided.

Just like numerous other waterfront stalls in KK, the variety of stalls that sell seafood within this area is mind-boggling. But do take note that the competition for customers seems to be a bit fiercer here than other places (so you’ll probably have 2 or 3 ‘promoters’ yelling for your attention as you went past the stalls). Also, do ask and negotiate the price of said seafood dishes beforehand since they can sometimes charge you a hefty sum for your orders. Me and my partner decided upon this stall called Chinese Food & Melayu Food (somewhere in the middle of the sea of canopies) and proceed to order a Kam Hiong Crab and Fried Mee Hoon for 2 pax since it was already late that night. The noodle was tasty but ordinary while the crab (according to my partner since I’m allergic to them) tasted succulent but lacked meat. And yes, our total damage was above RM50 just for a single crab meal and the noodles so be wary of their prices okay. 





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Ochado Imago (KK FoodieVenture #106)

I’m probably one of only a handful of people that did not fancy drinking milk tea that much. I mean, I still try them from time to time but no place has really made me a full-fledge fan (yet). So usually whenever I pass by this kiosk (or its Suria Sabah counterpart) I would just ignore them in favour of other things. Well, that is of course until they’d include a variety of delicious looking onigiri (Japanese rice balls) into the mix; which is a good move on their part since this can attract the attention of non milk tea enthusiast such as moi. I’ve tried 3 different types of onigiri so far which was the Ebikko, Katsuobushi and Black Pepper Chicken Floss fillings. Man, I loved the Ebikko onigiri so much that I’ve bought them twice. But the other 2 flavours were just so-so to me. My tongue just couldn’t seem to comprehend the taste of flakes/floss, mayonnaise and rice all at the same time. My partner had a bite and decided that he did not like the dry, crunchy seaweed wrapping but I personally can’t get enough of them.









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