What to eat in Tawau, Sabah.

24-hour food trail of Tawau's must-eats!

TAWAU, one of the many coastal towns of our beautiful  Sabah.

If you ask the locals, what's the one thing to do in Tawau? The immediate answer would be “makan bah… sedap sedap boss”. Tawau is renowned for its delicious food!

So the one weekend where Dhasa was down in Semporna, we took an hour drive to Tawau to do what we do the best! FOOD HUNT! 

Here is the list of food we managed to try in 24 hours. Just some of the many foods we wished to try.

Kedai kopi Yuan Yuan

This little coffee shop is known for its mee Soto. The seafood balls are freshly homemade. Especially the prawn ball. The fish pieces are fresh and sweet. You can choose the dried noodles or soup. Both are equally delicious. Be sure to go there early because the restaurant can get pretty packed and they usually sell out by late mornings.

Kedai  kopi Khun Lok

This coffee shop has been around for decades. And the locals swear by the Mongolian chicken rice. The chicken rice is best eaten with the anchovies sambal. It didn’t taste like ordinary chicken rice because of the anchovies sambal but its tad bit salty for my liking.  They serve pork as well.  We ordered one plate of pork as well. Give it a go, you might like it. Oh, they have dim sum as well. We tried one set of siew mai. 

Kedai makanan dan minuman Taman Emas

The best pork wotie ever!!  Slightly crispy on the out, so soft on the inside. It was just too good. It came with sides to enjoy with it. Sides of vinegar seaweed and garlic. I loved the combination of wotie with the vinegar seaweed. Thumbs up! The stall closes at 5pm and sells out way before that. So if you are planning to go, be sure to give a call in advance to book your yummy wotie! Got to thank Dhasa's colleague for this recommendation. This store also sells fresh coconuts and satays.

Indo Café

Famous for their pisang goreng cheese and mango sago drink. We decided to forego the mango sago and try their pisang goring @ banana fritters. We ordered pisang goreng cheese and pisang goreng chocolate.  The banana fritters were fried to perfection. It was crispy and served hot. I personally enjoyed the chocolate topping over the cheese toppings.  Imagine eating hot, crispy banana fritters with drizzled chocolate with peanuts! I LOVE chocolate, this pisang goreng chocolate made me so happy! If I were to order one thing from here, pisang goreng chocolate it will be.

Olive Bistro

Been hearing good reviews about this place from lots of people. We decided to try it ourselves. The first thing that caught us was how beautiful the interior of this place is. There's a wide range of Italian and western food to choose from. We were too full to try anything too fancy, we opted for a simple dinner. We ordered seafood aglio olio, lime cream, salmon pasta, and Caesar salad.  The spaghetti has fresh seafood and tasted delicious. The Caesar salad was fresh and tasted great as well. The salmon spaghetti, on the other hand, didn’t really fancy me. This place also serves some wine and its suitable for celebrations.

Kedai kopi Yun Lee Fat

We saw how most of their customers walk in just to take away the boas.  There was this one guy who walked out with three bags full of baos! We knew what to order the moment we saw that. Bao! It was selling off like hot cake! They have this huge bao filled with pork and egg. We had one of that, and the mee basah. Nothing great about their mee. The star of the show was that baooooo! Ahhh still craving! Fluffy hot bao!  They have baos of different filling to choose from.  And they are very cheap!

 

Kedai kopi Keong Sang

Dhasa wanted to try the dim sums here, so we went here to have some dim sum. This is an ideal place to have breakfast, you will be spoilt for choices. Unfortunately or fortunately, I was too full from all the food I've been stuffing into my tum tums!  I wanted to try the red bean porridge, as it was on almost everyone's table. But nope, tummy didn’t want to cooperate. Too much food.  Hopefully, I can go back here just to try the porridge!

Dubai Beriyani Hub

We came across this well-litted restaurant while driving around.  Being the Indians who love our spices a bit too much, we decided to try this place. We both wanted prawns briyani, so we ordered only one set.  The briyani was not the best I've eaten, but it definitely passes off the expectation. It was spicy and just nice with juicy prawns. The potion is enough for two. Served with papadoms and acars.

Wangi chicken rice

This was nearby our hotel and it looked nice. So we decided to try here. We ordered on set and shared the meal. Like any other chicken rice restaurants, you can choose the chicken parts and how you wish to have it. We ordered roasted chicken breast piece with rice and a vegetable dish as an add on. The chicken rice was served with a bowl of soup, the usual chili and ginger paste.  It was alright, we have definitely eaten better chicken rice elsewhere. The vegetable, kangkung belacan was finger licking good! We loved the kangkung more than the chicken rice itself.  I can eat the kangkung belacan by itself.

In between meals, we savored some dessert as well. You can never be too full for deserts, can you?

London frozen yogurt

Spotted this place earlier in the day whilst driving around. So after dinner, we drove there. Made there in time. Just 5 minutes before the store closes. I have an irrational love for frozen yogurts.  So, this place is love!! I loved it! I got the original flavored yogurt with some oreo toppings! And their tiny store is definitely instagramable!

Grand Papa bubble tea

Dhasa wanted something like a bubble tea for his dessert. So went to another dessert store, Grand papa, not too far away from the London frozen yogurt. He got this chocolate and cheese I think. Tasted good as well. Not too sweet, just the right amount of everything.  Grand papa has its own cute merchandise. We couldn’t get anything because we went in late, we had to walk out right after getting the drink.

Abang Burger stall

We meet a local friend in Tawau, and he claimed that this burger is the best burger in the whole of Tawau! We confirmed this with a few random locals as well. We wanted this for supper, but they were closed. So we got this then the next day before driving back to Semporna at 2.30pm. There were already many people waiting for their orders before us. We ordered one ayam cheeseburger and were quite excited to try the burger. Butttt, let's be honest alright, it tasted just like any other ramli burgers! I honestly can't tell what the hype was all about. 
This stall is in the shop lots right opposite Check-in Hotel. Might give it a go again, judging straight away is not right after all. 

Ding Tea

One for the road! Got this right before driving back to Semporna! Like a driving snack, but just not a snack. It has all the unusual flavors and I loved it! We got the Jasmin taro milk tea and red bean milk tea. And we choose our drinks to be off 50% sweetness and it was still sweet. It was not overpowering though.

So that's the end of our 24-hour food trail in Tawau. We had many other places that we wanted to give a try, but with 24 hours, there's so much we can stuff into our tummy.

The next time around, we shall.