On a recent trip back home to Kota Kinabalu, my parents took me to one of their favourite coffeeshops for brunch. Located in a shop lot in Damai, H&H Kopitiam serves really good Yong Tau Foo or stuffed tofu and vegetables. One of my favourite Malaysian-Chinese dishes, Yong Tau Foo is usually served for breakfast or lunch together with noodles or can be eaten on their own.

Armed with my giant Nikon, the shopkeeper thought I was from the local council checking up on her establishment when I started taking photos around her shop! She relaxed abit when I told her I was just genuinely there for the food… To be honest, even if I was from the council, I wouldn’t be worrying too much as the level of hygiene at H&H Kopitiam is pretty good.

The menu at H&H is very straightforward – you can either have dry or soup noodles ranging from vermicelli, egg and flat rice noodles together with their selection of stuffed tofu and vegetables. They have two kinds of soup; a clear fish broth and a spicy curry. You can opt to have a combination soup with all the toppings, or you can pick your own selection from their glass display.

They have quite a wide variety of veges and tofu that are stuffed with finely minced fish meat. The stuffed veges on display are eggplant, bittergourd, chilli and okra. The quality of the food at H&H is pretty decent – all the veges and tofu are cut in generous sizes and taste fresh.

Besides stuffed veges, they also have fishcakes, fishballs and deep fried crispy tofu. You can actually pick the number of items to go in your soup and they will charge you by item. If you’re just after a light snack, you can just order the stuffed veges and tofu without any soup or noodles.

Their most popular dish is the special curry as was recommended to me by a few people. Being a fan of all things spicy, I ordered one of these with a combination of stuffed eggplant, bitter melon, chilli, tofu and fishcakes with a serving of flat rice noodles. However, when the bowl arrived I noticed that the portion was quite small compared to alot of other noodle soup restaurants around town.

The special curry soup was very tasty but I found it too oily, as you can see in the photos. There literally was a thick layer of oil on the top and to get to everything else in the bottom of the bowl one had no choice but to drink the oil too! The oil is from the coconut milk they use in the curry soup base. As it gets cooked, coconut milk slowly unleashes all its fatty goodness upon its bowl-mates!

This is probably the first time I have eaten a curry soup like this in Kota Kinabalu. The other curry soups I have tried were either Laksa or Tom Yum whereas the H&H Curry Soup had a very stong curry leaf flavour to it and wasn’t sour like Tom Yum. Despite being too oily, it was still delicious and I would definitely be going back to H&H to try the other dishes on offer. Meals here are very cheap and range from RM4-7.

Kedai Kopi is a Malay word that translates to Coffee Shop. In Malaysia, these Kedai Kopi do not necessarily specialise in the sale of coffee – most of them actually serve full meals, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. The name Chuan Hin belongs to the Chinese owners of the establishment – so it basically means Chuan Hin’s Coffee Shop. Kedai Kopi is a loose term and can be anything from cafe to restaurant.

When you arrive at this restaurant, you have to go out the back to pick out your own slice(s) of stingray! The stingray here is always fresh and is caught locally around the shores of coastal Sabah.

Kedai Kopi Chuan Hin is situated at a shop lot on the corner of Jalan Lintas and Luyang, in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (a mouthful, no pun intended) and is a popular dining destination amongst the locals. My parents and I have been dining at this restaurant for nearly two decades, and their food never dissapoints. Chuan Hin usually only serves food during dinner time and they rarely open during the day.

The stingray is priced by weight – These two chunks cost around RM25 (approximately $12)

Chuan Hin has two main specialties: grilled stringray in banana leaf, and dumplings. These are two dishes that we always order when we eat there. They also serve a wide range of vegetable stir fries, noodles and grilled beef. The stingray is wrapped in a banana leaf and topped with a mild sambal, then grilled on an open fire to crispy perfection. To top it off, the stingray is drizzled with kasturi lime juice to maximise the flavour.

Grilled to perfection – stingray is one of my favourite fishes because of its soft, tender flesh and crispy skin when grilled. The texture is quite similar to a very tender piece of chicken and doesn’t have an overly strong fishy taste.

A meal for three to four people at Chuan Hin would cost around RM50-60 ($30) and is quite reasonable given the great quality of the food. The ambience at Chuan Hin is not something to write home about but the food certainly makes up for it. Chuan Hin probably does the best stingray in Kota Kinabalu and I highly recommend it!

Kasturi lime goes well with this fish as it brings out the flavour and also adds a tangy hit to enhance the sambal flavours.

Chuan Hin’s other specialty dish – Dumplings. Pictured are the fried garlic-chive dumplings. They also serve a minced pork version. You can choose from steamed or fried dumplings. I personally like the fried ones because they’re crispy on the outside!

A meal at Chuan Hin is not complete with their famous fried vermicelli dish. It’s a combination of vermicelli, fish cake, prawns, chicken, egg, bok choy and bean sprouts. We never order rice when we dine here – it seems that the vermicelli has replaced it!

Last but not least, some greens – A plate of stir fried Cakur Manis (Sauropus Androgynus) with Garlic. Cakur Manis is a rich and sweet leafy vegetable with a crunchy stalk that tastes a bit like spinach.

*BURP*