Wednesday 6 January 2016

Day 378: Top spot!

After a leisurely breakfast of eggs and toast we packed up and hung around the chalet waiting for our friendly taxi driver to arrive, which he duly did at about 11.15 cab. We then drove back down to Kuching and checked into the Nova Hotel again. 


The part of Kuching in which the hotel is located is a bit bereft of nice places to eat (Taipan Food Corner is great, but there's only so many times you can eat noodles and wontons), so we checked out Trip Advisor to see what other options were available. We settled on a place called Top Spot Food Court, which seemed reasonably close by, and headed off. Although it looked pretty straightforward to get there, when we arrived at what we thought was the right place all we could find was a multi-storey car park. After a bit of sleuthing, we found a few signs and a rather skanky elevator, which we took to the top floor. Turning a corner, we came across a sea of tables and rows of food stalls, but no diners – thanks to our leisurely attitude to meal times we had managed to miss lunch. Our regular McDonald's was just across the road, so we slouched in there and filled up on production-line burgers and fries instead.

We spent the afternoon in the hotel room, enjoying the air conditioning and cable TV, before heading back out Top Spot again for dinner. This time, when we turned the corner, we found a sea of diners filling the tables and washing up against the food stalls. We did a quick circuit, peering at the brightly lit displays of seafood and vegetables at each of the stalls. We eventually chose one and received a quick tutorial on how it all worked. The idea was that you grabbed a tray, piled it up with the things you wanted to eat and then told them how you wanted it all cooked. They then weighed the various ingredients to work out the price and then handed it over to the kitchen. 



We opted for a nice big fish, a pile of prawns and a bigger pile of vegetables. After handing it all over we grabbed a nearby table and ordered some beers and soft drinks. While we waited for the food to arrive, I wandered over to a different stall and grabbed some satay sticks.

It didn't take long for our ingredients to return in cooked form, but unfortunately Kate hadn't specified how she wanted the vegetables prepared, and when they arrived, they were drowning in a frankly inedible sauce. She took them back to the stall and they very kindly agreed to replace them with something a bit more to our taste. The seafood dishes were delicious – as were the replacement veges – and we had a very pleasant meal, chatting while we ate to a lovely Dutch couple with whom we were sharing the table.

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