Kuching Flavors @ Vivacity Megamall Kuching

Vivacity Megamall at Jalan Wan Alwi prides itself to be Sarawak's largest mall. So I had anticipated the opening of the new Vivacity Megamall .... but I was away when it opened and could only visit it recently when I came back. I brought the folks there one morning. We just went to survey the place, not really to shop. I was quite ecstatic to see a few newcomers to the Kuching retail scene, particularly Swarovski, Miss Selfridge, Lovely Lace.

At the top floor is a non-halal food court called Kuching Flavors which sells local Kuching hawker fare. It's somewhat like Hutong Lot 10, where all the popular KL food is gathered under one roof. Here is a concregation of popular vendors in Kuching, like IPH Roasted, Ah Mui Beef Noodles, Ah Lian Kolo Mee, Carpenter Street Kueh Chap & Carpenter Street Laksa, Ah Suan Chicken Rice, and so on ....

 Love this illustrations!!

Plenty of places to sit ... 

Over here, a prepaid card system is used. I find it a bit troublesome, actually. There were 2 types of cards - 1 for daily use, and 1 for continuous use. For daily use, a deposit of RM2.00 is charged for the card and the minimum value to buy is RM10.00; whatever money leftover from food and drinks purchase would be refunded upon the return of the card. 

I felt that I would be eating here sometimes ... so I chose to have the VIP card. I paid RM50.00 for my card, which had a stored value of RM40.00. That meant that I had paid RM10.00 for the card. So expensive. However, with every order, I got a 5% discount. There was also expiry date for the value - mine would be expired on 31 Dec 2016. 

Stall #04

Ah Mui Beef Noodles (regular)

This was RM7.00, and I got a discount of RM0.35 with the VIP card.

My cousin ran this stall with her husband, so I just had to come and give her a bit of a support! :)) The portion of the noodle was huge, but we found the flavours to be a bit subtle or bland.

 Stall #05

Lau Ya Keng History Laksa

This was laksa with chicken and prawn, RM8.30; a RM0.42 discount was given

We though that the laksa was expensive, tasted good, but very stingy with the gravy.

Stall #09

Carpenter Street Kueh Chap

Set B - mixed meat and offal with Kueh

This cost RM7.50, discount was RM0.38 cents

Portion was so-so; taste was good. 

Of all the three items, I think the kueh chap was the best. So I spent RM21.65 today, meaning that I still had RM18.35 stored. Also, I saved RM1.15 with my VIP card.

Anyway, this is an aside. I watched the kueh chap lady prepare my order and it made me amused. She portioned out some kueh and put it in the bowl. She shook the bowl a bit. Then looking at it, she thought that the portion she had just put in was probably too much. So she took out 2 pieces of kueh from the bowl. Tsk .. tsk ... tsk .... did they really have to be seen to be so stingy with the portion? I think food hawkers in Kuching have this habit .... and of course, we've all seen kolo mee vendors taking out 1 or 2 strands of noodles out from a particular bowl of noodles. Sigh .... did they have to really do that?

The other day, I went back to Vivacity Megamall and I asked whether the staff if I would get my RM10.00 back upon surrendering my VIP card .... heck, she couldn't answer me as she didn't even know! I asked her to enquire the management .... obviously they did not or had not talked about it. :))