Kuching Waterfront Food Guide Malaysia!

Kuching, the capital city of the state of Sarawak in Malaysia isn't perhaps on the top of the list on most peoples' tourist destination lists. There are some attractions, though, so you might perhaps be here to visit the Sarawak Cultural Village. Or maybe you're just in town for some other reason - maybe your cousin is getting married, for instance, which happens to be the reason the both of us were here for the weekend!


As we mentioned in a previous post, we stayed at The Ranee Boutique Suites on the Kuching Waterfront. So naturally we walked around the area trying as much food as our stomachs could handle. We ended up only trying three main areas (in the map above), which we'll cover below. So let's get started!

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1. Carpenter Street Food Court (Lao Ya Keng - 老爺間)

Really easy to find - just walk down Carpenter Street until you see a food court opposite a Chinese Temple.


Fish Ball Glass Noodles. Decent springy fishballs, although the portion is a little small. We also thought that the soup was a little too lightly flavoured for our tastes. 2 stars.

Kolok Mee. Outside of Sarawak, you might see these noodles spelt (and pronounced) as "Kolo Mee." But in our observations over three days in the city, it really does seem to be more accurately "Kolok Mee." This bowl was pretty delicious, actually, and fairly generous on the portions. Check out the fats on that slice of pork belly! 4 stars.

Sarawak Laksa. The other famous noodle is Sarawak Laksa. The bowl here is quite nice, with generous portions of chopped chicken (rather than shredded chicken meat). 3½ stars.

Pork Satay. This food court is quite known for its' pork satay but we found it mediocre at best. The meat used is almost all lean so there is none of the fatty, porky, charred goodness. Note also that the satay auntie only starts selling at around 1pm. 2½ stars.

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2. Electra Food Court (also Old Market Kuching).

If you're having trouble finding the exact location, 'Jalan Power' or 'Electra House' in your GPS should bring you close enough (The food court is directly opposite Electra House on Jalan Power).


Ais Kacang. Par for the course. Not particularly worth coming here for, but you wouldn't be disappointed if ordering as a thirst quencher on a hot day. 3 stars.

Ah Mui Beef Noodles (Mee Sapi), stall 32 - Our favorite bowl of noodles for the day by far. Delicious, al dente Kolok Mee with beef brisket, meat and tripe. 4½ stars.

Kolok Mee and Sarawak Laksa, stall 39. This particular stall serves up a lot of different kinds of noodles, and the lack of specialization shows - neither of the bowls we tried were particularly good. 2½ stars.

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3. Bing! Coffee

The Kuching equivalent of Starbucks or Coffee Bean. We tried the Hills Shopping Mall outlet.


Latte, Mocha and Caramel hot drinks are decent at best. We're not big fans of chain-store coffee, we find that the outlets typically overcompensate for poor coffee by overloading on sugar and other flavors. 2½ stars.

Chocolate Truffle Cake and Brownie. The truffle cake was pretty nice, actually. The brownie was disappointing though; came totally drenched in a chocolate gravy that made it taste like a chocolate fudge cake rather than a brownie. 3½ stars (chocolate truffle cake), 2½ stars (chocolate fudge cake Chocolate Brownie).

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So that concludes our one single day of eating ourselves around the Kuching Waterfront! If you're in the area, hopefully this gives you an idea of what's good, and what's not worth wasting your calorie quota on! Let us know in the comments if you agree (or disagree) with our ratings of each item, or if you've got any other recommendations!