Visitors arriving at the Kuching Festival 2023. — Photo by Galileo Petingi
KUCHING (July 29): The Kuching Festival 2023 kicked off with the much-anticipated food fair on Friday afternoon at the carpark area around the Kuching South City Council (MBKS) community hall at Jalan Padungan here.
Thousands of visitors thronged the festival grounds as early as 4pm and by nightfall, road congestion could be seen along Jalan Padungan, Canna Lily Boulevard and the surrounding areas as more visitors poured in as MBKS and People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) members directed the traffic flow.
From fried rice and noodles to satay, kebabs, burgers and bagels – and even desserts – visitors were spoilt for choice with the seemingly endless types of food and beverages served by the almost 300 stalls in the food fair.
Stalls were adorned with various eye-catching decorations and posters to attract customers.
The Coconut Ice Cream Laksa Ramen.
Those looking for some unique selections can try a myriad of fusion dishes such as the Coconut Ice Cream Laksa Ramen, which combines the savoury goodness of Sarawak laksa broth with the sweet creaminess of coconut ice cream.
Yichuan Noodle director Adrian Yong, who operates the stall at the festival, said that alongside fellow director Lai Cheng Hung, they wanted to introduce a dish that blends Japanese homemade ramen with Sarawakian flavour.
“Basically, our taste buds will most likely want to taste something sweet so for this festival, we wanted to create something that combines our homemade noodles with the savoury flavour of laksa and topped off with coconut ice cream.
“Usually for laksa, the coconut milk is added into the broth – however, coconut ice cream can also help achieve the same result. The customers can also choose to eat the ice cream first before tucking into the laksa ramen,” he said.
Yong (front, centre) alongside Lai (front, right) and his staff members in a photo call in front of their stall.
On the crowd, Yong said there were more people coming in compared to last year.
“We are very happy to see more crowds coming back to the festival, and I noticed there were more people compared to last year – a very good result,” he said.
Another stall operator, Lim Kim Yuan, who sells marshmallow ice cream echoed Yong’s comments, saying that more people will come to the festival at night.
Although Lim was only selling one type of dessert, customers were seen queueing up at the stall to satisfy their sweet tooth.
“This is our first time selling at the festival here and already there are so many people queueing up here at the stall.
Lim preparing the marshmallow ice cream.
“For our marshmallow ice cream, there will be different flavours daily. For today (July 28), we have the chocolate and vanilla flavour and tomorrow (July 29) will be chocolate and mint,” Lim said.
Aside from the food fair, other highlights of the Kuching Festival include the International Friendship Cities Night, Kuching City of Gastronomy and the return of the Kuching Zumba Fiesta. There were also performances conducted around the festival grounds.
