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Tawau Food Guide
Tawau is well known for multi varieties of South Asian foods be it Indonesian foods, Indian foods, Philippines foods and Chinese foods. This small sea side town is renowned for its excellent array of fresh seafood.

Kedai Kopi during Malaysian MCO May 2020

MCO:
Restaurants reopened for dine-in from 4th May, 2020  with social distancing measures

2020-05-14 THU 10:04

Kubota Square, Tawau
斗湖哥波打廣場
2018-01-16 TUE 15:16

Where to eat in Tawau?
Kubota Square in Tawau is quick to become a food square with several popular restaurants such as :
 

Kee's Steamboat, Kubota Square
Soul Korea Korean Restaurant, Kubota Square
Kubota Square生記海鮮面
TEA TIME七里香
Sakura Zen Japanese Restaurant
Oldtown White Coffee @ Kubota Square, Tawau
Mabuhay Filipino Cuisine Restaurant Tawau
Happy Steamboat & BBQ King 歡喜鍋烤皇
Taste Two, Kubota Square, Tawau, Sabah
E-Ka-E Restaurant
Omar Food Corner

How to get to Kubota Square?
For GrabCar booking = "Kubota Food Court"
From Eastern Plaza to Kubota Square is Rm5.00

Grab is available in Tawau since April 2017. This e-hailing service providing cheap and convenient way to move around Tawau town.
Other e-hailing service available in Tawau are My Car and Maxim taxi ordering service

Google Maps web mapping service
 

If you drive your own car, use a GPS application in your smart phone such as Google Map. Key in the eateries name in Google map and the application will guide you the direction in driving around Tawau.

Where to eat in Tawau :

1) Hawker stalls
2) Kopitiam
3) Restaurants
4) Night Food Market 斗湖海鮮夜市

Night Food Markets

There are two popular Night Food Markets in Tawau:
1- Seaside Night Food Market 斗湖海鮮夜市 (near to the sea side)
2- Dakada Night Food Market (near Promonate Hotel)
 

Seaside Night Food Market
斗湖海鮮夜市

Pasar Malam Takada

Hawker stalls are inexpensive places to eat, traditionally simple wooden stalls on the roadside, with a few stools to sit at. They serve standard Malay noodle and rice dishes, satay, Indian fast food like roti canai, plus more obscure regional delicacies. Most are scrupulously clean, with the food cooked in front of you. Avoid dishes that look as if they've been standing around, or have been reheated, and you should be fine. Hawker stalls don't have menus and you don't have to sit close to the stall you're patronizing: find a free table, and the vendor will track you down when your food is ready. You may find that the meal should be paid for when it reaches your table, but the usual form is to pay at the end. Most outdoor stalls open at around 11am, usually offering the day's nasi campur selection; prices are determined by the number of dishes you choose on top of your rice, usually about RM2-3 per portion. Hawker stalls generally close well before midnight. Seafood stalls at the Sabindo hawker centre is located along the waterfront of town centre. The stalls offer the lowest prices for fresh sea foods in Malaysia. “Makanan Laut 101” serves excellent crab and shellfishes with vegetables at incredibly low prices.

Coffee House or Café, usually run by Chinese or Indians. Few streets exist without a kedai kopi. Most open at 7am or 8am; closing times vary from 6pm to midnight. Basic Chinese coffee houses serve noodle and rice dishes all day, as well as cakes. The culinary standard might not be very high, but a filling one-plate meal costs a couple of dollars. If available, full meals of meat, seafood and vegetables cost about RM5.

Restaurants are places for particular delicacies found nowhere else, like shark's-fin dishes, bird's-nest soup, and high-quality seafood. In many restaurants, the food is not necessarily superior to that served at a good café or hawker stall - you're just paying for air-con and tablecloths. Tipping is not expected and bills arrive complete with service charge and government tax.

What Fast foods are available in Tawau ?

| McDonald's
| Pizza Hut
| KFC

An Indonesian restaurant in Tawau
 

A typical Kedai Kopi (Kopi Diam) in Sabah

Choosing safe food :

Choose a clean eating place
Avoid eating contaminated foods
Make sure the food is clean and safely handled

Make sure the food packaging, box and tin are in good condition
Make sure food handlers practice good personal hygiene

Avoid foods fried using oil that has been repeatedly used
Choose freshly cooked foods
Limit the intake of food containing artificial colouring

Choose a clean eating place :
We know a clean eating place from its kitchen hygiene.
And we know a clean kitchen hygiene from its kitchen cloths.

Keep one set of towels just for hand-drying in the kitchen, and another for drying dishes and counter-tops. Launder at the end of each day.
Color-coating the towels, i.e. green ones for clean hands and red ones for kitchen surfaces, will help prevent cross contamination.

And if you have young children, color-coding towels will make learning easier.
Don’t hand-dry dishes with a cloth towel. Allow dishes to drain in a drying rack, well separated to facilitate air movement.

A kitchen does not has following set of cloths for cleaning is unlikely a hygiene kitchen
The 6 types of Kitchen Cloths:

洗碗布
Dish cloths / Dish rags
- Cloths for washing dishes.

桌抹布
Table rags
- Cloths for cleaning table.

碟抹巾
Dish Towel
- Cloths for drying dishes, utensils, and glasses.

餐巾
Table napkins
- Square cloths or papers on table used at a meal to wipe the fingers or lips.

抹塵布
Cloth Dusters
- Cloths for dusting kitchen facilities.

手巾
Hand towels
- Cloths for hand-drying.

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