Sandakan - Day 4 (Lankayan Island Dive Resort - Sandakan Town)

It's our last day on the island and we need to check out by 6am as the resort boat will leave at 7am from Lankayan Island to Sandakan PSR Jetty (next to Sandakan Town Post Office). I woke up at 5.10am, packed my things and waited for the sunrise at 5.30am. It was a cloudy morning hence I didn't get to catch the sunrise at 6am. We checked out from our room at 6.15am and waited for our buffet breakfast until 6.30am. Breakfast supposed to start from 6.20am to 10.30am. It's just a simple breakfast prepared by the resort. 

We had our quick breakfast and by 7am everyone's ready to leave the island. After finished loading our luggage and making sure everyone has their life jacket on, we left the island at 7.10am. It's a smooth ride and we reached Sandakan PSR Jetty at 8.30am. We took a Grab ride from Sandakan PSR Jetty to Livingston Hotel - 13 minutes ride / 8km. (Grab fare - RM 9). We decided to stay in this hotel for 4 days 3 nights. It's time to explore and start our food journey in Sandakan Town...

Predawn at Lankayan Island Dive Resort

Predawn at Lankayan Island Dive Resort

Sunrise at Lankayan Island Dive Resort

Sunrise at Lankayan Island Dive Resort

Resort's main building

Hash browns

Hams

Fried bee hoon

My breakfast

Fried egg and porridge

We checked into the hotel as soon as we arrived at 9am. The hotel allows early check in but you need to pay additional RM 20. We took a short nap before we went for lunch at Tien Kee Restaurant. If you don't mind to walk under the hot sun and getting all sweaty, you can do so because the restaurant is just 10 minutes walking distance (800m) from Livingston Hotel. We, the lazy bums decided to take a Grab ride instead (Grab fare - RM 4).

It's a non-halal shop that sell roasted pork, pork ribs, duck, chicken and bbq pork. It's almost 1pm when we reached there and they only have roasted duck. So we ordered noodles with roasted duck, pork and prawn dumplings and chai boey (mustard green stew). Pretty good noodles and I like their roasted duck. It's tender, moist with crispy skin and most importantly there's no gamey taste. I'm not a big fan of dumplings but their pork and prawn dumplings taste good too. However, their mustard green stew or we called it "chai boey" in hokkien is too sourish for my liking. It's a sour vegetable stew consisting of roast pork, duck, chicken, mustard greens, tamarind skin, dried chilies and leftovers. We ordered chrysanthemum tea and the sweetness level is just nice. 

Total bill RM 31.50

Tien Kee Restaurant

Chrysanthemum drink

Noodles with roasted duck

Roasted duck

Mustard green stew (chai boey)

Pork and prawn dumplings

Address:

Tien Kee Restaurant

Lot 6, Ground Floor Block A,

Bandar Pasaraya, Batu 4,

90000 Sandakan,

Sabah, Malaysia

Tel: +6012 - 284 1337

We walked over to Kim Fung Market which is just 3 minutes walking distance (350m) from Tien Kee Restaurant. We had tau fu fah (soy bean pudding) which is good and apam balik (Asian peanut pancake) which tasted average for  me. My partner bought roasted pork from a stall nearby which was okay. The most enjoyable part of a good piece of pork is crackling and gravy. Too bad it didn't come along with gravy.

There's a fried banana fritters stall just beside the apam balik stall. It's been a while since I had fried banana fritters and decided to buy some and have it as tea break when we're back to our hotel. So I bought fried banana fritters and fried tapioca balls. Both were equally good. The fried banana fritters were crispy on the outside and sweet on the inside. Kim Fung Market is just 2 minutes drive (900m) from Livingston Hotel. The weather was so hot that we decided to take a Grab ride back to our hotel. (Grab fare - RM 4)

Kim Fung Market

Pancake stall

Pancake with peanut - RM 1.30

Tau fu fah (soy bean pudding) - RM 1.50

Roasted pork - RM 5

Fried banana fritters stall

Fried banana fritters - RM 1 for 6 pieces, sweet potato and tapioca balls - RM 0.40/piece

Address:

Kim Fung Market

4, Batu 92, Jalan Pasaraya,

Bandar Pasaraya,

90000 Sandakan,

Sabah, Malaysia

We had our dinner at Empire Seafood Restaurant, 12 minutes drive (6.6km) from Livingston Hotel. (Grab fare - RM 6) We ordered their signature prawn yee mee (prawn noodles), steamed grouper fish, fried squid and coconut pudding. Prawns are fresh and succulent but I don't really fancy the noodles texture. Love the steamed fish. It's fresh, perfectly steamed and I love the sauce as well. Fried squid on the other hand is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. I have a sweet tooth and no meal is complete without dessert. We were lucky because that was their last coconut pudding of the day. It was good. Best eaten together with the coconut flesh. Basically there's nothing much to do at night in Sandakan. So after dinner we took a Grab ride back to our hotel (Grab fare - RM 5).

Total bill - RM 103.35

Empire Seafood Restaurant

Prawn yee mee

Steamed grouper fish (200g)

Fried squid

Coconut pudding

Address:

Empire Seafood Restaurant

Lot 174 & 175, Block CC & DD,

Lorong Avenue 5, Bandar Utama,

Batu 6, Jalan Utara,

Sandakan

Tel: +6013 - 886 8829 / +6012 - 812 2366 / +6089 - 278 359