A Tasty Turn Of Events

Published May 2011

June and July are busy months with regards to events, entertainment and goings-on in our little city.

Soon we will welcome the International Film Festival with it's stellar movie offerings, the KK Jazz Festival which will give us two days of great live performances (and ice cold beer), and one which is starting to grab quite a fair bit of attention – the inaugural Kota Kinabalu Food Fest.

Granted this perhaps might be perceived as a personal plug, as the company I work for is responsible for organizing it. But I assure you that this is not the case. I, for one, am pretty excited about having the opportunity to work on something as fun and unique as this.

I suppose I should explain that even though my day job consists of being chief scribbler and general troublemaker at an online magazine, I also dabble as a food blogger. My love for food is due to my background in the culinary arts - specifically, French cookery.

I trained professionally as a chef for quite a few years and from what I was told, was fairly decent at it. However, a degenerative spinal condition called Cervical Spondylosis meant that a future involving me being on my feet for 12 to 14 hours a day (sometimes more) and getting stuck in to some pretty physical work, was not in the cards.

Nevertheless, I've maintained an interest in all things food related. Well it's more of an affectionate obsession but I'm happy to delude myself from time to time. Very few things please me more than animated foodie discourse. It's great to see how passionate people get when relating a fond food memory of the best curry laksa they've had, or when giving me directions to the best ngiu chap shop in town. I know food crazy friends who saved their pennies just so they could eat and drink their way through Western Europe. Food, and almost everything related to it, crosses boarders and boundaries, melts hearts and forms friendships.

Food. Food makes people happy. It's as simple as that. We're Malaysians after all, and any self-respecting citizen can attest to our fascination with the art of eating for pleasure. “Have you eaten?” is a common yet endearing greeting, for example. In my opinion if there's one thing that unites us regardless of racial, cultural and socioeconomic differences, it's food.

The idea of the food festival was born out of a genuine interest to start something that would not only remain memorable and leave a positive impression, but would also appeal to a wide audience.

So here we have it. The birth of the Kota Kinabalu Food Fest which will run for two weeks, and will act as a showcase of f&b outlets in and around KK.

Appropriately themed as “A Tasty Turn of Events”,the crux of the KK Food Fest is to discover and promote varied dining options in our city, catering not only to dedicated gourmands, but also to those of us who are very simply foodies at heart. The KK Food Fest encourages delicious experimenting by way of a specially designed “Festival Menu” - available only throughout the duration of the festival. Diners will be able to enjoy unique offerings from participating establishments in this first-of-its-kind event.

For those who are wondering what to expect, it's pretty straightforward. During the two week run, festival-goers will be encouraged to take part in the “Dine & Win” contest. The mechanics are simple: Collect stamps after dining in any of the participating restaurants. The stamps can be fixed on to the festival magazine, which will be distributed prior to the event. Diners then stand a chance to win some pretty attractive prizes.

A closing dinner will be hosted on the final day of the festival as a highlight for food lovers to eat, drink and be merry. I can't give much away on this as yet but all I can say is that it's going to be a fun and memorable evening for all involved.

The Kota Kinabalu Food Festival is organized by LifeAndStyle.com.my and will run from 9th to 22nd July 2011. More information is available at kkfoodfest.com