Steamboat in Tawau

Tawau is a haven for seafood if your hobby is eating. Tawau located facing the sea and Pulau Sebatik just off shore. Fisherman brings in fresh fish and you get the most delicious seafood. Fresh and sweet.

While in Tawau a local friend Samson took me, Farid and Ong to a famous steamboat restaurant at Jalan Sin On. It is Daily Q steamboat Restaurant. I was surprise to see the place is crowded, which shows how famous it is. The main and only dish (I think) is steamboat.

Steamboat; this is not your riverboat variety, rather it is a pot of boiling soup heated constantly by gas stove fire, or for a rare one of kind, heated by charcoal fire. Uncooked chicken, fish, prawn, various kinds of meatballs, fish balls, crabsticks, variety of vegetables, tofu, noodles, beehun and eggs are served on plates to the patron. Here at Daily Q they are arranged at a central location and patron can choose whatever he/she likes. I think here it is eat what you can basis

After making his/her choice, then proceed with putting some portion of it into the boiling cauldron of soup till it is cooked. If there is a cover for the pot, use it, as it will cook the dishes faster. For the uninitiated, here's a rough guide: normally, the meat dishes goes into the pot first as they take longer to cook. Prawns cook real fast so a quick dip till it turns red and it can be taken out to eat. Tofus thrown in tend to break to pieces while rummaging for grub, this is normal, just eat the pieces whenever you scoop it out with laddle, There are two types of laddle; one with holes in it and one without. The ladle with holes is to scoop out the grub without scooping out the soup thereby flooding your tiny bowl with soup. Soup is to be savored midway or later as it would be most tasty after boiling countless meat and vegetables.

Hey, don't forget the veges. Its your source of fibre. Seafood contains high content of cholesterol. So gulp down Chinese tea which neutralises the cholesterol.

Rows of seafood and pick your choice

Vegetables are usually thrown in sometimes halfway through your meal but there is no fix rule, you can throw them in anytime you feel like it. Noodles, beehun and eggs are usually the last to go in. Noodles and beehun get cooked really fast, all it needs is just a dip for a minute and you are good to go. Scoop some soup to your bowl of noodles or beehun to complete the dish. For variety, some restaurant serves what they call "Ying Yong" steamboat, where there is a partition in the pot separating it into two halves. The reason for that is to have two different kinds of soup to make your steamboat experience more interesting. Depending on the restaurant, there is a choice of usual plain soup, herbal soup, or for those who like a kick, the spicy tom yam soup!

Wait a minute! I listed three types of soup, and there is only two halves! Yeah, you can only choose any two out of three choices.

Just boil your food and yummy

Vegetables and sauce to choose from

Different sauce to suit your taste bud