Every year for three weeks at the end of July, residents of Kuching look forward to this hugely popular festival for the myriad of food and carnival-like trade fair. The large car park beside the City South Municipal Hall is turned into a gigantic food stalls centre with over a hundred stalls selling practically all kinds of food that Kuching has to offer, and then more.
Kuching Festival fair ground
Many stalls are established food outlets and restaurants in the city seizing this opportunity to reach out to the masses, with their colourful signboards and posters, they hope satisfied customers will return to patronize their eateries later. Food are pre-cooked and placed on large stainless steel containers in front of the browsing crowd. All the customers need to do is decide which delectable dishes catch their fancy, point to the stall workers who will then pack the selected food in styrofoam containers or plastic bags for take-away.
A sample of the fares on display:- the ever popular sio bee (dim sum), barbequed chicken wings, nyonya kuih (pastry), durian puff, satay, lok-lok (skewered fish balls and such), and many ethnic-theme outlets like Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Chinese and Iban eateries.
Food sold at the fair are packed in styrofoam packing and taken away
With the packets of takeaways, the customers will then look for tables on the fair ground, of which there are hundreds, sit down a tuck in. Mobile vendors with trays of all kinds of drinks will pass by the tables for customers to choose from. A team of fair workers will pick up the used plastic and plates and clean up the table when the customers are finished, for the next set of customers to sit down. However, it is more often that customers outnumbers the tables provided, resulting in many customers without tables hovering nearby to pounce on the just vacated tables, like you do in a game of musical chairs!
Fair ground is usually jam packed by early evening
Beside food, there is usually a trade fair and exhibition area nearby for promotion of the usual telco products, mobile phone, gleaming new vehicles on display and innovative household and health products. Also adjacent to the fair ground is a garden with horticultural display theme and stage for singing competition.
A trade fair stall attracting crowd at the Kuching Festival
The festival usually starts in the evening to avoid the heat of the day, but by 5.00pm most vendors are already at their stall preparing the food. Some early birds are also seen patronizing the stalls already to avoid the huge crowd later in the evening and also for easier chance of getting parking spaces for their cars. The festival may continue until well past 11.00pm but by then most patrons have left. So, serious foodies, if you do not want to miss out what Kuchingites are raving about when it comes to food, plan a date with Kuching Festival for your next visit!
