Beaufort Mee (Beaufort Fried Noodle)

Industrialization enables mass-production but it sacrifices the food quality. Luckily, some still hold the belief that human food is better made by human rather than factory machinery. That’s why food lovers really appreciate the handmade noodles from a few Sabah towns, for example, Tuaran Mee, Tamparuli Mee and Beaufort Mee (Mee means Noodle).

Beaufort Mee (Beuafort Fried Noodle, “????” in Chinese) tastes really good though it’s less famous, so it deserves to be featured here.

Restoran Beaufort (????)

Beaufort Mee is originated from Beaufort, a town nearly 100 KM from Kota Kinabalu (KK). Fortunately, you can find one of the best Beaufort Mee in KK. Restoran Beaufort (????) is only 6 KM from KK and very popular for its Beaufort Mee (see location map below).

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Above: the menu of the restaurant. You can click the photo above to see bigger picture. Each plate of Beaufort Mee costs RM6 (≈USD1.80). If you want seafood version, it’s RM9 (≈USD2.70) per plate.

Normally Beaufort Mee is best served hot in “wet fried” style and covered in thick & gluey gravy, with green vegetable and pork (usually meat slices and roasted pork slices). The noodle is soft and “juicy”, but not oily. Yes, it does taste better than ordinary noodle. The pork is smooth, sweet and tender.

Click photo above to enlarge it.

You may notice that they put a lot of vegetable, so green that it might look less appetizing to carnivorous food lovers like me. But I must tell you that this vegetable is the “secret weapon” of Restoran Beaufort. It’s Chinese Mustard or Choy-Sim (??? in Chinese, Sawi Manis in Malay), the most commonly used vegetable for any type of noodles in Sabah. However, they are using organic vegetable and it makes a big difference. It is fresh, sweet and crunchy! The owner told me that they appoint farmer to plan organic vegetable for them and it costs almost twice as expensive than the organic veg from Ranau.

This restaurant is open daily (except Monday) from 8am-2pm and 6pm-9pm. Below is the contact:
Shop Address: Shop No.1, Ground Floor, Taman Mesra, Penampang, Sabah Malaysia
Tel: +60 13-5599789 (Mr. Lee)

Foh Chuan (??????)

Ok, you don’t mind driving 1.5 hours to Beaufort to try Beaufort Mee. You can ask any local in Beaufort, all of them will recommend Foh Chuan Restaurant (???). See the location map below:

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Foh Chuan is just next to a mosque in Beaufort. The owner is Ah Hiong (??) and Foh Chuan is the name of his father. His mobile phone number is +60 12 8392600 if you want more info.

Foh Chuan is open daily (Mon-Sat: 7am-2pm, Sun: 7am-12pm). The shop closes earlier so they can make Beaufort Mee in the afternoon. I strongly advise you to visit this restaurant in early morning b’coz their handmade Beaufort Mee is sold out fast. They only have factory-made noodle for latecomers, sad if you drive 1.5 hours for real Beaufort Mee. Sunday is not a good day too as they prepare less items that day.

You may click the photo above to see bigger picture.

Above: the menu (items & prices) of Foh Chuan. Can click to enlarge.

Besides Beaufort Mee, Foh Chuan serves other delicious food too, like the Fried Rice Noodle (see photo below). They purposely burn the roasted pork slices (??? in Chinese) a bit so it tastes sweeter with stronger BBQ flavor.

You may click the photo above to see bigger picture.

Above: their Ngiu Chap Soup (Mixed Beef Soup, ??? in Chinese), only RM6 (≈USD1.80) per bowl, is great to go with your noodle. Ngiu Chap Soup is soup boiled with beef slices, tendon, tripe, belly, etc., a favorite of Sabahans.

I’m so happy now, b’coz I’ve blogged about the “Top 3 Noodles” of Sabah. You may check out other two Sabah noodles below:
Tuaran Mee (Tuaran Noodle) the gold noodle of Sabah
Tamparuli Mee (Tamparuli Fried Noodle)

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo