The Kota Kinabalu Central Market by the seafront. You can get everything; from vegetables, local fruits, local cakes, fresh chicken, fish & other seafood, beef, to pork on the ground floor.
There are eateries on the first floor (probably best left to the locals who are used to the local bacteria!). I used to eat there many years ago (lunch was RM2.00 - the cheapest in town!).
This is the right-hand end of the market. You can see the overhead pedestrian bridge (famous to us old-timers in KK - it was the first overhead pedestrian bridge).
It connected the market to all the shops in Segama Commercial area. In the old days, there were quite a few stalls operating in the evenings (locally called "under the bridge"). Even now there are vendors selling durians (when in season) from their pickups "under the bridge".
The right hand end of the market has the section selling pork.
There were lots of colourful boats "parked" at this end of the market. I say "parked" as there was actually a carpark just in front of the boats!
I noticed that there was a party of locals who had chartered one of the boats for a fishing trip out in the sea (overnight most likely, there are a lot of good fishing spots around the various islands off KK).
The fish market is in another building around the back of the Central Market.
Apart from the fish, squid, and prawns, there are live crabs and mussels available. Be aware that all the "big" ones have already been bought by the restaurants, hotels, and also exported.
Having seen the various newspaper articles (in the past 6 months or so), I wanted to visit their outlet in Kota Kinabalu and try out some of their products. Their outlet, Balung Fresh Fruits, is located across the road from Giant Hypermart in Kolombong. Note that the location map on their website is incorrect as the shop is in the middle of the block.
The shop front
The shop interior (not much expenditure on interior design and marketing display!)
The 3 Balung products I bought; Java Tea (Misai Kucing Tea), Lemon Grass Tea, and one bottle of the palm sugar (Arenga Pinnata) syrup.
The shop also had Noni Juice (either with passionfruit juice or with mango juice). The Noni Juice is one difficult juice to swallow. My friends told me in their kampung days, no one ate the fruit (it was so bad-tasting); the only use for the fruit was as a throwing missile. The shop staff told me the new mango flavour was better. I tried it, it wasn't much better than the Noni Juice I drank in the past, so I didn't buy it.
