THE NATIVE CAFE — Restaurant in Sabah

I went there to try the local menu with my family. The food was okay. It's more of a fusion i think than an authentic native recipe. Nevertheless it suits my taste since I'm having a hard time consuming native food but i seem to enjoy the cooking here. We ordered 1 ikan boulu set, 1 nasi goreng kampung special and 2 sets of ayam penyet. The portion for all these meals was generous for the fairly asking price. The ayam penyet was good but like i said it's more of a fusion style of cooking with the fried chicken and tuhau infused chili sauce. The ikan boulu was delicious as well and the nasi goreng was good. Each dish was served on a banana leaf in a basket plate and they come with free soup. Drink was okay. Nothing special but nothing bad also. The place is cosy and gives you that modern native vibes. Beside the restaurant is a bar and I think the pusas section in the menu was created to cater to the customers in the bar and other drinking places surrounding it. I would come back to try out the other items in the menu as I did enjoy my time there and I feel their take on the native cuisine is unique and amazing. If there's anything to critique it would be nice for the restaurant to train and improve their staffs' PR skill with the customers as this will help in building better relationships with existing customers and further enhanced their native dining...

Need to improve your service, idc if the staff got personal problem or what but we paying using our own money to eat there. Please attend the customer more friendly and helpful. The service treat us like we not gonna pay the food.

Around 5 or 6 service at there, no welcome, no asking how many pax or what, no smile at customer we go around like stupid because most of the table are reserved and need to check by ourselves if the table available or not. Your staff should attend the customer by asking and help to find which table is available. No thank you, even some staff make a face.

The spoon is dirty, some of the food spilled but all of this things we doesn’t want to ask the service anymore because of the face make us annoyed.

When come to the lights. Other table got their light but not our table. Your environment is already nice but please train YOUR SERVICE CREW properly. Just tell them they also a staff there. Don’t act like they own the hotel...

Staff were attentive and explained the different dishes as it's our first time trying this cuisine. Can't comment how authentic the cuisine is as it's my first time trying but I got to say, i thoroughly enjoyed everything!

Hinava Ikan Tengiri Such a refreshing taste. Love the combination of the ikan, onion and herbs.

Linopot set The chicken is AMAZING, so flavourful. This set comes with a bit of everything (including the Hinava).

Butod (Sago grub) I loved the goreng butod. Tasted like prawns with a woody nutty fragrance. The outer texture is kinda like a soft shell crab. Tried to muster some courage to try the raw version but.... it wiggled too much in between my fingers lol. I chickened out after a few minutes battle and told them to goreng it for me, which I happily ate it after. haha

Will come back again when I'm...