Unfortunately for us, Sandakan isn’t quite the food capital we had hoped. Choices were pretty limited and what we had previously tried was pretty average.
Jeff, myself and a couple of new friends we met along the way decided that the best bet was to ask a local. Thankfully there was a lot of helpful staff at the Borneo Sandakan Backpackers hostel that we were staying at willing to give us a recommendation.
The guy at reception told us we needed to head up the hill to an all you can eat steamboat restaurant.
The deal was you could eat as much as you wanted for 28 Ringgit ($10).
I had literally been living on rice and vegetables so I was keen to stuff myself silly with some great food.
Too far to walk, we negotiated with a friendly taxi driver who would drop us off and then send someone to fetch us once we could stand no more.
When we arrived at the Steam Boat Restaurant the first thing that I saw was the view. Sandakan as a whole was a pretty unimpressive town but from up here it definitely looked magical.
On being seated it was quickly realised between the 4 of us that none of us actually knew what a steam boat was.