Mee Sup Pipin

Pipin is the family name of the sino-Kadazan families who own the restaurant. The Kadazans are the natives of Sabah and their integration with the Chinese and their Christian roots (most are Roman Catholics) resulted in a cuisine that's both native and Hakka-Chinese, and pork is the favored meat. Most people seem to go to Pipin for the pork noodles but I prefer their beef noodles.

Spot the free bananas.

The restaurant is really two, not one. The original restaurant operated along the Moyog River with no permanent structure and shade was from the jungle trees, giving a jungle picnic ambience. The family moved to the present location and operate from their houses now. The brother operates the smaller house while the sister the bigger house but the menu is the same: pork offal noodles, beef offal noodles, fish slices noodles, stuffed tofu and a few other dishes. On weekends, the place is crowded (food's served under the 'patio') and besides the regular fare, there's pork slices with taro, steamed pork buns, stewed chicken feet and lots more. On weekends also, a table is set aside for any harvest from the garden or jungle. On one occasion, we bought two bundles of bak choy and sent them into the kitchen for cooking, a service which cost us RM2/USD0.74 only. If anyone around that area slaughter a pig that weekend, it goes on the stall table too and last week I saw the freshest pork ever, shiny and pink.

Beef offal (ngew chap) noodles is one of KK's top food and there are so many versions of it that I am too daunted to blog about it. I swing to and fro between the richer, darker and tastier stewed beef offal soup to the lighter and more refreshing one. There are in-betweens too, like the appetizing Hainan ngew chap which has salted veg as a topping. Pipin's ngew chap is of the lighter version and reminds me of the original ngew chap once served under the big rain trees in Kasigui. Pipin's beef balls are tasty and bouncy albeit tinier than most beef balls. The only complaint I have about Pipin's pork and beef offal noodles is that the offal is cut too thin, especially the belly meat and the tongue. I find portions are bigger on weekdays.


I love Pipin's stuffed tofu, which is big and tasty at RM1/USD0.37 per piece. The sauce is just nice without smacking of msg.


These stewed kampung (village) chicken feet are bony and not deep-fried, unlike those in the city which are bigger and puffed from frying.


These steamed buns (RM1/USD0.37) look just like mine so I know they are home made and not laced with preservatives and additives.


Hakka belly pork with taro (kew nyuk), RM15/USD5.50.


Beef offal soup.

Pork offal soup with rice noodles.

To get to the restaurant, head for the road to Tambunan from Dongonggon. After about 5 minutes, you'll see the signboard for St Theresa's Church on the left. Go further up, about 3 to 4 minutes, and you'll see a small white signboard on the right that says 'Mee Sup Pipin' in red. Turn into the dirt road and there's a choice of left, straight ahead or right turn. Take the road that's straight ahead; you'll find yourself almost driving into the house. That's the smaller house where pork offal noodles are served weekdays only so turn to the left and go to the bigger house where you get everything on weekends but on weekdays, you get beef and fish noodles only. However, they do bring the food from the other house so you can have pork noodles too. One more thing. They always hang a comb of home-grown bananas near the tables and those are free. The ones hanging near the kitchen are for sale. Go on, take the family out for a ride into the country and have a bowl of noodles with very fresh meat and offal and soup that's not saturated with msg. I'm not sure about the prices but they are lower than those in the city and portion is just right.