Hana Japanese Restaurant at City Mall in KK is relatively new, but already so popular that it is expanding.

As the only Japanese restaurant at City Mall, Hana Japanese Restaurant enjoys a popularity quite unexpected for a restaurant so new.

But like other popular restaurants, Hana Japanese Restaurant has found success in the combination of good service and good food, attracting customers in droves.

Hana Japanese Restaurant is situated on the right side of City Mall, opposite Old Town White Coffee and near Big Apple Donuts. Having recently added an outside seating area (as of yet unused), the inside area consists of several inlets and areas providing a level of privacy to diners.

In the front of the shop the sushi train displays a selection of delicacies, which can either be picked from the train perpetually looping the sushi counter, or ordered. Using a system of the usual colour-coded plates, dishes range in price from RM2 to RM8.

The menu of Hana Japanese Restaurant features creative Japanese dishes not seen elsewhere in KK. The usual set dishes, featuring either fish, beef or chicken as the main, is interspersed with creative dishes like deep fried tofu, chicken skewers, squid sticks and the must-try sushi pizza.

The sushi pizza is salmon on a deep fried rice bed, and if you don’t love it the first time, you certainly will like it. The menu is peppered with an irresistible collection of small dishes that begs to be tried.

What is noticeable from the moment you try to open the door before a light-footed staff member does it for you, is that Hana Japanese Restaurant’s staff are very attentive. Plates are cleared virtually the moment they become empty and green teas are replenished moments after your last sip.

Prices on the menu at Hana Japanese Restaurant are reasonable, and vary from RM6 for some of the individual dishes, up to RM20 for set meals and more for some of the premium meat dishes. It’s easy to push up your own bill, because the food is delicious and inviting, making self control hard.

When you have a craving for not just traditional Japanese food, but Japanese food with an edge, then you’ll find satisfaction at Kota Kinabalu’s City Mall by visiting Hana Japanese Restaurant.

Big Apple Donuts in City Mall is Kota Kinabalu’s (KK) first donut shop of its type, and beyond the initial teething problems, it’s proving quite popular.

Called Big Apple Donuts & Coffee in full, Big Apple Donuts do more donuts than it does coffee, which isn’t surprising, as it’s wedged in between Starbucks Coffee and Old Town White Coffee on the mall-front of City Mall in Kota Kinabalu.

Big Apple Donuts started operations in KK late in 2007 to seemingly little fanfare, however, it proved popular virtually from the day it opened. Its success bamboozled itself initially, as quickly queues developed with which it was unable to cope, often leaving long lines and too few donuts.

Today, a month or two later, the queues seem to have quieten down. Whether this is due to better management, or whether already its popularity has waned, is difficult to tell. What remains certain is that Big Apple Donuts at City Mall KK is doing brisk business and the punters love it.

The official website of Big Apple Donuts is very well hidden, or it doesn’t exist, which makes it more difficult to tell where Big Apple Donuts are from, or any Big Apple Donut history for that matter. Unlike J. Co Donuts, the more prominent and better marketed cousins, albeit only because they have a website, Big Apple Donuts are shrouded in a veil of mystery.

Nevertheless, Big Apple Donuts offers a simple menu of 24 different kinds of donuts, likely at least one to suit every taste. Ranging from the vanilla of donuts, Glacier, which is just a plain glazed donut, to the more exotic Say Cheese and Spicy Flossy donuts, which feature cheese and flossed chicken respectively, Big Apple Donuts has a few offering worth exploring.

Big Apple Donuts’ dough is of the light and fluffy variety, which means, to me at least, that you can gorge on more donuts compared to their competitors in KL, J.Co, makers of a solid, heavy based donut. The fillings are sweet and for the most part quite delicious, although I did choke somewhat on Spicy Flossy. In my opinion, chicken floss should be kept well away from donuts. Although I didn’t try Say Cheese, and I’m first to admit I love chocolate-chip-cookies-and-cheese, I also feel cheese and donuts might be a bit much.

Donuts prices are reasonable, although predictably more expensive then their KL counterparts. A single donut will set you back RM2.30, whilst a half-dozen box will cost RM12 and a dozen, as is standard in the industry, is most economical at RM22 per box (or a R5.60 saving compared to buying 12 single donuts).

For those who actually care about Big Apple Donuts’ beverage selection, and I doubt many do, the cheapest beverage on the list is RM2.50 for Skye Juice (mineral variety), RM4.50 for a variety of teas, RM5 for an Americano coffee, and at the top end, Latte’s and Flavoured Latte’s at RM7 and RM7.50 respectively. Their beverage selection has so far gone untried by this Blog.

To the question of background and history on this fine donut company, I guess we’ll have to approach the source for the answer: Big Apple Donuts & Coffee, City Mall, KK.

City Mall in Kota Kinabalu is the newest, completed shopping centre in Kota Kinabalu to date.

This mid-sized shopping centre is located on the Lintas/Kolombong highway, just past the turn-off to Damai in the direction of Kolombong. With a variety of shops, including a multitude of eateries and restaurants, combined with boutiques, jewelery stores and computer shops, it’s a popular shopping and hang-out destination.

City Mall is on the fringes of Kota Kinabalu, about 5 minutes from Damai and 8 minutes down the road from Lintas. City Mall is approximately 20 to 30 minutes drive from the centre of Kota Kinabalu, depending on traffic conditions. For tourists taking a taxi, the fare should be between RM15 and RM20 depending on your starting point.

City Mall is serviced by a selection of unscheduled minibus taxis, but is not on any set bus routes as far as we are aware. No other forms of public transport is available to this shopping centre and few, if any, hotel shuttle busses frequent this mall.

For those who are driving, when City Mall is at her busiest, parking is inadequate. There is one underground level of parking and several around the perimeter of the mall. Additional, temporary parking, has been made available towards the back and right of the mall, to help cope with additional parking during peak periods.

City Mall is a spacious shopping centre consisting of 3 main levels and a mezzanine level. It has open areas with wide walkways and shops both inside the shopping centre, as well as the outside areas. The anchor tenants are Giant Supermarket, CT Department Store and Popular Express Books.

The main food and beverage outlets are located along the shopping centre’s front and includes Veda Blue, Olde Station White Coffee, Pizza Hut, KFC, Starbucks Coffee, Big Apple Donuts and Old Town White Coffee. On the mezzanine level with outside entrances, you’ll find San Francisco Coffee and Halo Cafe.

On the third, or top, level of City Mall, is Food Paradise food court. A wide variety of cuisine is on offer here at affordable prices. The variety of cuisine include Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Western and several others. Popular for the affordable range of food and drinks, Food Paradise is usually bustling with a lunchtime and snack crowd.

The bigger tenants of City Mall, especially those located inside the shopping centre itself, usually close around 10pm. The outside tenants, in particular the restaurants and coffee shops, tend to stay open until late, and it’s not unusual to find them open past 11pm on a week day and past midnight on a weekend. Most of City Mall’s tenants open around 10am daily.

For a varied, unhurried and uncrowded shopping experience, the place to be is City Mall in Kota Kinabalu.