Feast & Furious Cafe

I came to know about Feast & Furious Café through Facebook as I have been a follower of its owner Alex Wong for a few years. Knowing that it has opened for business a week ago on February 12, I decided to drop by for a visit this afternoon after strolling along the Kuching Waterfront to take some photos.

I had been informed that the café is in front of Kapit Hotel in Padungan so I searched the area across the road from Kapit Hotel but I just could not find the café. In frustration, I phoned my friend Rosalind Tan for directions. It took me a while to locate the café. If only someone has told me the café is directly behind Sky Bookstore, I would have found it with ease.

As I approached the café, I could not help being attracted by the motorsports mural. There are portraits of the motorsports greats like MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi , motorcycle racer Giacomo Agostin, the greatest rider of all time Eddy Merckx and the late Formula One champion Ayrton Senna, some of Alex’s heroes. A mural of seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher adorned one corner of the building. The murals are the handiwork of local artist Daphne Siaw, 27, and her colleague and fellow artist Janani Premchandh, 24, who hails from Chennai, India.

As I stepped inside the café, the colourful helmets stored under-the-ground glass floor display literally grabbed my full attention. Ladies wearing skirts may feel that someone is peeping at them from below their feet.

A full size Formula 1 car adorns the wall as a painting. As I gazed around the café, I found myself surrounded by motorbikes, scooters, bicycle, motorsports collectibles and a Ferrari 308GTS sports car.

My Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang mates Rosalind Tan and John Wong joined me for lunch. I ordered sweet and sour prawns with fragrant rice while Rosalind and John ordered salted fish fried rice and kampong fried rice respectively.

As we waited for our food, I took photos of the iconic café with a motorsports museum feeling to it.
Rosalind knows Alex and she went to invite him over to our table where we had a good chat. Alex comes across as a very down-to-earth and extremely friendly guy. We had our photos taken with Alex and I bought a copy of his book. Thank you Alex for autographing the book!

Alex is definitely not your conventional guy. In the 1990s, he was one of Malaysia’s first jet-ski racers to turn pro, winning eight international races during that decade before turning to songwriting under the stage name of SingleTrackMind. He recorded two albums, earned three AIM nominations and was the opening act for Deep Purple and INXS when they played in Singapore and Malaysia in 2000s. He is also the author of a bestselling travel book “Till The Road Ends” which is now in its second reprint. He was a speaker at the recent Bersih4Kuching rally, touching on the turbulent political career of his late father Datuk Amar James Wong Kim Min.

My sweet and sour prawn rice was not bad. I tasted both versions of the fried rice ordered by Rosalind and John and I must say that I really like the salted fish fried rice.

Feast & Furious Café is a cool place to hang out in Kuching. A place where great food cool wheels beckon!