Most visitors to Top Spot end up at stall 25 (Bukit Mata Seafood) or at Ling Loong (stalls 6 and 33), and a normal dinner at either costs RM30 to RM60 a head, more once crab or live prawns reach the table. The court sits on the top deck of the carpark off Jalan Padungan and lists 4pm to 10pm daily on Google, though each stall sets its own hours. Stall 25, the one most often named for halal diners, shuts on Mondays.
Top Spot is one roof over independent stalls with separate kitchens, separate prices and separate halal status, so the number on the pillar matters more than the name on the sign. Ling Loong is the name I hear most from visitors. This page sets it beside the other stalls people ask about, so you can pick one in two minutes.
Top Spot Stalls at a Glance
Five stalls cover most of what visitors ask about, and the table sets their numbers, halal status, cost per head and hours side by side (Google Maps listings, checked October 2026).
| Stall | Number | Known for | Halal | Per head | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bukit Mata Seafood 25 | 25 | Ikan tiga rasa, midin belacan, oyster pancake, salted egg crab, big group tables | Described by visitors as halal | RM25-45, RM50+ with crab or large prawns | Tue to Sun 2pm-10pm, closed Mon |
| Ling Loong Seafood | 6 and 33 | Oyster pancake, steamed fish, siakap in curry asam, black pepper prawns | One reviewer reports a JAKIM certificate at 33 | RM30-60, RM75 and up with crab | Daily 4:30pm-9:30pm |
| Ah Hock 18 | 18 | Grilled stingray, Cantonese steamed siakap, sea cucumber soup | Not stated | About RM40 (one planning figure) | 3pm-10pm, closed Wed |
| ABC Seafood (Ah Seng) | 10 | Grilled fish with sambal, ikan tiga rasa, Teochew steamed fish | Not stated | No dated bill found | Daily 4pm-10pm |
| Kak Na Seafood | 30 | Malay-style set meals for groups | Described as halal | No bill found | No hours listed |
Halal status is each stall’s own claim. Some directories call the whole court halal, while reviewers describe it one stall at a time, so ask to see the JAKIM certificate if it matters. The certified halal restaurants elsewhere in Kuching are the safer fallback for a group that cannot risk it.
The Stalls, One by One
Five names and six stall numbers come up again and again in reviews, and each entry below gives the signature dishes, a price band and the one thing that goes wrong most often.
Bukit Mata Seafood 25 (Stall 25)
Stall 25 is built for big shared tables. Google rates it 4.2 from about 180 reviews, and the orders that recur are ikan tiga rasa, midin belacan, nestum prawns, butter tiger prawns, kerang cili bakar and an oyster pancake that arrives as a giant crisp bowl topped with fried oysters. A table of two paid RM90.65 for the pancake, sambal fern, butter prawns and a Teochew-style steamed fish, and a table of four paid about RM135 for six dishes, which puts a head at RM25 to RM45 until crab or large prawns join the order.
Service is where stall 25 slips. Two-person tables report waits of more than an hour while later, larger groups finish, orders get forgotten, and one visitor watched the crab and prawns they had picked go to another table. The butter prawns draw the same remark twice, that the sauce coats the shells and leaves the meat mild, and the pancake can be too oily to finish. One April 2025 visitor wrote that stall 25 “appears to have closed” on a Monday night, the one night its Google listing shows it shut, and visitors since then describe full meals there.
Ling Loong Seafood (Stalls 6 and 33)
Ling Loong has the longest menu and the biggest review pile on the floor: 4.1 on Google from about 680 reviews and 4.1 on Tripadvisor from about 200. Stall 33 gets singled out for portions and cooking, and reviewers keep naming the owner, who steers tables to what is fresh that night. The dishes that recur are the crispy oyster pancake, steamed fish, siakap steamed in curry asam, black pepper and salted-egg prawns, cereal squid, midin belacan and cangkuk manis fried with egg, which one regular says is not on display at the front. One reviewer reports that stall 33 holds a JAKIM halal certificate. Google lists Ling Loong daily from 4:30pm to 9:30pm, half an hour before the court closes, and a visitor who came back the next day for lunch found it shut.
Bills run RM57 and RM115 for two (November 2023) and RM303 for seven (2025), so RM30 to RM60 a head, with beer and crab pushing it past that. Consistency is the weak point. Black pepper crab in a very salty sauce, overcooked clams, a prawn that was not fresh and a steamed fish that arrived cold all turn up in reviews from 2023 to 2026. The owner who guides tables is also the person reviewers describe as pushy about adding dishes, so settle your budget before you reach the counter.
Stall 18 (Ah Hock 18)
Stall 18 is the pick for grilled stingray and Cantonese-style steamed siakap, with sea cucumber soup, dry chilli prawns and midin belacan behind them. Two 2026 visitors who ate at both 18 and 25 recommend the pair, including a deep-fried garlic fish ordered with few bones, and a local forum guide calls 18 the calmer place to order. Google lists it as Topspot Seafood 18 Ah Hock, open 3pm to 10pm and closed Wednesdays, and one planning figure puts a table of two at about RM80.
Stall 18 is hard to judge, because there is little to go on. It has about 50 Google reviews against nearly 700 for Ling Loong, no recent dish-level verdicts, and a Wednesday closure that appears on Google only.
ABC Seafood (Stall 10)
ABC is listed on Google as ABC Seafood Topspot Ah Seng No. 10, with about 80 reviews and hours of 4pm to 10pm daily. The praise lands on fish: a red snapper grilled on leaves, crispy seabass cooked tiga rasa, and Teochew steamed fish, plus cockles and midin. One June 2025 visitor notes that the stall weighs the fish and names the price before cooking, which is the habit every stall on the floor should have. No dated bill for this stall turned up, so plan on the court range.
The prawns are the weak spot. Two reviews from the past year fault the salted-egg and butter prawns, soggy in one and tasting of milk powder in the other, and steamed and belacan dishes can run salty here as elsewhere on the floor, so ask for lighter seasoning.
Kak Na Seafood (Stall 30)
Kak Na sells Malay-style seafood and set meals for groups, and guides name it as the halal-conscious choice beside stall 25. Google lists it as Topspot 30 – Kak Na Seafood with 58 reviews and no opening hours, so confirm at the court. Sets and prices change, and no dated bill turned up.
Kak Na’s service problem is not mild. Four of the five reviews the listing shows are one-star, citing waits of an hour or more, dishes that never arrived and cold food, including a booking for 13 whose portions fed two. One reviewer blames a Chinese New Year crowd, when other stalls had shut. That is the same night a halal-conscious group is most likely to be sent here.
Stall 23 and the Rest
Top Spot has about 15 operators, and beyond the five above, the rest come with thin or unreliable detail. Stall 23 appears in older forum threads as a local recommendation, but no stall name or recent review came with it, so it stays off the table above. The same caution covers the other dozen or so operators: several reviewers say the stalls look and cook alike, and one diner who chose a quiet, less viral stall found the quality matched the famous ones. A stall signed Muslim Seafood comes up twice for salted egg squid, with no number attached. Midin belacan is on almost every board, and the wider list of Sarawak dishes worth ordering shows where else to find it. If the rooftop is more than you want, the everyday food courts across Kuching are the calmer alternative.
What Does a Top Spot Dinner Cost, Stall by Stall?
Dated bills put an ordinary dinner at RM30 to RM60 a head: RM90.65 for two at stall 25 (about RM45 each), about RM135 for four there (RM34 each), RM57 and RM115 for two at Ling Loong in November 2023, and RM303 for seven in 2025 (RM43 each). The totals sit close together even though the tables ranged from two diners to seven. The per-100g pricing mechanics are in the main Top Spot guide, so this page only flags what pushes a table past RM100: crab and lobster, live prawns sold by weight at RM12 to RM15 per 100g, and a large market-price fish. Asking pays off, as a 750g sea bass at stall 25 cost RM33.10 in 2024 once the stall weighed it in front of the diners.
Drinks come from a separate stall and are billed separately. A large bottle of Anchor beer was RM18 in 2024, one visitor found sugarcane juice cheaper at the stalls in the middle of the floor, and Ling Loong’s own drinks are called expensive. Parking inside the building is a flat RM3, paid at the exit by cash or e-wallet, and a Grab from most central hotels runs RM6 to RM12 (see Grab fares across central Kuching).
What Are the Opening Hours, and When Should You Turn Up?
Opening hours for the court as a whole conflict. Google lists 4pm to 10pm daily, other directories show 5pm to 10pm or 5pm to 11pm, and a local forum guide says 5pm to 10:30pm. Each stall keeps its own hours: stall 25 from 2pm and closed Mondays, Ling Loong 4:30pm to 9:30pm, stall 18 from 3pm and closed Wednesdays, ABC 4pm to 10pm. The practical reading is 5pm to 9:30pm for any stall, with last orders earlier at Ling Loong. Holiday weekends rewrite it: some stalls shut at Chinese New Year and Hari Raya, and the ones left open absorb the crowd.
Arrive between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Seating is by stall, so you sit near the one you ordered from and tell them your table number, and visitors report the best seafood selling out soon after tables fill around 7:30pm. Reviewers who came before 6pm describe an easy table, and later arrivals describe the waits in the stall sections above. From Padungan or the Waterfront it is a short walk, so walk over from Old Town and the Waterfront rather than hunt for a space in the carpark.
Is Top Spot a Tourist Trap?
It is partly one, and the complaints are specific. Stalls tout for your table the moment you step off the stairs, the better-known ones upsell, two-person tables wait an hour on busy nights, and the floor is hot, noisy and open to the rain, with half of it unsheltered. Freshness varies by stall and by night, and one visitor wrote that the court had slipped in quality over the years. Against that sit a 4.3 Google average from nearly 7,800 reviews and visitors from Singapore and Australia who call the prices low, so the court holds up at its price and lets down the people who sit with the first stall that waves. Walk the floor once, pick the stall you want from the table above, and ask the per-100g price before anything goes in the wok. For a printed menu and a bill, the sit-down restaurants with prices on the page cost more and take the guesswork out, and the places locals drive to instead are in the seafood roundup.
None of this goes away by choosing the right stall: the touting, the heat and the one-hour wait happen at the good ones too.
The detail I notice taking visitors up there is that the people who leave happy asked the price of the fish before it was cooked.