Go ahead, give it a try! Where Is It Located?ĭapur Sarawak is located opposite KPJ Hospital at Jalan Sarikei, Off Jalan Pahang Barat, Kuala Lumpur. If you want to look for the perfect Sarawak Laksa, Dapur Sarawak Restaurant is a good starting point for your search. It is a noodle dish seasoned with red sauce or light soya sauce. Kolo Mee is another Sarawakian signature dish. The restaurant also offers other Sarawakian dishes such as Kolo Mee and Corned Beef Fried Rice. This lends more to its authentic feeling.

The decoration around the restaurant features traditional Sarawak artwork. The restaurant served the food in generous portion and it tasted genuine enough. The first time I came here, I tried out the Sarawak Laksa.

Mahmud Ali Bashah, a Sarawakian-born film and drama actor, started up Dapur Sarawak in 2008 and has expanded the business to another branch in Shah Alam. The restaurant is just across the street from KPJ Hospital in Jalan Pahang. Dapur Sarawak Restaurant serves a variety of Sarawakian cuisine, including authentic Sarawak Laksa. After trying out the dish there, I found the taste to be authentic and similar enough to the ones served back in my hometown, Kuching. I’ve been going to this restaurant regularly. After tasting the Sarawak Laksa on offer, I have narrowed down my personal favourite to one particular place, Dapur Sarawak Restaurant. I have tried several Sarawakian food restaurants during my time residing in Kuala Lumpur. Of course, the authenticity varies from one place to another. This is due to the large number of Sarawakians residing in Peninsular Malaysia which led to some opening restaurants serving Sarawakian cuisine. If you’re in the Klang Valley (the greater Kuala Lumpur area) or anywhere outside Sarawak, the next question in mind is where can you find a restaurant that serves genuine Sarawak Laksa? Nowadays, there are many restaurants that serve Sarawakian cuisine, both in the Klang Valley and in most Peninsular Malaysian cities. The place where it’s readily available is the Sarawak Product Pavillion in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Where can you get the laksa paste here in the Klang Valley? The supermarkets here generally don’t sell this native Sarawakian paste. This brand has been in the market since the 1970s. The most famous paste is the ‘Swallow’ brand. This surely saves a lot of time as compared to preparing the paste itself from scratch. It is available even in the Klang Valley. If you want to make this dish at home, the easiest way is to buy commercial paste. This is the secret ingredient that makes Sarawak Laksa tastes the way it does – the famous Sarawak Laksa paste. Without it, your culinary experience will not be complete. Sambal is a Malaysian condiment made with chili, garlic, shrimp paste, lime juice, onions and garlic. And, don’t forget to add sambal as a condiment to the dish. A favourite of mine is the addition of cockles in the dish, which somehow makes it tastier.

You would typically serve the dish with rice noodles, beansprouts, boiled chicken, prawn and thinly sliced fried egg. Coconut milk is then added to the mixture when it’s time to cook this delightful concoction. They are blended together with ground spices such as coriander seeds, cumin, star anise, cardamom, clove and nutmeg in preparing the paste. The ingredients includes shallots, garlic, lemongrass, galangal and dried chillies. This is because every restaurant or hawker stall in Sarawak makes their own home-made versions. Sarawak Laksa is made from a special paste with its own distinctive taste.

The secret of its distinctive taste lies in the paste. The Sarawak Laksa has its own unique taste that sets it apart. The Sarawak version is definitely not the same as either of these two. Curry Laksa is a coconut-based curry soup dish served with yellow noodles while Asam Laksa is tamarind-based which makes it sour, where it gets its namesake (Asam means sour in Bahasa Malaysia). To sum it up briefly, it tastes like a combination of Curry Laksa and Asam Laksa. Sarawak Laksa actually tastes different from that. This is another Malaysian variant of the dish. Most people who have tried out Sarawak Laksa would make the common mistake of misidentifying it as Curry Laksa. So, the Sarawak version of the laksa must be something that is at least worth trying. His review on this dish during his visit to Sarawak has undoubtedly put Sarawak Laksa on the map. Back in 2005, the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain even remarked it as being ‘one of the foods served in heaven’. Sarawak Laksa is a typical dish that most Sarawakians, including yours truly, eat during breakfast. A bowl of authentic Sarawak Laksa, the famous Sarawakian dish.

Laksa sarawak