That’s what you get when you try and mumble “Sarawak Laksa” as a big spoonful of this dish is hijacking all your senses inside your mouth. To begin with, that’s not going to happen too often as one can hardly count to two the amount of hawkers offering this delightful laksa here. It’s one of those dishes where the bright and well traveled Malaysians from Sarawak return to their sleepy capital Kuching for their regular fix very often. Same story we have for the Sungei Road laksa with the traveling galloping gourmets here. Pathetic lah. But making a good version is not a walk in the park as balancing the many spices used in laksa is like trying to get a motley group of multi racial folks to sing an impromptu perfect aria. Yes, the performance can go either way, usually south or deep south.

YUM: Ms Sim with her Sarawak laksa

So what, when a successful restaurateur here wanted to go back to her roots to savour and relive this Sarawak Laksa culture. They can either take that flight to Kuching and perhaps head for arguably the most popular stall there (Chong Choon Café at Abell Road), or set up their own stall right here. But there’s just one snag- they can’t cook this dish for nuts. So Sim Sin Sin and her hubby Tay Siew Seng decided to buy from the best (in their opinion) paste supplier back in his Kuching hometown and improvise. The couple are the folks behind the successful Secret Recipe chain of eateries in the region. “ I could not just introduce this dish at our eateries as we would not be able to charge the $12 price tag needed to justify returns.”, so instead Sin Sin, like quite a few successful entrepreneurs, decided to “pay it forward”. She tapped on a social enterprise community project and ran a small central kitchen with “recovering clients” at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). She provided jobs and “very patiently” trained their more able clients. “We had to finely dissect the whole tasking in the kitchen- one to shred chicken, another just to cut fried the omelet, one to cut prawns one to cook the paste etc…”. And after three months, operation was smooth enough for the first set of ingredients and pot of Sarawak Laksa paste to hit the streets. So about nine months ago, Share Kitchen was bravely set up in the very volatile laksa zone in Katong.

Ok, so far, none of the poetry above has any bearing on quality and yes, I have had the pleasure of tearing into the version at Chong Choon Café in Kuching. So how does this match up? I have tried Sin Sin’s version on at least half a dozen occasions and I was quite surprised to learn now that it came off a central kitchen in a hospital. “We bought this A1 brand paste as many of our relatives in Kuching says it’s the best.”, she offers and further reveals “but they don’t tell you what kind of stock to cook it with so we came up with a chicken and prawn head concoction.”

This Sarawak Laksa comes simple. An auntie cook (not from IMH) , blanches only one type of thin yet rougher beehoon in the laksa and it comes topped with shredded chicken and omelet, prawns , fish cake and bean sprouts. But what gives it that edge over the other nearby Nonya versions, is that squeeze of lime. The whole rempah base for the laksa broth, which I can’t fully put my tongue on to decipher, sits very well with the sharp tang. Not much dried shrimps are used, as do the Katong versions and the belachan flavour is milder. It is not so coconutty and milky either. The whole sensation just feels, but is not so, lighter. A dollop of their side sambal can heat things up if you like like.

If you are about to rust out to makan and decipher the rempah for me, then here’s another snag – they dish only about 30-40 bowls a day as Sin Sin says it’s “an experiment”. But I’ll warn her ahead to cater for the good food mob crowd here.

Update : This eatery has closed