Late Morning Laksa at Old China Cafe

[Chris] The clock was ticking and we had yet to try a good Laksa. So I dragged steph to another KL institution known as Old China Café before hitting the museums. This restaurant sits in an odd location between pre-WWI shophouses along Jalan Balai Polis. It’s a small miracle that these old buildings opposite a car park from the motorway have not fallen into the hands of property developers. Old China Café’s original building is still structurally intact, right down to the sagging staircase that leads to the musty furniture gallery upstairs.

Steph immediately ordered us a delicious ‘Pie Tee’ as a starter - a delicious top hat-shaped crispy tortilla that you fill yourself.

This café is no secret - we saw tables with the same guidebook bible side by side - but the old charm overpowers any regrets for not being the first to discover it. Popular favorites here include babi png teh (pork stew), tart Assam prawns, laksa, chendol (coconut ice with noodles) and devil's curry.

Laksa was traditionally served in small locally-made handmade bowls bearing `southern Chinese motifs. It was eaten with a spoon only, but now with chopsticks too. The dish probably first surfaced in Portuguese Melaka from the port city’s Persian traders who coupled local ingredients with noodles from Chinese immigrants. The Portuguese are also responsible for it’s cousin ‘laccassa’ when they later brought this noodle recipe to the island of Macao.

In Persian, Lahksa translates directly to noodles. The iconic dish consists of rough rice noodles in a gravy of chili paste and coconut, topped with bean sprouts or cockles. When asking for a tame level of spice for Steph, we were politely corrected by the waitress who insisted that a delicate balance was needed between coconut and spice.The Chinese often add prawns or fish cakes but we opted for the pure sauce and noodles to start our day of sightseeing. The steaming bowl was brought over and we inhaled the fragrance that came up from the signature knotweed garnish, a chopped ‘laksa leaf’ that’s put on top.

Hawkers stored their ingredients and bowls in large tin ‘tiffin’ carriers. A common sight in Malaysia and Singapore in the 1950-60s, Tiffin is a word of Anglo-Indian origin meaning a light meal of curry or lunch.