FH2O: Kuching Kayaking

Thursday, July 20, 2006
7/20/2006 08:36:00 AM

Best “Lui Cha” – Best Kept Secret in Kuching

posted by Francis Ho

Ivy and Stephanie dropped by my office late yesterday morning to say hello as it had been a while since we all last got together and I suggested that we can catch up over lunch. I’m partial to good food and good company so when Ivy insisted that we must try this place which according to her serves the best Lui Cha in Kuching and which was introduced to her by yoga friends about a month ago and after which she had been back there weekly since; who was I to argue.

So with me behind the wheels, Ivy directed us to this double storey corner terrace house in an old housing estate in the Green Road area. We were there early and managed to find a parking space right in front of the house and a table right next to where they were preparing the food. Perfect.

Lui Cha is basically a vegetarian dish that is mainly eaten by the hakkas but is now popular with all the other dialects as well. It consists of chopped/shredded vegetables in a bowl of rice and eaten with a thick herbal/vegetable broth/soup that is green in colour looking and smelling almost like a thick green tea! The name Lui Cha translated in hakka literally means ‘grinded tea’. The old fashion and time honoured way is to grind the herbs in a ceramic bowl with a wooden pastle. As it's tedious work, most people just use the blender these days.

I eagerly waited to taste the Lui Cha prepared by Mr. Lee and her daughter where they had been selling from their house for the past four years. This is truly one of the best kept culinary secret in Kuching as I had not heard about this place until now! I had tasted Lui Cha at various places in Kuching but they paled by comparison with what was served here. You could eat the vegetables (chopped long beans, radish, etc) with bean curds, peanuts and white rice or the green soup on its own alone. It's that delicious and the servings including the all important soup were generous. Most Lui Cha are quite bitter in taste and is an 'acquired' taste to most; but not the Lui Cha here as the soup was actually quite sweet. Mr. Lee explained that the sweetness of the vegetables is attributed to the choice of radish used and the sweetness of the soup is due to the quality of the high-grade 'ikan-bilis' they used. The taste of crunchy vegetables mixed with the earthy musky taste of the broth is simply sublime. Now I know why people get fat but not on Lui Cha as it is so healthy being basically a vegetarian dish. It's so good it could probably wean a carnivore off meat! I'm ~~salivating~~ dreaming of it even as I type!

They are opened daily from 10am onwards till 5.30pm in the afternoon except on Sundays. The normal bowl is RM3.50 and the bigger portion is only one ringgit more. Truly a bargain for such a healthy and delicious home cooked meal. I am definitely coming back to this place for more.

I’m putting the recently updated Kuching aerial photo in Google Earth to good use here on the location of this “must-go-eat” place in Kuching. It’s the first corner terrace house at Jalan Intan when you turn left at Jalan Tengah. You turn right into Jalan Intan driving along Jalan Pisang Barat at the traffic lights from Green Road. And if you still cannot find the place, give me a call and I’ll gladly bring you over - if you’re driving and buying! Do yourself a big favour – go and enjoy the cheap, healthy and delicious Lui Cha from Mr. Lee! I do not normally blog on food; so if I do, you should know that it must be very good as I am a very fussy eater being spoilt at home by a very good chef! I know (and love) my food as well if not better than my paddling! Don't just take my word for it and go check out this best kept secret in Kuching for yourself! Then be thankful! Go eat!