Falling for Sarawak Laksa,
the Second Time

“Breakfast of the gods” and the never-ending battle with Penang

My first laksa was Singapore’s curry version. Delicious, but I did not fall in love. Not until, six years ago, I met Sarawak laksa at a hotel breakfast in Kuching.

Shinya Takei, Managing Partner, GASPARD & CO.8 November 2026

Sarawak laksa in red soup topped with omelette, shredded chicken, prawns, bean sprouts and coriander — Sarawak laksa: omelette, chicken, prawns. Bourdain called it “breakfast of the gods”.

Breakfast of the gods

In Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, people eat laksa for breakfast. Rice noodles in a reddish-brown soup with coconut milk. On top: strips of omelette, shredded chicken, boiled prawns, bean sprouts and coriander. On the side, lime and fiery sambal.

The late Anthony Bourdain, the American chef and travel storyteller, called Sarawak laksa “breakfast of the gods”. It may sound like hyperbole. One bowl and you understand. Even gods want something a little spicy in the morning.

My first laksa: Singapore curry

My first laksa was in Singapore. Singapore laksa is a curry flavour rich with coconut. It was delicious. But, honestly, it did not hook me.

Singapore laksa with short thick noodles and prawns in a yellow curry soup — Singapore’s curry laksa. Delicious. Delicious, yet I did not fall in love. Photo: ProjectManhattan., CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Almost every day at noon, the staff of our Singapore company would say “去吃叻沙吧” (“let’s go eat laksa”) and take me along. I heard it so often that the line still rings in my ears. Full responsibility for the company lay with me, but the authority to decide lunch lay entirely with my Singaporean staff. Our Chinese staff member proposed “let’s have lunch at Starbucks” several times, and was outnumbered every time, flattened by the laksa faction. The destination was always the laksa stall in Raffles Place. In the financial district I admired out of sheer starstruck-ness, as I wrote in No. 21, I was slurping laksa every day. That stall also had Sarawak laksa. I tried it, but looking back, it was not the Sarawak laksa I love. Like people, dishes do not show their true face if you meet them in the wrong place.

The shock, six years ago

The real encounter came six years ago. One morning at The Waterfront Hotel in Kuching, I had Sarawak laksa at the hotel restaurant.

A hotel pool looking across to the golden-roofed Sarawak State Assembly building and the Sarawak flag — The pool of The Waterfront Hotel, on the same floor as the restaurant. Across the Sarawak River, the golden-roofed State Assembly building and the Sarawak flag. With this view beside me, I fell in love with laksa.

It was a shock. I cannot remember a single other dish on that morning’s buffet. Not curry. Not merely sour like Penang laksa. From behind the mellowness of coconut milk, the tang of tamarind and the deep savour of fermented shrimp paste arrive one after the other. Squeeze in lime and the flavour wakes up one more notch. All those years of laksa in Singapore, I thought, had been a run-up to this bowl.

Sarawak laksa in a reddish-brown soup topped with omelette strips, shredded chicken and prawns — Sarawak laksa: omelette, chicken and prawns, the full cast. Mild-looking, it quietly punches you on the first sip. And the one who gets punched orders another. Photo: Marufish from Alor Setar, Malaysia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From Carpenter Street

There is no clear record of Sarawak laksa’s origin. Legend has it that in 1945, Goh Lik Teck, a Teochew immigrant from China, began selling a noodle dish without curry on Carpenter Street in Kuching.

A Chinese temple with red pillars and a tiled roof on Carpenter Street, Kuching — A Chinese temple on Carpenter Street. Sarawak laksa is said to have started on this old street. Photo: chipmunk_1, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

And The Waterfront Hotel stands right in front of Carpenter Street. Six years ago, without knowing it, I fell in love with laksa right in front of its birthplace.

The ones credited with spreading today’s Sarawak laksa across the state are Kuching’s Tan family in the 1960s and 70s. They made a ready-made laksa paste under the brand “Swallow” and supplied it to stalls. Rival brands followed: Parrot, Eagle, Rooster. Sarawak’s laksa paste shelf is practically a bird guide.

Through a business lens, this is the secret of Sarawak laksa’s strength. With the flavour base packed into a paste, any stall can produce a decent bowl. Each shop then adds its own fresh spices to finish it. Standardise the base, compete on the finish. A system good enough for a franchising textbook.

Sarawak laksa with bean sprouts, prawns and coriander, and red chopsticks — Sarawak laksa from a popular Kuching shop. Same paste to start, a different face in every shop. Photo: Richx10, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The inter-hotel laksa contest

Back when The Waterfront Hotel was my regular in Kuching, a notice in the lobby announced that it had won first place in an inter-hotel laksa competition. The hotel staff told me the contest is held every year.

A state where hotels compete in earnest over their breakfast laksa. In Japan, it would be like the prefecture’s hotels battling for the best breakfast miso soup in the country. Here, a guest choosing a hotel by its “laksa ranking” rather than room size or view would not be odd. There is at least one. Elsewhere a hotel’s rank is set by its stars; in Kuching, by its laksa placing.

Small ferry boats moored on the bank of the Sarawak River in Kuching — The Sarawak River in Kuching. The Waterfront Hotel overlooks it. Morning laksa comes with a river view. Photo: Rulwarih, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A laksa stall for top guests

In October 2023, Sheraton opened in Kuching, the first Sheraton in East Malaysia. I have been invited since its soft opening. This hotel too puts serious effort into laksa. The breakfast laksa is excellent.

A green-glass tower hotel rising behind white and orange cat statues on a roundabout — Sheraton Kuching, with the cat statues on the roundabout in front. The city’s name sounds the same as the Malay word for cat. Watched over by cats, a lounge with its own laksa stall floats in the sky. Photo: 愛子棋枰, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What surprised me was the lounge for top-tier guests. Western hotel breakfasts usually have an “egg station” where they cook eggs in front of you. Here, in exactly the same format, there is a “noodle station”. Order and they boil the noodles in front of you and ladle in the laksa soup. Where you would expect to be asked how you like your omelette, you are asked which noodles you want. Laksa over yolk.

A hotel lounge with marble floors, red and grey chairs, and large windows over a green town and hills — The upper-floor lounge of Sheraton Kuching. Outside, Kuching’s green townscape and distant hills.

A cook preparing noodle bowls at a lounge counter in front of lit shelves — The lounge noodle station at Sheraton Kuching. Where eggs are cooked at other hotels, here there is a laksa stall.

A cook moving rice noodles into a bowl with tongs, a pot of laksa soup in front — Order and they blanch the noodles and pour the soup in front of you. At the top of the sign, of course: “Sarawak Laksa”.

A bright lounge extending from window seats to a buffet counter at the back — In front of the lit shelves at the back is the noodle station. The view or the laksa? I mostly watch the laksa.

An American-born hotel chain goes out of its way to put a laksa stall in the lounge for its most valued guests. That alone tells you how much laksa matters in this state. Laksa over croissants: that is Kuching’s etiquette of hospitality.

A counter with pots of laksa and chicken soup, four kinds of noodles and bowls of toppings — Laksa soup on the left, chicken soup on the right. Four kinds of noodles, toppings of your choice. A small hawker street first thing in the morning.

Sarawak laksa with prawns and coriander in a white bowl — The lounge laksa. A refined, hotel-like face, but one sip and it is Sarawak through and through.

The never-ending battle with Penang

A taxi driver the other day, unprompted, started passionately telling me about the battle between Sarawak laksa and Penang laksa. The laksa talk got running before the meter did. In Malaysia, laksa is not just food. It is a never-ending contest staking state pride.

Same name, completely different dish. Penang’s assam laksa is a sour soup of fish and tamarind. Sarawak’s is a mellow soup with coconut milk.

Penang assam laksa, a brown sour soup topped with flaked fish and shrimp paste — Penang assam laksa. Same name, this different. Less siblings than distant relatives. Photo: DTW, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

World opinion is split too. Penang’s trump card: seventh place in CNN’s “World’s 50 Best Foods”, ahead of Thailand’s tom yum goong. Sarawak’s answer: in 2021, TasteAtlas named it Asia’s best dish, 4.8 out of 5, ahead of Japanese hot pot.

And this April, at an international culinary competition in Ho Chi Minh City, a Sarawak laksa made by a Kuching chef won gold. No wonder the taxi driver puffed out his chest.

Breakfast at Kuching, Gaspard edition

Breakfast at Tiffany’s opens with Audrey Hepburn on Fifth Avenue at dawn, eating a croissant and coffee while gazing into a jeweller’s window.

My breakfast is laksa slurped at a hotel in Kuching, looking at the river. No jewels, but prawns. No shop window, but the Sarawak River. Breakfast of the gods every morning at the hotel buffet: far more luxurious, if you ask me.

Incidentally, while I am in Kuching, my breakfast is 100% laksa. So is my lunch, 100% laksa. The gods may be content with one bowl a day; I take two. I hold off at dinner not out of reverence for laksa but to save the pleasure for the next morning. By the time I leave Kuching, some fraction of my body is probably made of laksa.

The laksa I failed to meet properly in Singapore, I met again in Kuching. With food as with people, the second meeting sometimes hooks you deeper.