New Malaysian Food? Gen Z Reimagines Local Dishes Like Oxtail Laksa | Lunch With Us: Klang Valley

Hi, Tricia. Hi. Thanks for inviting us. So, where are we going for lunch? So, it's just a five-minute walk across the road there. So, let's head over. When I come here, it feels like home because I'm really close to the person that runs this place. She's actually my senior from college and what she is sharing here is Malaysian food, but redefined. New order, one oxtail laksa. One yamogi salmon, one sago parmesan, one ulam salad. The previous owner, Aunty Sue, she's a Penang Puranakan. So, she was famous for this dish called lemak laksa. Some people call it the Siamese laksa. At that time, I was playing around with an oxtail dish. And then, we were also working along with the laksa. I was like, since I have the oxtail, I have the laksa. We just put everything together and we're just like, oh, it works. So far, we've been getting very encouraging feedback. Nowadays, you can't really get soup at anywhere. People will be like, ooh, I've not had oxtail for a long, long time. And so far, young and old alike, they like it. Hey, your food's here. Are you ready to eat? Yes. Come. Thank you. This is the crispy fried chicken rice. And then, this one is the oxtail laksa, together with the lime to balance out the fatty notes. This laksa, along the way, as we were researching it, we just took inspiration from all the curries around. So, we've got Chinese influence. We've also got garam masala in it. And the Peranakan, they like to season with asam gelugur and stuff like that, and belacan. So, this is pretty much Malaysia. Taiwan-Malaysia laksa. Yeah, something like that. When it comes to fried chicken, for us, we would think about the dry batter with the flour drenched in the egg, and then you just deep fry. But what Sarah did was more towards the Japanese style, where they use soda water and make sure that the batter is really, really cold, so that when it hits the temperature, it makes it more crunchy and it expands. Besides fried chicken, we also have smoked chicken that we do in-house, as well as smoked brisket. Apparently, this is a common thing that they do in Negeri Sembilan, where they will smoke whole chicken. The coconut has, will have the coconutty aroma, not like tinny smoke. Coconut smoke will be a bit richer, more robust. You know, like ulam lakar, those kind of earthier tones. I think it's a nice combination. They decided to go with smoked Angus brisket with ulam raja because ulam raja is a very traditional Malay vegetable. And then they pair it with smoked Angus brisket, which is not traditional Malay food. Ulam raja recently has gained popularity among the young people. This is the ulam raja from our farm. The bergaga. This one we can't get elsewhere. Usually the ones out there is really, really bitter. The bunga kantan as well, we've grown some. This is pisang, one of the nicest bananas I've ever had. The flavor of the produce is so much better than store-bought. I was working at a Malaysian restaurant called Dewakan. We were tinkering a lot with local produce and I learned a lot there. We've actually seen foods or ingredients that, as a Malaysian, we've not seen it before. For example, asam gelugur and wadah bai and things like that. So it was an eye-opening experience and I learned a lot from Dewakan. I think it's a growing trend in today's food scene where you see a lot of restaurants that are modern Malaysian. They are looking into the traditions and cultures of our Malaysian ingredients and they try to bring a new take or fresh breath and try to innovate. We want to elevate Malaysian cuisine. We've seen the Thai food wave come, the Korean wave, the Japanese wave. I think it's about time for Malaysian cuisine to shine. Every chef has their own personal identity when they cook. I think chefs are, to a certain extent, like artists as well, just like Trisha. So her drinks are an extension of her creativity and who she is. Right now, I'm handling a project in Kuwait. The project is mainly about zero-bar or non-alcoholic mocktails. One of the drinks that I did for Kuwait is a pandan chiffon because it's something different for them. For me, it's like I'm just trying to make drinks outside of the box. Thank you. So this is the mango passion fruit ayu cooler to pair with the oxtail laksa. And this is the buah kandan soda that I usually have with the chicken. Buah kandan is a ginger torch flower. It's a pink flower that people usually use in a lot of Malaysian cooking, especially like asam laksa. It's very refreshing with a slight bit of acidity. We've also put a bit of mint in there to just give another layer to the drink. There's no alcohol in this, right? Okay, soda, soda. See you soon, take care. Bye-bye. There's actually one more place I want to bring you to. Let's go. Mark Anthony. Thank you. Thank you. Here you go. Wow, it looks good. How long have you been coming to this food truck? Since I was 7 to 8, that's about like 20 years ago. Further down the street there, there's like a food court. So my godparents would always bring us for lunch. And then after lunch, we would come by here, take away some rojak and then have some cendol. It's not too sweet and it's not too overpowering in one end or the other. I think also because of this, it brought me into F&B, like taste balance and understanding about flavours. Do you feel that cendol is kind of like a quintessential Malaysian dessert? I mean, like when you think about Malaysian dessert, there's so many. We have like ABC. ABC has like everything from jellies to corn, red bean, rose syrup. The cendol is more of the creamier to highlight the gula melaka also. Besides this, we have a lot of kuih, like the apam balik and all this kind of dessert. I'm a bit too full after lunch to eat here. But I really enjoy the rojak because the sauce is a bit different. It's not like the sweet, sticky type. And also I really love the crunchy crackers that he added. And I always ask for extra. I wanted to bring it here because tomorrow I'm flying off. So I thought of having this before I leave the country to do more projects. Thank you for the cendol. Thanks for coming. Thank you for tagging along for lunch. Sadly, I gotta head off back to work. But I hope to have lunch with you next time. Bye!