Satay Kam­pong dishes up the salty sour good­ness

As it’s get­ting colder, and we’re get­ting colds, the minds of the Wel­ling­tonista turn towards hot, spicy sat­is­fac­tion. For some of us (well, at least me), this means laksa. But where on earth in Wel­ling­ton can we find Malay­si­an food???

What’s that you say, on every second block? Okay, fine. But not all lak­sas are made equal. I’ve nev­er been to Malay­sia, so I don’t pre­tend to be an expert on authen­ti­city, but I know what I like (hence why I always order them without egg). Here are the ones I’ve sampled:

  • Satay Kam­pong (Allen Street) pic­tured. $10 at lunch, $15 at din­ner: this laksa comes with chick­en, crab stick (not pic­tured, because I asked for it without),  and pork meat­balls.  The win­ning fea­ture of this laksa is the large clump of what I think is tam­ar­ind paste dumped on top, so you can con­trol how strong you want your broth to be. I chal­lenge you to get to the bot­tom of your bowl. I don’t ima­gine you can do it. It would bene­fit from some green – cori­ander and/or spring onions would make this pretty much per­fect. Satay Kam­pong is a good lunch option because the interi­or is nice and they have lots of magazines if you’re alone.
  • Satay Kajang (Dix­on Street): I for­get how much the laksa was. It was nice enough, but noth­ing to write home about. The decor is pretty run­down, and it’s not a very thrill­ing exper­i­ence eat­ing here.
  • KK Malay­sia (Ghuznee Street): I’ve only had takeaway Laksa from here before, and KK Malay­sia is not on my din­ner cir­cuit because IT ISN’T LICENSED (the hor­ror!) but it was a large por­tion, served in a couple of dif­fer­ent con­tain­ers, and was tasty, but again, lack­ing green gar­nishes.
  • Rasa (Cuba Street): Rasa ties with Satay Kam­pong for my favour­ite. Because they offer both chick­en laksa and sea­food laska, you don’t have to worry about remem­ber­ing to ask for no fish balls, and some­times you even get cori­ander, which makes me happy. Rasa is really small though, so it’s not a place you’d like to linger.
  • Kopi Tiam (New­town Mall): if you’re doing your gro­cery shop­ping at New World, and you find your­self over­whelmed with the need for noodles, Kopi Tiam is okay. Bonus points for magazines, and for easy park­ing, but it’s not worth a trip to the sub­urbs on its own.

EDIT – new places tried:

  • Cinta Malay­sia (Man­ners St): They offer a choice of rice or egg noodles, will hap­pily give you laksa without egg or sea­food, and the chick­en used is deli­ciously poached. The curry sauce is a bit gritty with curry powder, but I appre­ci­ated the spring onions on the top. At $9, it was a pretty great lunch for a girl with a sore throat.

Where’s YOUR favour­ite laksa from?