The good, the bad, the happy, the sad, all in a foreign land none of us can call home.
Holding you with shaking arms and legs up and down the Great Wall of China, pulling Meesua with you in the mountains of Taiwan, casually going to Perth only to end up rushing back before the world went into a COVID-induced shut down, the many trips back to Singapore and Kuching to visit our folks, and most recently, going through the process of sending 爷爷 off to a better place.
Who can forget the work you put in for your choir and singing competitions, and of course, the dreaded iPSLE, arguably the most important test in your life so far, for which you admirably fought tooth and nail (with mummy's blessings) to prepare for.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that you went through all that before you turned 12.
But deep in my heart, I will remember even more -
The goodnight dance we do almost every other night.
The requests to invite you to sleep in our room with us.
The morning wake up routines during school term.
How close you stick to me when I am making pasta.
How you manage to naturally slide into my arms when I least expect it.
The way you understand my struggles when I do not have lunch during weekdays and insist to pack me a 'snunch'.
The world ahead of us will be a tricky, complicated place. When I was a boy, my challenge was to grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong.
For you, your first challenge is to obtain the wisdom to identify the real and dismiss the fake. If you fail at this first hurdle, everything else will inevitably fall apart.
Immersing in a virtual world is convenient, but ultimately confusing and detrimental to your overall well-being.
Therefore, you have to live a real life doing real things. Read a book. Watch a really really good movie (just ask me or mummy). Play a sport. Cook. Learn a new skill. Sing. Eat something nice. Hang out with friends. Only by doing real things, will you be able to effortlessly know what's real and what's not.
Happy 12th Birthday Ellie the Teen. Don't be in a hurry to grow up.
Does anyone, like me, feel that meals at fine dining restaurants often start with a bang, then grind to a lull towards the main course, where it flattens, before a good/bad dessert will ultimately contribute greatly to our emotions right before we leave.
I feel there could be a few factors for this:
1. When we dine out on normal days, we concentrate on the main course most of the time, thus our experience eating main courses is infinitely more than our experiences with small bites, delicate starters, or even a really good slice of bread with premium butter, thus the relative ease to impress with the first few courses.
The bread course at MIA everyone cannot get enough of.
2. If the main course is expected to be a meat or fish, what can be more delicious than a crusty grilled medium-rare steak, or fresh fish perfectly-steamed Cantonese style? It is extremely hard to top some well-made simple pleasures that we are familiar with in the first place, thus serving an impressive main course is a steep mountain to climb, unless, of course, the restaurant throws everyone off with a completely unexpected ingredient as the main course, which is another risk in itself.
Gaa's main course ingredient, going completely out of the box
3. The feeling of hunger. Fine dining meals are notorious for serving small portions of food, but in my experience, most restaurants serve enough. Then again, we start hungry, making it easier for us the enjoy the first few courses, and because such meals are long, by the time the main courses arrive, our brains would have had sufficient time to react and make our bodies feel the sensation of fullness, resulting in us enjoying the main course less.
It is a huge challenge to make a main course better than a good steak
Before I end off, I would like to re-iterate that the statements above are purely based on my personal experiences. This is an issue that had been on my mind for a while, as I always feel that the low point of elaborate meals usually happens around or at the main course.
Lastly, I think restaurants should really make sure they have a couple of really good desserts. If the above is true, the good dessert will be the key to turning the experience around, because everyone deserves a happy ending.
7 years after my last update, so much has happened, including COVID. Gaa has prevailed and come out of the other side with not 1 but 2 Michelin stars! I recently dined there again here's my take on a bigger, better, more polished Gaa.
Update 25th June 2019 Slightly more than half a year after this review, Gaa is now:
13th Best Restaurant in Thailand Tatler's Best Restaurants 2019
2nd in BK's Top Tables 2019
16th on Asia's 50 Best List 2019
95th on World's 120 Best List 2019
1-Michelin Star rated
1 of only 14 eateries to have ever been awarded Stranger in Bangkok's "Wah Lau Eh!" Stamp of Approval
So congratulations the entire team at Gaa, and of course to Garima, the reigning best female chef in Asia. I told you so!
**********
I love simple food that's not simple.
Too many times, dishes are served in front of me like meticulous assemblies of 10-15 elements, only to taste much less than the sum of its parts. I crave for food that look straightforward yet get my brain juices flowing.
Enter Restaurant Gaa, the brainchild of head chef/part owner Garima Arora. After understanding the origins of the word Gaa (a combination of chef's initials), it's easy to realise that the classy yellow house standing proudly opposite Gaggan is simply an extension of chef Garima herself, and the cuisine, a culmination of her personal journey, which includes a childhood in India, a stint in journalism and a star-studded cooking route through Paris, Dubai and Copenhagen.
Chef Garima Arora
Gaa's food is either simple-looking dishes that taste extraordinary, or peculiar combinations that end up making absolute sense. Chef Garima's craft has reached a kind a maturity that isn't easily found in Bangkok. This spirit is consistent throughout the whole tasting menu, right down to the in-house drinks (eg. the fizzy lychee sake or coffee kombucha). It's also the only restaurant in Bangkok that made 3 reputable chefs text me before they finished their meal to exclaim how great the food was.
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Chef Garima insists on using only ingredients sourced in Thailand, which explains a lot as you glance through her menu (the main course is the single most delicious pork rib you will ever eat, not some air-flown A5 Wagyu beef). When I commented on the presence of obvious Indian elements in most of her dishes, it was clarified that spices were used to lift the flavour of individual dishes when required, not to specifically introduce hints of any particular cuisine. She is not ready to use any words or cuisine to limit what they will put out in the future.
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With the rise in global recognition for Bangkok's fine dining scene, what needs to improve concurrently is the receptiveness of the local palate to different cooking styles. In this aspect, Gaa has set a benchmark in this city when it comes to the gradual education of local diners to modern unbounded cuisine. Chef Garima does not plan to slow down, and Bangkok will be better for it.
Personally, I have visited Gaa twice, devouring basically the same menu (bar 1 dish) both times, and I am happy to report that the 2nd meal was even better than the first. If there's any gripe about Gaa, I just wonder whether I will pay for the meal a 3rd time if the menu remains largely similar. Chef Garima, however, has assured me that many changes are on the way. She just wants to make sure every new dish is perfect before making changes, and not release them for the sake of it.
So there is only 1 thing left to do, that is to declare Restaurant Gaa as the first fine-dining restaurant to receive my "Wah Lau Eh!" Stamp of Approval. I thought long and hard about this, and I am super thankful that Chef Garima was actually willing to spend time with this little blogger and receive the cheesy sticker when I reached out.
For her kindness, I gave my stamp, and my first little heart, to Chef Garima.
Truth be told, Gaa deserves stars, not stamps, but whatever happens moving forward, they will always be, to me, one of THE places to eat in Bangkok.
Songkran, Thailand's new year, just ended a week ago. I can't help but feel that my 2026 will forever be defined my dad's sudden passing right before Chinese New Year in February, and our first Qingming for him right before Songkran in April.
It was just a blink of an eye ago, when I was pushing him in a wheelchair in Yunnan in April 2025, admiring the snow mountains, enjoying wild mushroom hotpot together, and him convincing me to sing in the KTV at ClubMed when I wasn’t really in the mood to sing in front of a big group of elders.
Enjoying his best life in Yunnan.
Even closer in memory, late August 2025, he celebrated his 74th - his best birthday ever, over a huge steamed Black Emperor Fish (he specially asked me to arrange as he had never eaten one before) in the presence of his closest family and friends.
I held his hand tightly as he went through his first ever dialysis session after a fall at home in October 2025.
When I welcomed 2026 with him, he was already recovering rapidly after the positive effects of dialysis, and was quickly returning to his usual social activities. He had clear instructions about Chinese New Year 2026, which resulted in me helping him book a table for our family's Réunion dinner, which he missed by a week.
He was the one who made sure everyone was present without fail every CNY, a determination only a global pandemic managed to stop. It was sometimes painful to arrange, but on hindsight, it was his way of showing his brand of tough love, ensuring the family remained close. He then reminded us of his gentle, tender love when we met, in actions reserved solely for his grandchildren.
This year, he made sure all of us had somewhere to celebrate anyway, with or without him, not only for CNY Eve, but on the first day of CNY as well.
This is my father.
He wasn’t perfect, but he showed us it was possible to love on our own terms.
He showed us it was possible to live on our own terms
He showed us, it was also possible to leave on our own terms.
This is life.
The reminder to love while you can comes in the cruelest of ways sometimes.
It's a bit hard to explain what Sarawak Laksa is. You have to taste it to know that it's completely different from any other more well-known laksa variants. Why it's so under-the-radar, wow, I think I could spend another post simply talking about its origins, but just understand that traditionally there were only a few small family-owned establishments dominating the laksa paste supply chain, thus the small supply and inability to spread its wings.
As good as an overview you can find, though I feel that the only legitimate noodle is vermicelli.
I remember whenever my mum spent an entire day making laksa at home, every drop of broth felt like liquid gold. If I used less broth for each bowl, I might accumulate enough to make an extra bowl for supper. Therefore when I see customers leaving entire bowls of (good) laksa broth behind, I get super angry deep down inside. That's how much I love my Sarawak Laksa.
Cutting the long story short, I shall now go straight into my report on all the noteworthy Sarawak Laksa stalls I've personally tried in Kuching, and this is a post that will continuously be updated.
Update November 2025:
One of my absolute favourites - Ah Mui Laksa (formerly of Foody Goody Cafe) has moved! Please scroll down to see more details.
Guess who has taken over from Ah Mui Laksa at Foody Goody Cafe? Hint: It's one of the stalls featured here too, opening a branch there.
Newcomer - Everyday Laksa at Very Nice Restaurant, Jalan Rock
Newcomer - Laksa Stall at Jia Yan Cafe (thanks to the recommendation from Kopikho!)
There are a couple of interesting notes about this new addition. Firstly, it's located along the 2nd row of shophouses right opposite The Spring Kuching (there is a nice overhead bridge), so a shopping/movie date can be planned in conjunction with the laksa trip. Secondly, I looked at my picture of the stall again and again but couldn't find a name for the shop, so let's just call it "Laksa Stall at Jia Yan Cafe".
The beauty of this laksa is in the broth - intense with laksa flavour without being too rich or viscous, good to be slurped till the last drop.
See, no name right?
Beautiful bowl of laksa
Pro tip: The Teh Tarik and Kolo Mee Tai Mak in the same coffeeshop are excellent as well.
With effect from 29 October 2025, Ah Mui Laksa has moved from Foody Goody Cafe to its own coffeeshop called Madam Mui Laksa and Kopitiam on Jalan Rubber. Here's my report after the recce visit.
Foody Goody Cafe beside the current Kuching Specialist Hospital (it's moving soon) is a place known for having slightly pricier products due to the steady clientele from the hospital. Looking past the prices, it also houses my favourite laksa of the moment, Ah Mui laksa.
Everyone has their own laksa preferences, and I like mine with a wholesome seafood broth and strong spicy flavours, without being too viscous at the same time. Ah Mui hits the spot.
Ah Mui Laksa: Take 1
Ah Mui Laksa - Take 2
Pro Tip: Suck up the remaining broth with some crispy dough fritters from the same coffeeshop.
This is the laksa I 'grew old eating', as I must have been already 20 when I started having it, as it's literally within walking distance from my apartment.
The owner obviously didn't grow much older after all these years, what happened to me?
A very good bowl of Sarawak Laksa
Honestly, it's hard to find fault in this bowl of laksa, as can be seen from the sheer popularity of it. Then again, I feel it has lost a bit of magic over the years. Because they cook vermicelli in bulk to speed up the cooking process (reduce waiting time), the hot broth is added to a bowl of cold vermicelli these days, resulting in a lukewarm bowl. If I had my way, I prefer a bowl served piping hot.
Pro Tip: Order the Teh C Peng Special, which must be one of the very best in town.
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3. Poh Lam Laksa at Chong Choon Cafe - The OG of the Laksa I "grew old eating"?
The OG of the laksa and Teh C Peng Special at Sin Chong Choon? I need to dig deeper to give you a better answer, but there are definitely similarities!
If you are a tourist living downtown in Kuching and only have time for 1 laksa, this should be the one you go for. It has the well-balanced characteristics of the one at Sin Chong Choon, but feels hotter and fresher when served.
Closed on Tuesdays!
Another great bowl.
Pro Tip: The Teh C Peng Special as well. After having them at Chong Choon and Sin Chong Choon, you will struggle to find a better glass of Teh C Peng Special in Kuching.
Supporters of deceased culinary legend Anthony Bourdain will have to walk this rite of passage to understand what he meant describing Choon Hui's laksa as the "Breakfast of the Gods". He confirmed his love for this dish by visiting Choon Hui not once but twice during his rare voyages into Kuching.
Highest base price of them all.
The richest of them all too.
I have to say, I understand why a non-local will really really love Choon Hui's version of Sarawak Laksa. It's rich, heavy, thick and packs a really good punch, giving you high levels of every sensation Sarawak Laksa is supposed to provide.
That said, I find it very difficult, if I live long-term in Kuching, to have this version of Laksa frequently, as it's a little bit of an overkill, but don't misunderstand me, it's still an excellent bowl, made for the occasional indulgence.
Pro Tip: Don't leave Choon Hui Cafe without trying their Popiah.
Also a very worthy item in the famous coffeeshop.
I've actually tried many more laksas during my last visit to Kuching.
Sad to say, things don't always remain the same. Some of my old favourites were not what they used to be.
After much deliberation, I've decided to only include the stalls that I am confident will give you a good laksa experience, so that's all for now. I will continue updating this list with new worthy candidates though, so do stay tuned!
