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or a culturally diverse city like Kuching, which prides
itself in its native culture, it seems rather strange that the food of its
proud people is not as commonplace as one would figure. For the people of
Kuching, Kuching food usually means Laksa, Kolo Mee or Kueh Chap. If one is to
be honest, out of the estimated 45,000 native people of Kuching, it is rare to
see someone from that statistic operate any of the notable food establishments
that Kuching is known for. Where are the people native to Sarawak and where is
their food?
From all the times I’ve spent sneaking my way into a Dayak (please
forgive the un-PC-ness of this term) family’s home, the answer to the question
earlier is in a Dayak family’s home. With how vibrant and exciting the flavours
of this food is, my first question was why is it so hard to go out and find
this kind of food in a restaurant?
I wish I knew, but at the heart of Kuching City, located in the
DBNA (Dayak Bidayuh National Association) Headquarters, Awah Café may be the
answer to my Native food cravings. According to the Facebook page, Awah serves
authentic Bidayuh (one of the major Dayak groups) dishes and the food reviewed
in this post are ones that were recommended by their friendly staff.
We start off with a Kedondong juice made from Kedondong
(no-duh), which is a rather popular drink in Sarawak. The juice is slightly
sweet and primarily sour, while the freshness is quite clear as the flavour is
bright and texture is rather fibrous to the tongue. The acidity from the drink
is good to get yourself salivating and well prepared for the food.
The highlight of going to a Dayak home is usually the availability of the Ayam
Pansuh, which is a soupy chicken dish cooked with herbs within a bamboo over an
open fire. The dish is now more commonly made within a pot instead of bamboo
which makes for a cheaper and easier alternative, but results in losing that
slightly sweet and fibrous texture that the water soaks up from the bamboo
while it’s boiling within it. This of course, has what we were talking about in the latter.
The star attraction of any bowl of Ayam Pansuh is the broth and this broth is packed full of flavour from the herbs and
vegetables that it was boiled in. The tangy lemongrass, herby tapioca leaves
and strong flavours of ginger are very evident here as the long boiling process
has done well to extract these flavours. The only major gripe I have with the
broth is that it comes in such low quantity. It must be noted that it is also
slightly spicy, for those whose palates are quite sensitive to that kind of
heat.
As an addition to tapioca and lemongrass, another common
native vegetable dish is the Kuduos Dowan Baduok (Tapioca Leaves). Typically,
the flavour of tapioca leaves are quite mild, but are very common within the
region and does well to soak up and enhance flavours added to them. This dish
in particular looks to have been cooked with lemongrass which makes this
vegetable slightly herbier. The addition of fried anchovies does make this saltier
than one may prefer and the chillies obviously add a nice punch of heat.
The Kuduos Sapur Borneo (Borneo Mixed Vegetables) is another
good vegetable dish to try. It is a dish filled with sweet and savoury flavours with
different textures that allow one to sample the different kinds of vegetables that are found native to Sarawak.
No Dayak meal is complete without pork. Speaking of
incompleteness, this whole journey would not be complete, if once again, I did
not order something with lemongrass in it. That is exactly what I did, as the
Lemongrass Pork Belly was a savoury experience that is filled with anything but
regret. The gravy was a thick and slightly sweet delight that coated the juicy
thinly sliced Pork Belly.
The fruity heat from chillies, sweet sliced carrots
and onion slices add a crunchy texture to the soft pork belly that rounds up
this dish.
Finally, RICE. How can you go wrong with rice? The rice
served is a mixture of red and white rice, which does well to give a balance of
soft from the white, and firm from the red. As an Asian, I’m biased towards
rice, so just let these pictures feed you as the literal rice that softly
cushioned flavours from Bidayuh dishes, feed me instead.
If one wonders if Awah Cafés name is intended as a place to
bring people together, then it has done itself well to do just that by bringing
people together with food. Awah Café manages to do here what makes eating Dayak
food in Sarawak so good, and why it is feasible to be served daily at home. Its
simplicity from using ingredients found in the region, being able to be eaten
on the daily (For us non-Dayaks, that means not just during Gawai) and its
affordability (this meal cost about RM60) is what makes coming here such a
treat.
Awah Cafe is open on Mondays to Saturdays and from 10am to 10pm. For more information, you may head on down to their Facebook page that you can find by clicking HERE.
If by any chance that you make your way there, it would do well to boost this writer's ego if you told the staff there that you discovered this place through this blog.
If by any chance that you make your way there, it would do well to boost this writer's ego if you told the staff there that you discovered this place through this blog.
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Urban Palate posts every Tuesday at around 8pm Malaysian time and adds articles written by Hilary Ho and photographs provided by Julian Sim every other day of the week from SEEDS by Borneo Post.
