Looking for laksa in Changlun
This far north the border is close enough to taste. Changlun sits half an hour from Bukit Kayu Hitam, and southern Thai cooking has been part of the local repertoire for as long as anyone has been crossing.
So the word laksa does a lot of work here. Ask for it in town and what arrives depends entirely on whose kitchen you are standing in. It is worth knowing which one you are ordering before the bowl lands.
Thai laksa, not the northern one
The version we serve is the Thai one. It leans on coconut and a spice paste rather than the sour fish-and-tamarind gravy that most people in the north mean when they say laksa.
Neither is a better bowl than the other, they are simply two different dishes wearing one name. Ours is thicker, sweeter at the front and hotter at the back. If you grew up on the sour kind, come expecting the other thing and you will enjoy it far more.
When it is on
It comes as one of the afternoon sets, from RM20 a person, alongside the bihun sup. The sets are built around what the kitchen baked that morning and what is being cut in the fields, so the rest of the tray moves with the season.
The glass of MD2 pineapple juice that comes with it is pressed after you order. The fruit is cut on the slope below and carried up, which is a shorter trip than most juice ever makes.
Getting a bowl
The kitchen runs Saturday to Wednesday, 11am to 7pm, and is closed Thursday and Friday. Late afternoon is the hour to aim for, when the heat has gone out of the day.
The deck fills from about four at weekends and the western edge goes first, so call ahead if that is the seat you want. Stay on for dinner afterwards, or take a room and watch the same view arrive again at dawn.
