HPE1013: Food you must eat when you are at Sarawak.

Sarawak, known as ‘Bumi Kenyalang’, is the one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, the third largest island in the world, and north of the Equator. Sarawak not only has different races, nationalities and religions, even Sarawak also have different kinds of food. Here we want to suggest some food that should we try, when we are at the capital city of Sarawak.

First, when we hear about Sarawak, automatically we remembered about Sarawak Layer Cake. At Sarawak, Sarawak Layered Cake are food that become a symbolic in Sarawak and is the one of the art food introduced by the old generation of Sarawak. The main advantage of Layerred Cake is a package of motif and pattern combined with a unique and delicious taste, in addition the texture are quite moist but solid. Besides, it is also versatile and can be served for various functions, not only for major festivals such as Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Gawai Dayak, Deepavali and so on, even for engagement gifts and goodies.

Another dish at Sarawak is Laksa Sarawak. Laksa Sarawak is quite spicy but delicious. This dish is actually vermicelli in a thick soup of spices, lots of seafood, chicken and sliced of omellette. Coming back to the main focus, we want to explore a little bit about this laksa. Laksa Sarawak is a tradisional food of Sarawak and usually served at the various functions or even as a daily meal. Laksa Sarawak has also been commercialized with the sale of laksa paste on the market.

Umai, this raw dish is unique to Sarawak and especially the Melanau people who lived on the coast. It is tradisionally made with fish or prawns. The most important thing to make Umai is to use fresh produce since no cooking is involved. What makes Umai different is addition of lemongrass, chillies, ginger and garlic. Umai are work very well as an appetizer and easy to prepare, it takes less than 30 minutes.

Manok Pansoh is famous food too in Sarawak. Manok Pansoh or chicken cooked in bamboo are food of Iban most preferred. Bamboo is used to cook the chicken gives a distinctive flavor to the food. To prepare it the same as a bamboo cylinder in the peninsular. ‘Manok’ means chicken and ‘Pansoh’ means cooked in bamboo. In Iban also known as the ‘Bird Pansoh’ or ‘Bird Cache’. Manok Pansoh very valuable and suitable to be eaten at breakfast, lunch, dinner or even at any time. It will be taste better if eaten with glutinous rice. It is food that needs to be considered when a visit to Sarawak.

Therefore, we can conclude that food dishes at Sarawak is unique, versatile and it is make Sarawak food dishes different than others country.