LAKSEGANU -Part 2
(Concluding DERUMO's serving of long stuffs)
4. The laksa is served in chats and you can take one or two chats per serving with the vegetable garnishing and flavouring. In serving lakseganu, the salt, chili and belacan are grounded separately and served separately). The eater will have the option to add them according to their taste - whether you like it salty, chilly hot, creamy ( lemak) or very belacany (Not as the laksa johor in which all those condiments are combined together into sambal belacan) The vegetable garnishing or the vegetable salad that goes with the laksa ( known in English as laksalad ) are daun kesum, ulam raja, daun kemangi, daun selasih, daun kadok, tauge, etc. My habit is to take as much belacan as possible and spread over the laksa like grated cheese. Somebody once commented that I should not do it that way - its not cheese. I replied that it is the most appropriate way to eat laksa using Malaysian cheese.
5. To get the full taste of lakseganu, it should not be eaten with fork and spoon but with your bare fingers and clean cut fingernails Can you imagine the pleasure that you derive by pressing (ramas) your laksa in the thick gravy with your finger with the belacan aroma and kesom leaf smell, and then putting it into your mouth. Ummphhhh Sedaaap nya. Once when I was eating the laksa Johor in a posh restaurant in KL in that natural manner, the waiters and other diners looked with much disapproval. I told the waitress that I was eating Malaysian laksa lah (lakseganu) not the Italian lasagna!!! I plan to do the same thing the next time I have spaghetti at the Italian Restaurant in Via Veneto in Rome, Italy - to follow the Malay proverb "Bila anda di Rome, jangan buat apa orang Italy buat"
5. There are two type of gravy ( kuoh) for lakseganu . Kuoh metoh - The gravy is prepared "on the rock" without cooking - made of white, raw santan, black pepper, onion and finely grounded grilled fish meat eaten with the same garnishing and ingredient. Kuoh metoh may not agree with some sensitive stomach (perut plastik) since they may get kembung perok . The other lakseganu gravy is the kuoh masok. It is prepared the same way as laksa johor gravy except that it is more yellowish and not dark brown as in laksa johor. Perhaps, lakseganu do not use much nyior gula or krisek (burnt coconut)
5. There are 5 versions of lakseganu i.e. laksa beras + kuah mentah ; laksa beras + kuah masak; laksa tepong +kuah mentah , laksa tepong + kuah masak and laksam +kuah mentah . (By the way, laksam is the Ganu Kuetiau) I suppose that's why they cannot call laksa lemak as Laksa Trengganu since there are so many varieties and combination, and the laksa johor is only one version or a subset of laskeganu. However, when you enjoying eating keropok goreng at the Batu Buruk stalls and you feel like having a plate of laksa, please don't ask for one laksa. They will fry ten thousand pieces (10,000) of keropok for you because that is what one laksa means.
