7. Curry Laksa: A Soupy Sensation

It is a rainy, miserable night: welcome to Wellington summer... Early evening, KCs is about 3/4 full. I grab a booth by the kitchen. Do my ears deceive me or are they playing music in the background tonight? A guitar solo sounds. While it does not detract, it certainly doesn't add to the ambience - drowned out as it is by the thud of cleavers chopping, woks sizzling and a cacophony of customer chatter. While waiting for my food I check the menu again. With 160 dishes on the English menu and around 40 on the Cantonese, completing my challenge will be a Herculean task! Delicious aromas waft through the air. Anticipation is high. I haven't eaten Laksa in about a decade. On a night like this a curry noodle soup is just the ticket to offset rainy day blues.

My meal arrives. The bowl is a Brobdingnagian behemoth. Just as well I am hungry! The soup is creamy and coconutty, with a hint of spice that lingers on the tongue. A mouthful of fishcake: slightly chewy with the taste of the ocean. A prawn, tender and juicy. A slice of surimi - an alluringly artificial taste of "crab." I fish out foliage: a sodden, aromatic curry leaf. There is a surprise hunk of soup-soused potato! The noodles are the standard yellow egg noodles. They are tender with a slight bite to them. Perfectly al dente. Beansprouts everywhere - this is totally health food right?

I put down my chopsticks and (somewhat uncooly) pick up my fork to twirl up the last remaining vestiges of noodles and seafood. I have made a valiant effort but there is still about half a litre of soup left in my bowl. I have one more spoonful then concede defeat. Ok, two spoonfuls. Ok, three, four, five: I hate to waste food but this is too much, even for me. At $14 it is a steal for the sheer volume of food.

Next up, the Malaysian Invasion continues with Mee Goreng, Roti Chenai and Char Kway Teow.