Lei Cha

I've suddenly been eating a lot of 'Lei Cha' a traditional Hakka dish which translates to pounded tea. This dish was not typically popular in JB in my childhood and i only got to know of this dish when my friend Yee Yin 'ta pau-ed' it all the way from Ipoh for us to try back in my 2nd year of med school. What struck me most about this dish was how hopelessly healthy it was. Green tea broth with mint pounded in for good measure poured over rice topped with 8 types of ingredients (mostly vegetable) ranging from blanched long beans, preserved radish (cye poh) , cabbages,beans, diced tofu, toasted peanuts, and various other unidentified green vegetables.

It was nice but different. Certainly i though this dish was only popular in Ipoh as i could not phantom anyone my age willingly forking out money to buy a plate of vegetables.In Ipoh i ate it whenever i saw anyone selling it.Then i left Ipoh to work elsewhere. So that was the last of my lei cha eating days..or so i thought.

Going back to JB i found a hawker centre on the first floor of Holiday Plaza selling the stuff. Must be a fluke i thought. Then going back to Subang with JH , we stopped at the newly opened food court in Taipan! I jokingly said i wanted to eat lei cha, which was met with him rolling his eyes.

But waddaya know, at the far corner of the food court i found this!

The holy gruel for anyone going on a detox plan. But i am in no means dieting. I just love eating anything healthy. I hate feeling full and eating fast food makes me feel how oily and clogged up my vessels must be. I hate too much flavour in my food and love it when the natural flavour of food is not masked by ajinomoto.

And this meets my needs exactly. The best thing about this besides the obvious health benefits, is that it is make up of a cacophony of different textures. The crunch of nuts, long beans and cye poh, plus the softness of the rice and tofu is met by minty bitter green tea broth.

It is light yet is enough to quell my hunger.

It is no wonder "lei cha" is making a comeback in a big way thanks perhaps to the increase of health conscious people everywhere.

Yum yum if you haven't tried it, go have a lei cha today.