[Hakka] Love It Or Hate It - Lui Char

Lui Char [擂茶], a healthy delicacy is a type of phood by the Hakka Hor Poh people [河婆]. Well, I'm not a Hakka myself, so I don't really know the history behind this dish. But I know it's very healthy because it's all vege.


Lui Char is a type of dish whereby you eat a bowl of rice mixed with various type of vegetable and with a bowl of grinded smooth vege soup. The colour of the soup looks unappealing, but it's nice, if you are the minty, vege type of person.

My parents never expected me to like this, the other day my dad was surprised that I instantly agreed on what he suggested for dinner. Hmm, I always liked vege vege stuff. I can eat vege and rice 7 days a week. Yummy yummy. My dad loves it. We always head for Hor Poh Kitchen at Jalan Changkat Thambi Dollah (next to Shaw Parade Jalan Pudu) for lui char.


A lot of people hate it, a lot of people love it. Depending on your own taste, I can't tell you whether it taste good or not.

This rice dish here at Hor Por comes with 7 side dishes -

Oh gosh, I can only recognize a few. One is the vege we find in most pan mee, another type of leafy vege, long bean, peanuts, fried onions with sesame, dried shrimps (u can opt not to put in) and long beans.

First of all they pour a bowl of soup for you. I don't know to call it tea/soup lah. Whatever.

Then you can opt to pour the soup over your rice, or just drink it like that.

Then mix all your veges in! Wah lah. Yum yum.

The soup is quite minty, because it's made out of mint and various vegetables. At the same time, you can taste the saltiness, sweetness and the vege taste. Quite interesting. If only the soup can be maintained hot all throughout the meal it would be perfect.

Besides lui char (though it's the specialty) they also serves dishes for rice. Tofu, meat, vege, egg etc. Few other specialties of theirs are such as X.O. Fried Twin Vermicelli, Crispy Pork Trotters, Otak-otak Tofu, Herbal Chicken etc.

I tried the Vermicelli, the 2nd time I went, they use mihun + dong fun. It's not oh-so-great actually, taste like normal fried mihun lor. Oh, their claypot brinjal is nice :) But we ate the yam braised with pork belly (wu tao kao yuk), the yam had some weird taste, so we returned it, and they replaced with a new one. It actually turned down my appetite though.

Fried Bitter Gourd with Salted Egg

Za Yuk (Braised Pork with Wood Ear)

I only know there's this Hor Poh Kitchen, and a stall in Oasis Food Court Midvalley that sells lui char. Should explore other places next time ;)

Hor Poh Kitchen 河婆点擂茶
No. 148, Jalan Changkat Thambi Dollah, off Jalan Pudu, 55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-21452232
Business Hour: 11.30am～3.00pm(Lunch) ； 5.30pm～10.00pm(Dinner)