Laksa Me

Score: 3/5

Sometimes soup is the only thing that will do. Spooning it up slowly suffuses contented warmth inside. Jumpers, firesides and cuddles are all excellent in their own sweet ways but they don't have the full-body bloodstream reach of a bowl of soup, nor its range of pleasures. I love getting a faceful of soupy steam when the bowl is brought to table. I love dipping bread into it when that's the done thing. I love slurping the dregs straight from the bowl, if no one's going to slap me with an etiquette infringement notice. With Asian soups, I love sending my chopsticks in search of goodies lurking in the depths. I love the whipcrack of noodles as I suck them up. Good soup nourishes like a chat with an old friend or a night's sleep strung with sweet dreams. I love the stuff.

"My Mum's Laksa" - the signature soup at Laksa Me - is a great example of the breed. The fragrance is the first thing that strikes you in this northern Ipoh version of Malaysia's classic curry noodle soup. You smell coconut and lemongrass and galangal and gingerflower and, no doubt, some of the 17 other ingredients that make up the base curry paste. Laksa Me owner Allen Woo says one of the secret elements in this dish costs $650 a kilo: presumably there's just a smidgeon in this $10 soup. The recipe is the Woo family's attempt to re-create his grandmother's much-loved dish. She died without passing on the recipe but Allen Woo's mother and uncle reckon they've more or less captured its essence. The broth is thick and nutty, slightly sour, with a decent chilli kick, packed with rice noodles, barbecued pork, chicken meat and prawns. It also has the essential laksa quality of never diminishing, no matter how much you eat. Indeed, I felt like Bill in Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding: "Me an' Sam has been eatin' away at this Puddin' for years, and there's not a mark on him." I had to admit defeat, but my white flag was raised with happy heart.

The little snacks at Laksa Me are good too. The pandan-wrapped chicken is juicy and tender; the fish cake is a spongy blast of seafoody kaffir lime leaf, and the tofu parcel is an excellent little vegetarian package, with glass noodles, gingko nuts, mushrooms and daikon.

What wasn't so good on my visit were the creature comforts and the service. When Laksa Me opened a year ago, it looked smart in a groovy industrial way. The problem with pared back warehouse fit-outs is that minimal can start to look to cheap and unfinished unless the sharp bits stay sharp and the shiny bits stay shiny. Here, the planter boxes are looking bedraggled, the bricks say storeroom rather than trendy hangout and the hard surfaces make for a chilly room, only partly compensated by freestanding domestic heaters dotted here and there. The service was OK but when we hailed a waiter to ask about dessert, he confessed they'd already closed the kitchen. It was 9.30pm. It wasn't that I desperately wanted more to eat, but it was an abrupt clanger at the end of an evening that was characterised by slurpy warmth and soupy love.

Tips and pans to theserve@theage.com.au