Lepau Restaurant — Restaurant in Borneo

🍚🌿Okay, buckle up, fellow food adventurers, because dining at Lepau is not just a meal, it’s a borderline jungle quest for your taste buds, and I LOVED IT. This is not your mamak joint or cafe-hopping kind of vibe. This is ancestral, ethnic, wild and weird in the best possible way. 😍🌏

So here’s what went down:

👴 My dad dove straight into a purple rice situation called nuba’ laya. Yes, PURPLE. Wrapped in a leaf like a little jungle gift. The rice was so fluffy, it felt like it was steamed by a rainforest spirit. I swear it was whispering “ulu… ulu…” as he unwrapped it.

🌶️🥭 And then, hold up🤌🏼 tempoyak-petai happened. Now, as folks from Peninsular Malaysia, we expected that funky, punch-you-in-the-face kind of fermented durian fireball. But THIS?? It was SWEET. Like… durian turned into a jam and decided to hang out politely with petai (the infamous stink bean). Sweet. Creamy. Confusing. Weird. Loved it. Like tempoyak’s introverted cousin that went to finishing school.

🐟 Now, the siakap 3 rasa: WHAT EVEN. You thought you knew what “3 rasa” is? No, you don’t. This dish literally had the fish sectioned off like it had three personalities: one buttery, one sour & spicy, and one soy-sauced. It’s like a fishy version of the Three Musketeers💂🏻‍♀️💂🏻‍♀️💂🏻‍♀️separated by cucumber slices. Was it strange? Yes. Was it genius? Also yes.

🌱 Then came midin masak belacan:midin is like pucuk paku’s cool Sarawakian cousin. It’s crunchy, green, and carries that wild-fern taste that makes you want to swing from a vine after. And that sambal belacan? Spicy enough to make your ancestors sweat in approval.

Now, listen🫶🏼we didn’t try the umai or ayam pansuh because we already had them earlier at the cultural village. But if you’re planning your Lepau journey, definitely check those out too. You’ll want the full Dayak warrior experience. 🍗🔥

Booking Tips: Don’t just show up thinking you’re special. Book. Via WhatsApp. This place is viral and if you snooze, you’ll be eating instant noodles while watching other people’s Instagram stories from here.

👀 One tiny gripe:the menu is like a secret codebook. Black and white, minimal translation, zero pictures. It’s giving “guess the dish” vibes. Might I suggest… photos? At least one visual per jungle treasure so newbies can imagine what midin or pansuh might look like before they summon it to their table?

But honestly, if you’re in Kuching and you don’t eat at Lepau, did you even visit Sarawak?

Rating: 10/10 Ethnically Enthralled Taste Buds. Would eat the purple rice again and write a poem...

Cat (restaurant's pet) running around the restaurant (including in the kitchen area & ON TOP OF THE TABLE). The restaurant did not inform us that they have cat and will roam around. It really made customers inconvenient and hygiene matters. The restaurant should inform their customer beforehand about having pet just as they notify themselves as 'Pork Free'.

The waiters around did not chase the cat and did not bothered even after they see the cat walking on top of customer reserved table (the table was reserved with cloth and plates, culinary before customer arrival).

I am so surprised on how this restaurant is no.1 listed in kuching brochure and google.

It was heavy rain when we arrived around 5.50pm for 6pm reservation. The customers (crowd) lined up outside the shop until 6pm. There was no proper shelter and was so inconvenient.

Isn't that should be ethics to let customers come inside shop and have a seat first as it was heavy rain. Clearly restaurant did not consider that and not welcoming.

Food: Dishes arrived after waiting some time. But rice came at last after so long. before getting our rice, we are forced to eat the dishes as it took so long for rice to be served. Waited long for rice and informed the waiter to serve rice fast. Finished eating the dishes, only then rice arrived.

Service: Poor service. Waited outside restaurant regardless of rain, rice served last and late, waiters/owner did not bothered to follow hygiene (cat on top of table and workers not even bothered), workers couldn't understand english (basic communication for tourist- as it is no.1 mentioned in kuching brochure).

After paying at the counter, we informed the waiters that rice should arrive at first, but they couldn't even understand basic English. After trying to explain few more times, they did not tend to ask for apology and said they combine the orders and cook. Should i wait for other customers to order the same item, only then they will start cooking? When we left the counter, the waiters gossiping to each other saying 'nasi goreng je, sebab tu last'. What kind of...

Worst dining experience we ever had. Ants were all over our table and worst of all a lizard crawled onto our table and next to our food yet the staff did so little to help. We got very disgusted by it so we asked for our food to be wrapped into to-go boxes so we could find a nicer place to eat but the staff were so unwilling to help and made us wait for at least 20 mins. Now we have to eat cold food somewhere else thanks to them. Oh yeah and dont expect any compensation from them if u find urself in these kind of situations eating here. I think it happens so normally here that they got used to it or smt

Edit: the owner said they compensated us in their reply, but in fact it was just an annoyed looking manager walking to the cashier and giving us a 10% discount on the bottled of can drink we ordered which amounts to 0.59myr - a meagre amount compared to our 78myr bill. Like seriously? They are literally trying to act as though they compensated us and use it to their defense.

Oh btw, NONE of their staff apologized to us about the situation at all throughout the entire episode. So nah, they absolutely don't mean what they said about ‘genuinely wish they could have done more to ensure our satisfaction during our visit’

Before you come to this ‘restaurant’, picture this first - a lizard pops up at the edge of your table, you freaked out and stood up to ask for help and to change seat, one of the staff came just to tell u there’s no more seats available when a couple is literally getting up to leave the place right beside us. Then she left. The next time u stand up to ask for help because the lizard is crawling up to your food, she ignores you despite making eye contact with you. Finally, you found yourself standing there in despair.

If this is how you represent Sarawak’s hospitality, then you guys should really close down your restaurant before tourists start thinking that everybody in Sarawak gives no...