PETALING JAYA, Feb 14 — The revolving door of restaurants in Damansara Utama welcomes its latest newcomer: Lŭ Damansara, which opened in December last year.
The name “Lŭ” is the pinyin for 卤, the Mandarin word for braise, though here it refers specifically to lu rou fan (卤肉饭), Taiwanese braised pork rice.
The other signature dish is mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐), a wildly popular Sichuan staple that’s riding the wave of the cuisine’s global moment, second only to hotpot in popularity.
Your order of ‘lu rou fan’ comes with a bit of the house ‘Lŭ special sauce’. — Picture by Ethan Lau
There’s a decidedly corporate sheen here, from the mix-and-match options for lu rou fan and mapo tofu to the intuitive QR ordering system and meticulously arranged condiment station.
You can choose between the standard lu rou (RM15.90) or thick slabs of kou rou (RM21.90), or even a vegetarian mushroom option for RM12.90.
You can choose to get thick slabs of ‘kou rou’ instead of small pieces of belly with ‘lu rou’. — Picture by Ethan Lau
Step two offers a choice between rice or porridge for your carb; for an additional RM1, you can get noodles.
Strangely, you can also choose your spice level, from normal to spicy to mala.
It feels arbitrary, considering lu rou fan isn’t a dish known for heat.
This move has “appeal to consumers as much as possible” written all over it, even if we haven’t quite reached the dystopian levels of fast-casual bowl places just yet.
The ‘mapo tofu’ already has a rich texture, but the ‘onsen’ egg isn’t doing any harm. — Picture by Ethan Lau
Finally, you have a choice of either an onsen egg (a poached egg) or “lava” egg, which is half a boiled egg with a jammy yolk.
Both options are the same price, yet the onsen egg comes as a full egg.
It’s a weird portioning choice, considering you’re paying the same price either way. I asked why it was only half an egg with the “lava” option, but no one could answer me.
The same customisation process applies to the mapo tofu, where one can choose between minced meat (RM15.90) and mushroom (RM12.90) for vegetarians.
Here, the ability to choose between spicy and extra spicy makes much more sense, given how integral chilli and Sichuan peppercorns are to mapo tofu.
Free soup comes in a teapot here. — Picture by Ethan Lau
Before your food arrives, you’re greeted with a tiny teapot of free soup.
Who doesn’t like free soup, right? It’s hot, comforting, and tastes of mushroom and little else.
Over multiple visits, I tried a few different combinations of both lu rou fan and mapo tofu, with noodles and rice.
Despite the restaurant’s name, the mapo tofu was the clear winner each time.
While tasty with a satisfying texture, the noodles aren’t ideal for picking up either the ‘lu rou’ or ‘mapo tofu’. — Picture by Ethan Lau
The lu rou is decent — rich and comforting — but I found it lacking the distinct sweetness fried shallots bring to the braise, even with the slightly sweet and spicy “Lŭ special sauce.”
Instead, it was the mapo tofu with its dizzying blend of hearty savouriness and that trademark tongue-tickling Sichuan peppercorn that kept me going back for more.
Rice is easily the ideal vessel for either dish, as both have a saucy, gloopy consistency that needs to be soaked up, not slurped up.
That said, the noodles had a satisfying spring to them — just ill-equipped to handle either dish.
The front of Lŭ. — Picture by Ethan Lau
Lŭ Damansara
113G, Jalan SS 21/37,
Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya
Open daily, 11am-2.30pm, 5-9.30pm
Tel: 019-638 7664
Instagram: @lu_damansara
This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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