July 2026 - Sayur in the City
Sean Eeshwaran of SITC welcomed 9 MCG members including 2 guests on June 30th to this hidden half-acre urban farm situated right behind the YWCA in KL. After following them for 6 months on Instagram, I decided to go ahead and make the outing happen. Explorers opted for the 1 hour tour and ulam platter. Each person paid RM 50. Here’s what Sean shared with us:
“SITC is run by the enterprise Eat, Shoots and Roots in partnership with the YWCA KL. ESR was founded in 2012 with the overarching goal of reconnecting urbanites with where their food comes from and nature. SITC was set up as a living classroom by ESR in 2018 to allow for urbanites to learn more about farming and local crops without having to leave the city. Today, SITC is the largest urban farm in downtown KL and is home to about 120 species of locally adapted vegetables, herbs, ulams and fruits. The space provides a platform to nurture a sense of ownership and shared responsibility among locals/tourists over our planet and environment. All produce grown on-site is for the YWCA’s Culinary and Baking programme which provides a free skills certificate to underprivileged girls.”
At SITC, they not only compost waste from the farm but also explained that they do composting on cooked food which not many people are aware of. One of the many methods of growing that they use is the syntropic method. It is a regenerative system that mimics natural forest dynamics to restore degraded soil to produce high-yield harvests. There was also a chicken coop where they raise several chickens – one of the highlights when they have children visiting. Most of the plants growing at SITC are not natives to Malaysia but have been locally adapted. We saw for the first time; the cincau leaf – which is used to make the black jelly-like cincau that is found in many Malaysian drinks. There were Job’s tears, hibiscus, henna plants, Sabah chilli, bunga telang (blue pea flowers), spinach, kangkung (water convulus), ylang-ylang (kenanga) and a variety of others, too many to mention.
At the end of the tour, Nori cut up a fresh papaya from the farm and we dived right in. An impressive ulam platter was laid out whilst Nori happily demystified to us on the origins and how to enjoy the myriad of colourful ulams. Among those were bunga kantan (torch ginger), daun kesum (Vietnamese coriander), ulam raja, daun selom, tenggek burung, small crunchy eggplants, daun kaduk (wild pepper/wild betel) – not to be confused with daun sirih (the proper betel leaf), daun pegaga (Asian pennywort), kacang botol (four-angled bean), cucumbers, pucuk janggus (cashew leaf), roselle, belimbing buluh (tiny starfruits). All these were enjoyed with Nori’s homemade sambal merah (red sambal), sambal hijau (green sambal) and mulberry jam.
A word of caution should other members plan to venture to SITC on their own…..there were lots of mosquitoes buzzing around – some of us were totally devoured by the mozzies. Douse yourselves with mosquito repellent before you go!
Thank you Sean and Nori for this real-world experience!
