.We spotted this newish Malaysian place in Chinatown back in the autumn but, for one reason or another, it’s taken us this long to be back in the city centre to try it out. It’s very casual – more cafe/ canteen than restaurant. All the other customers appeared to be East Asian . Now I know that ethnicity is no guarantee of good food (otherwise Harvesters would have Michelin stars) but we overheard one guy when he was paying saying the food reminded him of home. Other than the occasional dish, we have no real experience with Malaysian food, so I did the sensible thing – I asked klyeoh for advice. Peter suggested several dishes on the menu would be worth a try, as any decent Malaysian place should have them nailed down. We picked three dishes, for the two of us, each with a different carb – bread, rice and noodles.
Roti canai is one of the internationally best known Malaysian dishes. The bread is the local take on the better known (at least , to me) Indian paratha – light, fluffy, flaky - ideal for mopping up the daal and spicy sambal that comes with it. We’ve eaten beef rendang a couple of times before. Here, it’s nicely spiced and long cooked. Although not long enough in parts. Some chunks of meat were a bit too chewy but the rest was a delight. And, if it wasn’t spicy enough, then there was a sambal – different from the one with the roti – that was fierce. My first taste started me off coughing but then I adjusted and found it worked nicely. There’s rice of course, flavoursome in itself, and accompaniments of dried anchovy, hard boiled egg, cucumber and peanuts, adding different textures. Mee goreng mamak promised much and delivered. A generous plate of noodles just coated in a thick sweetish yet zingy sauce, with some bits of chicken and vegetable.
This was nice food. If, say, I worked in the city centre it’d be a regular place for lunch. But, for us, it takes the best part of an hour to get into the city centre (car and tram). And then we were only in the place for just over 30 minutes. Unfortunately, it’s not a “night out” for us.
