Category: Malaysian

There is quite an explosion of Malaysian restaurants in Sydney. Some of them are actually worth noting.

The Malaya – Signature Menu
We were celebrating our friend’s birthday recently at The Malaya restaurant. The restaurant is located in King Street Wharf, near Darling Harbour Sydney. On this occasion, we chose the Signature Menu, it’s a banquet-style menu that costs $71 per person. Interestingly, this value doesn’t include dessert. You will need to add an extra $10 for 2 desserts.

Entree at The Malaya

Salt and Pepper Prawns – Prawns, battered, deep-fried and tossed in fresh chilli, salt, cracked black pepper and shallots.

Salt and pepper dish is a staple in most Chinese restaurants in Sydney. However, you can tell the Malaya’s dish was a cut above your usual Chinese restaurant. There was also a bit of kick from the sliced chilli.

Spanner Crab San Choy Bow – Spanner crab meat stir-fried with water chestnut, onion and shallots. Served in a lettuce leaf.

San Choy Bow is traditionally a second dish in the 2-course Peking Duck. In Malaya, instead of duck, they use Spanner Crab for the meat. Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference in taste between the two as the water chestnut and onion were pretty dominant.

Satay Beef – Singaporean style marinated pieces of beef, skewered, barbequed and served with a satay sauce made from fresh ground peanuts and chilli.

The satay beef was pretty delicious. If only I could get more skewers…

Otak Otak – White fish minced with chilli and spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and barbequed.

Otak otak is usually made from a fish called Tenggiri (or Spanish Mackerel). The fish wasn’t usually spicy, but instead, they have a spicy sauce on the side. However, this otak otak was blended with the spices and was the spiciest dish of the night. Just in case you are wondering, the banana leaf isn’t meant to be eaten.
Main Course at The Malaya

Coconut Beef Rendang – Indonesian style beef curry with an aromatic dry coconut base.

The Indonesian beef rendang was pretty decent. The beef itself was very tender. I love how they cooked the beef.

Kapitan Chicken – Penang style curry sauce made with fresh chilli and coconut milk served with lightly battered pieces of chicken thigh fillet.

The kapitan chicken was also pretty good. However, I wasn’t too sure about having two curries for main dishes. I’d probably enjoy it more if one of them was something other than coconut-based.

Szechuan Eggplant – Marinated eggplant stir-fried dry style with shallots, cashew nuts and dry chillies. Served on a bed of Chinese water spinach.

Szechuan eggplant ended up being the dish that I enjoyed the most at the restaurant. There were quite a lot of things going on in one plate and they were all fabulous.

Unlike the entrees, the main courses arrived at the same time and accompanied by a bowl of rice.

Desserts at The Malaya

We were wondering why the desserts were not included in the package. It probably turned out well as most people would already be full after the main courses. For those of us, still wanting desserts, we ordered a couple more to share. But then again, if you see the portioning, you’d probably get better value desserts elsewhere around Darling Harbour.

Assorted Sorbet – $12 – Coconut, Mango and Pineapple.

The three scoops of ice cream were pretty miniscule.

Sago Pudding – $5 – Sago and coconut pudding flavoured with palm sugar and topped with coconut sorbet.

Luckily, this was not the first time seeing sago pudding in a shot glass. The other occasion was in an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Indonesia. The portion of this dish was super tiny.

The final verdict for The Malaya

The signature menu at The Malaya restaurant was a pretty decent set. It must be noted that the desserts were forgettable.

Do you think I should go?

There aren’t many upscale South East Asian / Malaysian restaurants in Sydney. I think they are the only Malaysian restaurant with a harbour view in Sydney.

Rating for The Malaya:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $71 per person

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

39 Lime Street, King Street Wharf, Sydney 2000

+61 2 9279 1170

https://themalaya.com.au/
Feb 15, 2019
Ho Jiak Haymarket

Ho Jiak Haymarket Review:

There is a new-ish Malaysian restaurant opened earlier this year, called Ho Jiak Haymarket. They quickly gained fame in Sydney because of the use of unusual ingredients in their dishes, like ‘Indomee Goreng with lobster’. Yes… it’s not a typo… you get instant noodles with lobster!

One thing to note that compared to the other Malaysian restaurants, their price point is considerably higher. You will find most of their dishes are $20 or more. They also have a couple of monthly specials like the ‘crispy rendang’ below.

Kiam Ah Nui Kay – $12 – Stir-fried with salted egg yolk, butter and curry leaves

I know the description didn’t say it, but it’s basically chicken wings slathered with salted egg yolk. Also, given how rich it is, I recommend you to eat this dish with rice.

Sam Wong Dan – $15 – Silky steamed century, duck and chicken egg

We actually bought this dish for the little one. However, I ended up quite liking its taste. Sam Wong Dan is a Chinese-/Malaysian-version of chawanmushi. What we also didn’t expect was that the portion was big enough to be shared around.

Nasi Goreng Lembu – $25 – Fried rice with house-made shrimp paste. Choose from: Normal, special, Pattaya, Lembu, JUMBO, Lobster and Salted fish.

I guess you can only do so much in terms of presenting a plate of fried rice. However, you could potentially introduce an exotic ingredient into the dish. That’s what they are doing with Nasi Goreng Lembu. It’s a fried rice with wagyu beef!

They have a few other options with the fried rice.

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Indomee Goreng Lobster – $38 – Spicy stir-fried instant noodles with seafood. Choose from: normal, salted duck egg, king prawn, lobster

This is what we were here for. A $38 worth of instant noodles (yes, they actually wrote ‘instant noodles’ in the menu!). Obviously, the main attraction was what’s in the noodles. Lobster is quite a delicate crustacean, but Indomee was not typically known to be delicate. Hence, it took a skilful person to combine the two elements.

Crispy rendang with KFC Chicken – $38

I guess when there was an outcry about chicken rendang should not be crispy, Malaysian restaurants were actually racing to provide what the public was looking for: a crispy rendang. The Ho Jiak’s version of crispy rendang is to cover KFC-like fried chicken with rendang sauce. It was quite an interesting combo and I guess it would be enough to save that contestant from elimination. 🙂

Air Mata Kucing – $8 / $16 (Jumbo) – Luo han guo, dried longan and wintermelon

Air mata kucing is literally translated into ‘Cat’s tears’. It’s one of the famous Malaysian drinks that is very refreshing and cooling.

The final verdict for Ho Jiak Haymarket

Ho Jiak Haymarket is probably one of the best Malaysian restaurants in Australia. They are quite expensive but they backed it up with very nice taste.

Do you think I should go?
Definitely!

Rating for Ho Jiak Haymarket:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: $30 – $40 per person with drinks

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

92 Hay Street, Haymarket 2000

+61 2 8040 0252

https://www.hojiak.com.au/

Sep 25, 2018
Kreta Ayer – Ashfield

Kreta Ayer – Ashfield Review:

I have to warn you in advance that the restaurant that we review this week, Kreta Ayer, only accepts cash. It is quite troublesome especially when most of their dishes are in excess of $15. Some of the prices are even marked as “market price”, like those mud crabs. The closest ATM is the Ashfield shopping centre.

Their menu is quite similar to high end Chinese restaurants in CBD with the likes of Moreton Bay bug and coral trout on offer. Being a Singaporean/Malaysian restaurant, they have a different way to cook the dishes. If you are looking for the authentic Singaporean dish, you need to choose their Singapore Chilli, Black Pepper or Salted Egg.

Boneless Hainanese Chicken – $15.8

Hainanese chicken is one of the parameters of a good Singaporean restaurant for me. It goes without saying that when ordering this you really need to order chicken rice as well.

Crispy Noodles with seafood – $13.8

Our family loves eating crispy noodles. Kreta Ayer’s crispy noodles has quite a lot of seafood in the dish. I guess you can see it yourself below.

Being warm and soupy, this dish is a nice dish to have in winter.

Cereal Prawn – $24.8 – Deep fried prawn with sweet cereal

I call this double crunchy prawn. When you coat deep fried prawn with fried cereal, you get this super crunchy prawn. It is so crunchy that you can eat pretty much everything.

The final verdict for Kreta Ayer – Ashfield

Kreta Ayer in Ashfield is a decent Singaporean/Malaysian with premium price. The cash payment method is also a pain to deal with. If they can accept other payment methods, I might be inclined to try their Singapore Chilli Mud Crab.

Did you know?

They have quite a decent package for lunch on weekdays. For the same price, you get a selection of dishes, but you also receive complimentary selection of iced teas.

As you can see from the picture below the lunch special crispy noodles with seafood is actually the same size as its dinner counterpart.

Rating for Kreta Ayer – Ashfield:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $20 per person

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

339 Liverpool Road, Ashfield 2131

+61 2 9797 8688

http://www.kretaayer.com.au/

Jun 7, 2017
Sambal

Review:

I rarely eat out North of the bridge. I went to Sambal Malaysian Restaurant in North Ryde because it was a midway compromise amongst our group of friends. It was also rated pretty decently in Zomato.

Chicken Satay – 6 Skewers – $14.80 – Skewers of marinated chicken, grilled and served with spicy peanut sauce and cucumber pieces

There were only four little cuts of cucumber for the six skewers of chicken. The peanut sauce was also not spicy at all.

Hainan Chicken Rice – $22.80 – Boneless chicken steamed to perfection served with rice cooked in aromatic chicken stock

The Hainanese chicken rice was actually pretty decent in terms of both quality and quantity.

Beef Rendang – $21.80 – Bite size pieced of beef cooked in curry spices till dry and topped with fried shredded coconut

The beef rending pieces were slightly bigger than just a ‘bite size’. It was also still quite soupy.

Belachan Kangkong – $15.80 – Fresh water kangkong stir-fried with chilli shrimp paste

It was the only vegetable dish of the day and the portion was rather small.

Assam Prawns – $29.80 – Prawns sautéed in a rich tamarind sauce

It was supposed to be the most expensive dish of the night. However, there was no ‘wow factor’ on the dish and I enjoyed the Hainan chicken rice more than this.

Sago Pudding – $7.50 – Sago pearls served in coconut milk and covered with gula Melaka syrup

I quite liked my sago pudding. It reminded me of the sago I used to have when I was little.

One of my friends was not as lucky; His dessert never came. There was also a dish that I was very keen to try but it was sold out that night. It was Ikan Panggang (or grilled fish). Not just a regular fish, but a skate fish (or stingray).

The final verdict for Sambal

Sambal is a decent Malaysian restaurant if you happened to live around the area. It commanded a slightly more premium price.

Did you know?

Sambal is a Malaysian/Indonesian word for chilli. However, none of the dishes we ordered that night was particularly spicy.

Rating for Sambal:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 6.5 / 10

Price: $15 – $29 for main dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

285 – 297 Lane Cove Road, North Ryde NSW 2113

02 9889 7977

http://sambal.com.au/

Oct 26, 2015
Hawker Sydney

Review:

We were interested to go to Hawker Sydney because of the pictures uploaded by Simon Food Favourites and Jugernaut in facebook. One of them was Goreng Durian (more about it later). Hawker Sydney offers Malaysian street food and is located in the busy Sussex Street.

In addition to goreng durian, there were also quite a few unusual dishes in the restaurant.

Hainanese Chicken – $16 – Poached white chicken served boneless at room temperature for a moist and succulent texture. Served with chilli ginger sauce.

Although it is one of Singapore’s national dishes, Hainan Chicken rice is also a staple in many Malaysian restaurants. It was a pretty generous serving of Hainan Chicken in Hawker and was quite flavoursome.

Okra Belacan – $14 – Stir-fried okra with chillies and shrimp paste.

It is an interesting alternative to the usual ‘kangkung belacan’. I actually quite like this substitution as okra had a bit more crunch than kangkung.

Ikan Bakar – $16 – A local favourite. Grilled stingray with a tangy and spicy dipping sauce (Allow 15 mins).

The next dish can be found in the ‘snack’ section although it took 15 minutes to make. I think it can be more considered as part of the main course. The name ‘Ikan Bakar’ (or grilled fish) gave very little detail of what it really was. We got pretty excited when reading that stingray was the fish they use.

It was more of a nostalgic dish for me as I occasionally ate them when I was growing up in Indonesia.

Apam Balik – $6 – Crispy ‘turnover’ pancake with crushed peanuts, butter and creamed corn. Served with ice-cream.

I am always curious to try apam balik (more commonly known in Indonesia as ‘martabak manis’ – one of my favourite dishes in the world)! Hawker Sydney’s apam balik was quite different and pretty thin and crispy. It is a pretty good dish but did not have the ‘meat’ to make me full.

Apam balik has been declared a heritage food in Malaysian.

Goreng Durian – $8 – Crispy battered Musang King Durian. Served with ice-cream.

This dish is the main reason why we were here. Whilst the durian itself was nice and sweet, we felt that the batter was pretty bland and could use a bit more sweetness.

The final verdict for Hawker Sydney

If you like grilled stingray, Hawker Sydney might be one of only a few restaurants in Sydney that you could get it from.

Did you know?

According to Jugernaut, Hawker is owned by the same people who owned Mamak restaurant.

According to one of the people in Sydney food bloggers community, if you dined at Mamak the receipt can be used as a 10% voucher to dine at Hawker Sydney.

Rating for Hawker Sydney:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $18 per main dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Shop G.02. 345B-353 Sussex Street, Sydney 2000

02 9264 9315

http://hawker.com.au/

Sep 9, 2015
PappaRich Malaysian Delights – Broadway

Review:

“PappaRich Malaysian Delights” was the name mentioned when I asked my circle of friends to name a good Malaysian restaurant in Sydney. However, we were kind of lazy to cross the bridge to Chatswood for a Malaysian cuisine. So, when we went to Broadway and saw the sign ‘PappaRich’, I could not be more delighted. We were also just in time to avoid the queue!

If you went there for the first time, the menu can be quite intimidating. It feels like an endless list of food with big pictures! So, on this occasion, I’ll try to let you know the different dishes you can expect to find at PappaRich Malaysian Delights.

From the first part of the menu, we had Roti Canai with Tandoori Chicken ($14.90). It was quite a simple arrangement of a quarter tandoori chicken, a pretty big piece of roti and two kinds of sauce (spicy sambal and yogurt mint). We then picked 6 sticks of Satay Beef ($13.90), alternatively you can choose to have satay chicken.

The rice department has quite a few choices to offer. At the top of the list, the Pappa Chicken Rice with Steamed Chicken ($13.50) was too hard to miss. A Malaysian favourite that comes complete with tender boiled chicken, fragrant chicken rice, chicken soup, bean sprouts and a combination of chilli, ginger and dark soya sauce for dipping. You can also have a variety of Biryani or jasmine rice with two choices from the following: red chicken, sambal eggplant, sambal prawns and beef rendang. The costs vary between $13.00 to $16.90.

There were also a handful of choices from the Noodles department, unfortunately we only got the chance to try Crispy Egg Noodle ($13.50) – wok-fried egg noodles with egg gravy, prawns, chicken slices and fish cakes. My Malaysian friend told me that a good Malaysian restaurant was judged on the way they created their Laksa. She also said that PappaRich’s was very nice. This last dish was my personal favourite, Pappa Deep Fried Chicken Skin ($6.90).

They serve a lot of traditional Malaysian drinks, such as Ice Blended Bandung (Rose Syrup with Soya Milk) with Grass Jelly ($4.90).

The verdict for PappaRich Malaysian Delights – Broadway

I love a good serve of deep fried chicken skin and PappaRich gave us a great serve of them! In line with the buzz, PappaRich lived up to the expectation. The price tag was justifiable by the big portions they served.

Did you know?

Looking at PappaRich’s main Malaysian website, I was actually quite surprised that they already opened restaurants in six countries!

Rating for PappaRich Malaysian Delights:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $20 – $25 per person

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Shop 5, 185 Broadway, Ultimo 2007

02 9281 3228

http://papparich.net.au/

May 20, 2014