24 June 2010

Malacca Straits Review ~ Malaysian - Broadway


Being big fans of Malaysian food we've been busting to try Malacca Straits Restaurant on Broadway for quite some time. Tonight the chance arises as we organise a feast with our entire readership, Mel.




We can't decide between ordering old favourites or something new, so we tried a little of both. I was drooling over the offering of kankong belecan, water spinach with shrimp paste, one of my all-time favourite veggie dishes, but alas the kankong was out tonight. The boss lady suggested eggplant or okra belecan instead (not on the menu), we went the eggplant. Thumbs up. It had that lovely smokey eggplant flavour without being saturated in oil as a lot of eggplant dishes are. Oh yeah. $11.50.



Beef rendang, always delicious, what can I say? Reminded me a lot of the rendang at The Malaya, only much cheaper. $14.80.



Miss Mel wisely chooses the beef murtabak: "minced marinated beef wrapped in thin parchment roti canai and served with curry sauce".



I'm not normally a murtabak kinda guy, I've been turned off by a couple of oily and stodgey murtabaks I've had in Malaysia while hungover in 33 degree heat. I'm murtabakist. But this murtabak, or "motorbike" in Miss Mel language, can officially be filed under 'F' for Food Porn. I don't know what the opposite of oily and stodgey is, but this is it. It's like a Malaysian pastie. Oh yeah. $10.50.



Assam ikan: fish cooked in a spicy tamarind sauce with fresh tomatoes, okra and onions. Light and saucy with a tom yum kind of tang. $16.80.



Miss Chicken's new motto. Love the art on the walls here.



I'm a sucker for Malaysian deserts, the Kuih Ketayap is too hard to resist: "pandan flavoured crepe filled with toasted coconut and palm sugar and served with a scoop of ice cream."



Miss Mel advises that dessert gives you heart attacks but this is a cause worth dying for. $5.

There's another two pages of menu plus wall specials to choose from. You can even bring your own muddy and have them cook Singapore Chilli Crab for you (we did this later see this post here)




Malacca Straits is at Shop 5, 66 Mountain Street. It's in a courtyard area 20 metres off Broadway.

This place is often busy and popular with folks from Malaysia and Singapore. I'm very keen to come back and try my trusty faves of nasi lemak, Hanainese chicken rice. I wish I noticed the sides of roti canai ($3) and sambal ikan bilis (dried anchovies and peanuts in chili paste, tastes much better than it sounds) $3.50.


Malacca Straits on Urbanspoon

18 comments:

  1. Yay - I'm finally famous (for 15 minutes)! Very excited to finally see my name in Blog print.

    Great review - really captured the yumminess of the food. I'd have to say the eggplant was my fav! Oh, and of course the Motorbike.

    In fact looking at the pics is making me drool a little bit. I'll be going back here soon for sure (no dessert though - don't want to give myself a heart attack)!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think we need to go back around ten times to eat our way through the menu...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Agreed! I'll be there. You can share a heart attack with Dave - I'll drag him along too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice post guys, my Aunt is from Malacca and i've never found food quite the same as hers. Hopefully this is the place i've been looking for - thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. That dessert looks awesome, I have been looking for them for years in Sydney. Will definitely be going.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yeah that dessert was as good as it looks, I'm a sucker for anything pandan :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Excellent write-up on a wonderful Malaysian eatery. Really pleased that you've profiled this place that I've been to many times before and will definitely go back to again.

    As an ex-Kuala Lumpurian, this place comes closest to sating those cravings not only for the standards such as Hainanese Chicken rice (mmmm, I can still taste the delicate and sweet thigh pieces and the chilli dipping sauce that reminded me of the ones that my Hainanese grandmother used to make), Har Mee (prawn noodle), Penang Assam Laksa, Beef Rendang, etc. but also for its harder to find specialities such as the Fish Head Curry (really is to die for!), the Char Tow Kueh (fried radish cakes), the Prawn Mentega (with its wicked topping of shredded egg), and the Silken Tofu with chicken mince.

    Gosh, I'm licking my lips as I type this :)

    Stumbled upon your blog accidentally - you guys are top-shelves! I really like the posts on your Hong Kong culinary discoveries.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mmmmm, I want to go back right now, even though I had Malaysian for lunch. Thanks for the tips on the other dishes, much appreciated :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nice post on Malacca Straits on Broadway. Love this place to bits! If only I could go there every day :)

    We actually went to this place last week and brought along mud crabs to be cooked by the kitchen. What a bargain to have mud crabs cooked for $20 each. Some places where they fish out live mud crabs from the tanks actually charged us $110 per crab for something half the size of what we brought to Malacca.

    Because we brought in 4 crabs, Chef Tan recommended that we have them in two styles - Singapore Chilli and Dry Sambal.

    Man, oh, man - to say they were delicious just didn't do justice to what came out from the kitchen. We're absolutely blown away by flavours of both versions, especially the dry sambal crab which was simply heavenly.

    Chef Tan also recommended to us something that was not on the menu - an eggplant dish. From your post, you seemed to really like the Eggplant Blachan, which we really like as well on previous visits. This new eggplant dish was something else altogether, and it's hard to put into words how good it was but you have to try it. I believe it's called the Hainanese Eggplant Blachan.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The chef here can really COOK - can't wait to go back...

    ReplyDelete
  11. heading there right now... add me to your readership ;)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Murtabak and Chicken Curry were amazing but we didn't really like the Assam Ikan. That dessert was amazing and we took home some squidgy eggy things off the counter too. YUM.

    Chef Tan is really lovely and also offered us the crab deal. Can't wait to go back and try that out.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hehe - squidgy egg things - I gotta gets me some of that!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Found out that Chef Tan was previously the head chef from the Malaya restaurant, back in its heyday on George St (not in its current reincarnation at King St wharf), which explains why the beef rendang, chicken curry, kapitan prawn (not listed on the menu - only kapitan chicken was - but when we told we were fans from the Malaya, Chef Tan obligingly cooked us the prawn version) were so amazingly flavourful. Best of all, the price was remarkably cheap for the quality of food offered. The murtabak was sensational as well and it reminded me of the version I've tasted before at the Neptune Palace at Circular Quay . Lo and behold, Chef Tan told us he was once the head chef at that restaurant as well :).

    We'll definitely be back at this place again and again for we reckon it can lay claim to be the best Malaysian restaurant in Sydney.

    ReplyDelete
  15. That Chef Tan is approaching celebrity status :-)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Had a char kway teow for lunch today - very liberal with the sweet soy, the noodles were almost black! Lots of bean sprouts. Yum yum.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Couldn't agree more - the Kuih Ketayap truly IS worth dying for! And I'm not even a sweet tooth :)

    If you haven't tried it yet I highly recommend the homemade silken tofu with chicken mince. It's delish and a beautiful contrast of textures.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oh my - silken tofu is almost top on my comfort food list. It's been at least a few months between visits here - time to head back I think for the chicken and tofu!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment joy - please keep your musings happy - if you want to complain about a restaurant please do it on a restaurant review site (or your own blog) - we're all about celebrating cultural diversity and the great eats that come along with it :-)

Our ethics: We pay for all our own meals and travel (though sometimes Mum shouts us).