SEDAP: WORTHWHILE MALAYSIAN ON OLD STREET

It might not have been the best time to try Sedap, a relatively new addition to Old Street’s dining offerings, but after a long journey back from Wiltshire we were both hungry enough to have almost digested our lovely meal at The Red Lion and definitely in need of something to soak up the two bottles of wine, two pints of beer and little digestifs.

HP suggested we stop off on route to casa DH and give Sedap a try and, at about 7.30pm on a Saturday evening, lots of other people seemed to have had the same thought as it was packed, primarily it seemed with students from the nearby private halls of residence.

We were squeezed into a tiny little table in the back room and handed the menu. It looked familiar, not just because I have eaten quite a few Malaysian meals in the last year, but also because, as HP pointed out, it was run by the same people who once owned Nyonya in Notting Hill and offered a similar range of Chinese Malaysian dishes.

HP left the ordering to me and we began with some archard, pickled vegetables, which had the required crunch, but perhaps lacked sharpness. A roti prata was better, with the flaky disc of dough being used to mop up a lamb curry and reminding me of the roti and dahl I had for breakfast every day during my all too short time in Kuala Lumpur.

Three main courses followed, all looking the part and all hitting the alcohol sopping upping spot. The weakest was perhaps the beef rendang which paled behind the one I made recently at home using a recipe provided by my friend and excellent food writer, William Leigh. It lacked the depth of flavour of long, slow cooking and the powerful end note of heat that I enjoyed in William’s version.

Penang Char Kway Teow was better, with the noodles cooked so they still retained a bite and the seafood contents still crisp from stir-frying. It lacked the chunks of pork that I have enjoyed in the best versions and was cooked in oil rather than lard. This was something I also encountered in KL and was told was not only a nod towards health but also made the dish more approachable to Malaysia’s large Muslim population.

I have never quite got my head around Hainenese Chicken Rice, a dish of poached chicken with white rice, which I know Singaporeans particularly claim as their national dish and is beloved in Malaysia too. It just strikes me as bland and, if that is the desired effect, then Sedap’s version is bang on the mark.

That little lot of booze blotting paper, brought the bill to a reasonable £40 including service, which was harried but very friendly.

Sedap is hardly going to set the world on fire, but as a new little local joint, particularly one that does take away, it is going to be a welcome addition to an otherwise barren neighbourhood.

RASA SAYANG: NOT QUITE FEELING THE LOVE IN CHINATOWN

It’s probably an age thing, but my recollection of London’s ethnic food offerings in the late 80’s and early 90’s is of them being less in number but, well, simply better than we have now.

As I said, I may be viewing them through the tumeric glow of a middle-aged man's eyes, but my memories are of Thai places making green curries with the pre-requisite types of aubergine, of Indian restaurants that escaped the clutches of brown slop curry houses without having to run to the arms of faux French dining styles and Malaysian restaurants that truly represented the bewildering variety of one of the world’s great eating nations. Now, we seem to have many more restaurants offering food from an even wider variety of regions, but the flavours strike me as muted, apologetic, neutered so as not to offend and with commercial pastes taking the place of time consuming fresh sauces.

I would certainly be interested to hear if anyone else feels the same.

Rasay Sayang means, I am told, to “feel the love” and I certainly loved my first experiences of the small chain bearing that name, who offered my first tastes of Malaysian and Singaporean food nearly twenty years ago. They are long gone now, the main branch, in Soho, has become a Nando’s which tells you all you need to know about the way we eat in the UK.

However, as Malaysia was one of the favourite stops of my EAT MY GLOBE trip, I was intrigued when I heard that a small restaurant of the same name had opened in Chinatown directly next to the disappointing Leong’s Legend and, I arranged a quick supper there with one of my oldest friends, Neal.

First, however, a quick dip into the fabulous new bar at Rules, where Brian Silva, one of the great mixers in town prepared me a “proper” Rob Roy using orange bitters from The Bitters Truth and Italian vermouth. Perfect to fortify against the sudden and unexpected snowfall, which was enough to keep sufficient diners away so we could walk in and get a table in the small dining room right away.

It’s a short menu with a mix of, as far as my limited knowledge could tell, traditional Malay dishes and some representing their considerable Chinese influence.

Starters were a mixed bag. The satay were slightly chewy, not comparing well to those on offer at Puji Puji, but the curry puffs were much better, with a filling of beef and potatoes and a light, grease free batter coating. The ones I had tried before had a short crust pastry, but, my love of all things deep-fried, made these an interesting alternative.

Nasi Lemak was one of the favourite dishes of my short time in Kuala Lumpur and the version on offer at Rasa Sayang is not bad at all. The rice, as it should be was gently flavoured with coconut and pandan, the accompaniments to the chicken curry all seemed to be present and correct including a small mound of salty dried anchovies and the curry itself was in a deep, savoury sauce.

Another high point scorer was a plate of crunchy morning glory stir fried with balachan, the potent shrimp paste mixed with chilli, which was good enough to have us both fighting over the last strands while other plates sat by.

Other dishes failed to live up to these high standards. The beef rendang lacked punch and simply made me long for the recipe I tried recently at home, which combined freshness, meatiness and fire to stunning effect. Likewise, the char kway teow, which, I suspect, was fried in oil rather than in pork fat as the best versions I have tried have been. With a generous amount of seafood on show, it looked the part, but as is so often the case, it simply lacked any discernable flavour soon ending up as cold, flat noodles.

The bill for the meal with service and a beer came to £44 for two, enough to make this an acceptable if uninspiring supper where the chance to catch up took precedence over the food. Sometimes, perhaps that is all you need, but I could not help thinking that, if we had eaten this meal twenty years ago, we might have done a whole lot less talking and been a whole lot more excited about eating.

Or, is that just me?

WHAM BAM SWEET RENDANG

Supper tonight, courtesy of a recipe from my good chum and food writer, William Leigh, for Beef Rendang, that staple of Malaysian home cooking with its unique mix of Indian and South East Asian influences.

It takes time to prepare and time to cook and the last few moments, as the sauce begins to split to release the coconut oil in which the meat fries to a perfect brown, are a little on the hairy side. But, hold your nerve and the end result is spectacularly worthwhile, with layers of flavour from the coconut milk, lime leaves, chilli and a last flavouring with fish sauce releasing on the tongue one after the other.

William has been kind enough to let me share his recipe, which I tweaked a little for my own tastes

BEEF RENDANG

INGREDIENTS
FOR THE PASTE:
6-10 Thai Chillis depending on how hot you like it
1 inch ginger
1 inch galangal
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp brown sugar

1kg stewing beef ( cut in 2in cubes)

2 tins coconut milk
1 tins worth of water
Stalk lemongrass
Lime leaves
1 bay leaf
2tbs fish sauce
Juice of a lime


Whizz the paste ingredients with a little water to a smooth paste.

Add to a large pan or wok with the lime leaves, bashed lemongrass stalk, bay leaf and coconut milk.

Add the beef to this and let it bubble slowly for an hour and a half.

Turn the heat up and cook until all the coconut milk has almost gone. This will take a while, maybe 45 mins to 1 hour, and it will look strange while it's doing it. Eventually it will start to colour and the oil will come out of the coconut milk completely.

The beef will fry in this oil and turn quite dark brown and rather flaky - then you're done

Turn off the heat and stir though the fish sauce and lime juice.

I served with chapatti and a salad of red onion, cucumber and tomato dressed with lime juice and zest.

PUJI PUJI: PRAISEWORTHY MALAYSIAN ON THE BALLS POND ROAD

If further proof were needed that London is one of if not the most multi cultural city on earth, then I suggest you do as I did and spend a morning at The Hommerton Hospital in Hackney waiting for a blood test.

A cursory glance and eavesdrop around the waiting room confirmed the presence of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, African, Caribbean, French and German patients, two orthodox Jews and a nurse who apologised for the delay while he completed one of his five prayers sessions of the day.

I didn’t recognise anyone from Malaysia, so decided to rectify that with a lunchtime visit to Puji Puji, a month old restaurant on The Balls Pond Road, part of my attempt to complete HP’s challenge to eat in London places representing all the countries visited on the EAT MY GLOBE trip.

Joined by my Australian friend, Chelsea (there’s another nation ticked off) we were the only customers in the smart little dining room with its dedicated Satay bar and could see, both in the room and the menu, that considerable care and thought has been put into everything by the owners, exiles from the food court at Oriental City.

They offer a lunchtime special of a main course served with two chicken satay, which Chelsea chose, supplemented by my own selection of lamb satay and Beef rendang.

To begin, a couple of Malaysian breakfast staple, Roti Canai, which were smaller and more doughy than they ought to be but came with a really well made split pea dahl.

Chelsea’s Mee Goreng turned out to be a slightly parsimonious plate of noodles with a few chuncks of chicken and slivers of vegetables through it. Even at £5 it seemed dreadfully poor value for money. The chicken satay, however were terrific, meaty and spiked with turmeric and chilli.

Lamb satay were better still, some of the best I have eaten in fact and it was apparent why the owners had enough faith in their skewers to dedicate a whole bar section to their serving. Beef Rendang too showed a real knowledge in the kitchen. A small portion with big flavour, the slow cooked beef still requiring a bite and the sauce offering one in return.

Puji Puji has no licence, but you can BYOB. The do have a selection of soft drinks and a lychee juice contained enough fruit for us to fashion a rudimentary dessert. Rose syrup and lime juice however smacked of cordial and was left alone by both of us.

Including service the bill came to exactly £30.

Puji apparently means “praise” in Malay, so doubling it up may be shovelling it on a bit thick. However, praise is definitely due for a welcome new addition to the neighbourhood, particularly when they had their previous home ripped from under them.

RESTAURANT REBUNG: BACKSTAGE WITH CHEF ISMAIL

If you read my last post about Kuala Lumpur, you will have seen that I was lucky enough to be invited to join celebrity Chef Ismail and his team of cooks as they prepared the dishes for the rightly famous buffet at Restaurant Rebung.

Ismail has set his stall out as the guardian of traditional Malay cooking and has stored up a list of over 350 dishes which he rotates on a regular basis

With my trusty guide, Lex for company, we spent about four or so hours watching as over forty of these dishes were prepared in the home style open kitchen to the rear of the building.

It was a remarkable sight with the cooks busy working the traditional cast iron woks and pots with lids weighed down with stone pestles "just like my grandmother used to" . Unlike their Thai neighbours, there seems to be less stir frying in Malaysian food and more long cooking to bring out the flavours of preserved ingredients such as smoked beef and salt fish. There is plenty of fresh stuff too with large bowls of raw vegetables to crunch on, salads made of banana hearts, egg plants covered in fiery sambal, fresh fish grilled on banana leaf or rubbed with turmeric and fried in palm oil and beef and chicken cooked in fiery sauces.

After spending such a long time watching, it was obviously time to feed our faces and Chef Ismail who, unlike so many celebrity chefs spends plenty of time in the kitchen (no names no pack drill, cough “fat tongue” cough) then came out to work the room.

He really is a force of nature seemingly seeing every table at once. Making sure a watermelon juice is delivered here and popiah (spring rolls made with rice flour crepe) are kept coming. He ladles out bowls of soup to everyone and anyone and makes sure to wander around with other dishes, hot from the kitchen, for people to try. All the time he is tasting the food as it comes to the buffet and sending back a running commentary to the kitchen “it’s too spicy darlings, too spicy” to make sure they don’t rest on their laurels. It is a hugely enjoyable affair, more like a family dinner than a meal in one of the city's top restaurants

Lex, who claimed to be stuffed, managed to find stomach number two to chow down on a few plates of popiah while, I ladled sauces, from the huge variety of dishes, over rice to be eaten, of course, with the fingers of the right hand.

All great fun and the perfect way to round off my all too few days in Malaysia where I tasted some of the best food of the EAT MY GLOBE trip so far.

Definitely a place to seek out if you are ever in this part of the world and want to try the real stuff.

PENANG: HAWKER HEAVEN

Given that, with my naturally exquisite sense of timing, I arrived in Penang the day before Chinese New Year where every shop, restaurant and hawker stall owned by that section of the community was about to close for two days, I still managed to have a great time on an island which proved an agreeable place to chill out after the chaos of KL

There is a lot to see with temples featuring the obligatory large statues of Buddha, Penang Hill, the first hill Station in the British Empire, with its breathtaking views and there are the beaches including Batu Ferengi where the road is dotted with hotels offering rooms for the same amount I paid for the flights for the whole part of this trip.

Above all, of course, there is the food.

Penang is known to Malaysians as “Hawker Heaven” because of the bewildering variety of street food on offer. Fortunately, on my first and last nights, they were in full effect before and after New Year and I got to eat my way around the night markets trying local specialities such as Char Koay Teow, Lobak and Assam Laksa while men in dragon outfits made children burst into tears. Not me, I deny that completely.

First, however, I had to go for a sling. The most famous hotel in Penang is The Eastern & Oriental which is the sister hotel to the more famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Like its sibling, it too has a version of The Sling and, unlike my last visit to The Long Bar where it was pre made and siphoned from a pump into my glass, here it was mixed fresh and served to me as I sank into the deep armchairs of The Farquhar Bar.

All very enjoyable and I could at least pretend I was staying there rather than at some £10 a night fleapit down the road where bed bugs took a reciprocal bite from me for every chomp of food I devoured on the streets.

When Chinese New Year hit, all was certainly not lost, I turned to the Malay and Indian stalls which remained resolutely open in the face of their countrymen’s celebrations.

I rapidly became addicted to Roti Canai for the breakfast of champions. Two roti, hot and flaky straight from the griddle with a spoonful or two of thin dahl fills you up a treat and sets you back about 20p if you go upscale.

Nasi Kandar is another treat with large mounds of rice being topped with everything from savoury curries of mutton, beef or fish heads, fried fish and seafood and a selection from any number of different roti including ones with egg, butter and sugar or pungent garlic.

The food from the stalls is fresh and cooked to order and, a huge bonus on a trip like this where I am spending my own dime, dirt cheap.

After three nights, I had done about all there was to do in Penang (well, for me anyway not being inclined to watch elephants paint or play with snakes) so I headed by to KL and my date in the kitchens of Chef Ismail.

More of that later, but I am certainly glad I made a side trip to “Hawker Heaven” I am also pretty certain to be craving those roti in the mornings when I am on the rest of the trip.

The last picture is just a rather fun addition to the "foreigners are funny? Discuss" collection

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