| rev:text
| - I wanted to like Restauran Malaysia. I really did.
On paper, the ingredients were all there: fiery, inexpensive ethnic cuisine; recommendations from my foodie friends and one of the cutest girls at the office; My brother, arguably the second-most adventurous palate in the family, is apparently a fixture at lunch. He swears by the place. On the strength of my visit, I'd just swear at it.
Maybe it was our mistake. We arrived on a rainy Saturday evening. We'd been warned that line-ups form early, so we called ahead to ask how long the wait would be and perhaps reserve a seat. We were told that they didn't take reservations, but that the wait was only about 10 minutes.
Famous last words.
We pulled up to the restaurant and ran to the door, and were almost bounced out by a solid wall of would-be patrons. After fighting our way to the maitre d' stand, a single harried hostess waved us in the direction of the bar. Like most of the crowd, we politely declined and asked how long it would be until we were seated. 10 minutes doubled to 20.
What followed was an onslaught of customers jamming the entrance. Tables turned over but the wait staff could barely keep up. Our hostess ran back and forth through cavernous room, occasionally shepherding a bewildered group to its table. The lack of communication between front and back of house made the wait needlessly long and unpleasant. 20 minutes turned to 30, 40, 50, 60, 70.
From it's strip-mall perch, the only options nearby were chain pizza and a Boston Market that may or may not have been open. We were stuck. And low on blood sugar. And increasingly angry.
Finally, our number came up, Not even my attempts at "give them the wrong name humour" could salvage our moods. Dick Hertz would not save this day. We were dampened by rain, sweaty from the wait, and defeated by our stint as sardines in the foyer.
I'll plead ignorance as to the authenticity of the food. The menu promised authentic Malaysian cooking, and may well have delivered, alongside the usual pan-Asian suspects. Then again, sharing a land or sea border with Thailand, Viet Nam, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines may lend itself to some culinary cross-over. Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, which might explain the lack of pork and booze for sale, and the wide range of coffee, tea and juice options.
Appetizers took their time to arrive, but were worth the wait. Fresh roti with curry sauce was pleasantly creamy and flavourful, and performed double duty with some of the more DIY dishes. A bowl of shrimp chips offered savory Styrofoam crunch, although accompanying peanut sauce verged on cloying sweetness. Nonya fried chicken (marinated ahead of time in shrimp paste) was pure crispy fried umami, and worth a return visit on its own.
Mains ranged from good to bad, None challenged the chicken's supremacy. Sambal shrimp were what you'd expect; plump shrimp that popped against your closing jaw; swimming in chilli and tomatoes. The tomatoes were actually the better part of the dish. Yellow curry shrimp were slightly overdone, but saved by a variety of crisp vegetables, and more of that complex low-spiced sweetness in their sauce. Basil chicken amped the heat up just a bit, and proved the most popular with the least adventurous in our group. Penang Fried Kuay Teow was the best of the lot; broad rice noodles in a mildly sweet-and-spicy sauce, buttressed by chicken and more seafood. Our table cleared the huge portion in minutes.
Beef Rendang is supposedly Malaysia's national dish; a testament to the complex flavors and heady aromas that come with careful slow-cooking of even the most inexpensive ingredients. Our bowl of brisket was dry; the promised sauce a loamy mixture that spoke mostly of coarsely ground peanut and coconut. It rested, mostly untouched on peoples' plates. White rice was ordered to soak up the array of sauces, but somehow never made its way to our table. It did land on our bill, until we pointed out the error.
Desserts speak best for themselves: "Let the sago pearls dance on your taste buds and savour the rich coconut cream and palm sugar syrup it is served in". We skipped the dancing pearls, although the tea was good in its hot wet astringency.
Service was less welcoming than it was mutually hostile. Wait staff bounced from table to table, visibly irked when pulled out of their course-by-course routine.
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