Malaysian Eats Around Sydney

When my friend told me she was in the mood for Malaysian food, a quick google search resulted in many terrific Malaysian eateries that we wanted to try so we spent our next couple of lunches visiting a few of them :)

Ipoh On York

Asam Laksa ($10.5)

We start first at Ipoh on York, as it's one of the few Malaysian restaurants which are actually open on weekends- and it's incredibly quiet too, with only one other table eating in when we walked in at around 12 on a Saturday afternoon. It's a food-court style restaurant, where you pay and pick up the food at the counter before taking a seat. We have a bit of difficulty both choosing what to order and reading the menu on the board above the counter but luckily the staff were nice enough to hand us some takeaway menus to sit down and look over whilst we decided.

My friend went for the asam laksa, a quite different variation to the laksa we're used to- the slightly sour soup was an interesting and refreshing change and we didn't find it too spicy for our tastes.

Roti Canai ($3 each)

The roti canai weren't as great as Mamak's but they were nice and flaky, and overall quite enjoyable.

Seafood Kway Teow Siram ($11.5)

I went for the Seafood Kway teow siram as they had a delicious picture of it on the menu. The stir fried rice noodles are covered in much more gravy than I'd expected, though the gravy is very creamy and tasty, with thin bits of egg making it seem a bit like egg flower soup. I wasn't quite sure how the combination of stir fried noodles (which tend to be dry) and the gravy would work out, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked together!

Malay Chinese Takeaway

Chicken and Prawn Laksa $9.60 

Online reviews pointed us towards Malay-Chinese takeaway for arguably 'Sydney's best laksa'. I must have been too busy salivating over the tasty laksa photos when reading about it, as I didn't notice that the place would be absolutely packed at lunch time with just enough tables to accomodate the customers. And in the time we were there, there was almost no seat that was empty for more than a 30 seconds. Literally.

Nor did I notice that the place would be filled almost solely with office workers, making us feel rather out of place in our casual-wear. But nevermind that- the laksa was all we were really after.

I'm not a huge a laksa fan (though I do enjoy it from time to time) so I can't tell if this ticks all the boxes for an 'amazing' laksa, but I did like it more than any other laksa I've tried previously....which is about two. The soup has a rich coconut taste which is just strong enough to compliment the other complex flavours (of which I have not idea what they are but it was tasty!). It is covered with a thick layer of red oil though, which probably accounts for its tastiness but looks so unhealthily bad for you we had to scoop off some of it before drinking the rest of the soup.

Daily Special: Grilled Chicken with Rice ($9.5)

I was a little disappointed that the daily special of deep fried chicken with rice (as advertised on the website) had turned into grilled chicken instead when we turned up. It's nothing too special, but the chicken is tasty and tender.....and soaked in pool of oil. Nevertheless it was quite enjoyable, though I'll definitely be returning to try out their fried chicken when they have it again :)

Ito's Malaysian

We'd originally planned to visit Ito's on our first trip, but we realised at the last minute that they were only open on weekdays. So we made sure that the next time we met up, it was a weekday so that we could try  it out!

Beef Rendang ($8.5)

We were surprised how average and ordinary it looked, sitting in a quite food court- had it not been for the online reviews, I would probably have never tried the place!

The menu isn't particularly extensive with a couple of noodle dishes, satay and a couple of curries in the bain maries, but we still took quite a while deciding what to have since everything seemed so good! I usually prefer dishes cooked to order over those pre-cooked and sitting in the bain marie but I made an exception this time because the beef rendang looked pretty tasty.

And I was pretty glad I chose it because the beef rendang was amazing! It's less coconutty than most version I've tried, but the taste is amazingly addictive and the beef is so tender it falls apart really easily.

Chicken Laksa

My friend orders the chicken laksa, which is much less intense than the one at Malay Chiense takeaway. It's much lighter and more coconutty, and we find it to be enjoyable, just in a very different way to the one at Malay-Chinese takeaway.