Review: Masak Malaysian Kitchen

Turn right out of Leyton tube and keep walking beyond Leytonstoner #cleaneating favourite Gym’s Kitchen and, eventually, you’ll find Masak Malaysian Kitchen, open since early October.

Once inside, the interior is warm and welcoming: wooden floors, ochre-painted walls and a lattice-work ceiling, hanging from which are multiple lights at different levels with a variety of shades clustered by style, including hot-right-now copper ones and wall lights with cutouts that throw patterns prettily around the room.

Tables are arranged in twos, fours, sixes and eights, and are covered with botanical-themed tablecloths under glass coverings, which make for pretty backdrops for interesting Instagram posts – should you care about such things.

The combination of the lighting and colourful tables makes you feel as if you’ve wandered in after pottering around a night market in a far-flung Asian country, as opposed to striding down Leyton High Road on a grey autumnal Sunday afternoon.

The menu includes a selection of traditional Malay appetizers and main courses such as soups, roti, noodle and rice dishes, and for those who prefer their food with a bit of heat, rendang, sambal and curry, with various soft drinks and hot bevs to wash down the food.

We started with breaded deep fried squid rings and mixed chicken and beef satay, the former all huge with a light crispy coating, perfect for sharing and much lighter than deep fried battered versions. The skewers of delicately spiced meat came with a good sized bowl of peanut sauce and were so tasty I kind of wished I hadn’t agreed to share.

For mains, chicken sambal was a generous portion in a hot-but-not-too-hot sticky chilli sauce (chilli sauces being the ketchup of the Asian world, according to the menu, so basically my main course was chicken in ketchup – it tasted much better than that sounds). A portion of steamed rice was the perfect accompaniment to the deep flavours of the sambal. Nasi Goreng, Malaysia’s version of fried rice, came with a choice of vegetable, chicken, beef, or king prawns (for a £1 extra). The ingredients are stirred through the rice, which was topped with a fried egg and came with a couple of prawn crackers, a salad garnish and a dollop of sambal. Very tasty it was too, but we would have liked a few more prawns.

Service was efficient and friendly. Questions about the dishes were answered politely and knowledgably, our order taken promptly and the food arrived swiftly, but not so swiftly it felt as if we were being rushed. Our waiter even helped me find the best spot to take pictures of our dishes, and suggested the tables that provided superior backdrops. You really can’t ask for more than that.

[review]