Authentic Malaysian food is hard to find in Australia, the land where any fool can throw noodles and vegetables into coconut milk soup and call it a laksa (and they all do). This weekend we stumbled on a cheap and cheerful place in Sydney called Mamak which serves fresh roti canai, satay and very passable real Malaysian food.
We walked past it on Goulburn Street in Haymarket near Darling Harbour. A couple of dough boys make the roti out the front of the shop, stretching the roti dough out until it's tissue-thin and elastic and whirling it in the air. The place is very popular - the queue stretches out the door the entire hour and a half we spend at our meal - and it attracts a fair number of Malaysians.
There are a suitably wide variety of roti options on offer, just like at home - from a strange Westernized roti and ice cream dessert dish to the full murtabak (a meat, onion and cabbage casserole wrapped in a roti parcel). We get carried away and order a number of dishes for TK to try out. There is a beef murtabak, a dish of ayam goreng (Malay fried chicken), nasi lemak and a roti telur. There are even traditional hawker drinks, frothy sweet teh tarik (milky tea poured from a great height to create foam) and iced coffees.
The murtabak ($10.50) is suitably meaty, the beef garlanded in onions and cabbage. The slight sweetness of the flaky light roti counterbalances the hearty beef filling and even TK, who hates vegetables, is happy with the onions and shredded fried cabbage. He loves the fried chicken($12 for four pieces), which is a deep dark red-brown with tender white meat below. The nasi lemak ($7.50) is a traditional peasant dish, a mound of creamy rice cooked in coconut milk surrounded by fried peanuts, tiny crunchy sardine-like fish, and a (sadly very mild) jammy sambal. Chunks of cucumber and a boiled egg add interest. It's not great, but it's the real deal. And the roti telur ($6.50) is light and flaky but filled with tender fried egg.
For dessert we have ais kacang ($5) - a glass bowl of shaved ice coloured bright pink with rose syrup, and made sweet with condensed milk and palm syrup. Hidden within the cold syrupy depths are squares of delicate grass jelly, crunchy corn kernels and red beans. It's a bit too sweet because it lacks the plan flavours of kidney bean and the corn is creamed (and hence sugared) but it's not a bad approximation.
Mamak started out as a stall at Chinatown's Friday night markets and opened as a restaurant in 2007. They keep good Malaysian hours, staying open till 2am on Friday and Saturday nights and feeding customers seven days and nights a week. They are so popular they're outgrowing the current Goulburn St shop and are expanding next door which will hopefully allow them to cut the queues of faithful.
Malaysian food is hard to recreate properly - the mingled Malay, Indian, Chinese and Eurasian cuisines mean each dish requires knowledge of specialised techniques or a new food culture. Mamak (quite sensibly) limits itself to a menu which focuses on roti and dishes from Malaysian Indian and Malay cuisine. The rotis are churned out at the front while the curries and chillied vegetables dishes come out from the kitchen quickly and efficiently.
I'm already planning my next excuse to go to Sydney.
Mamak Restaurant
15 Goulburn St, Haymarket
Food: 4/5
Value for Money: 2/5
Service: 3/5
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