Day 222: Dinner at Malacca Straits… Best. Curry Puffs. EVER!

I’m a sucker for a few things Malaysians bring to my table: roti, chicken rice, cendol and curry puffs. So, you can imagine just how excited I was to discover the BEST curry puffs made in Sydney at dinner last night!

Pat, our good mate Tony, and I all dined at the Malacca Straits on Broadway restaurant last night, and it was a friendly, enjoyable feast of Malaysian food. Technically, this is a Malaysian and Thai restaurant, but the two main chefs are Malaysian (one actually from Seremban!), so you can get your typical Malaysian grub here no problem — everything from laksa to cendol.

The Awesome Curry Puffs

Due to technical difficulties, Tony was late to join us, and Pat and I were starving. We ordered up a serve of vegetable curry puffs to tide us over, each ate two and immediately decided that ordering another round was necessary, both so Tony could taste a couple and we could have MORE.

What makes these so good? I think it was how thin and crispy the pastry was combined with the consistency of the filling. It seemed to be filled with pureed mashed potato that was spicy curry flavored with bits of veggie. I don’t know what exactly was in them, but they were a win.

The Mains

I looooooove chicken rice, so I have pretty high standards when it comes to this dish. Pretty HIGH standards. The chicken rice at Malacca Straits was average, but mainly because I felt the boiled chicken and the sauce was lacking in flavor. There rice itself was fabulous, actually, but I would have enjoyed a dark soy sauce and something else to make the chicken pop as well.

This char koay teow was quite enjoyable, perhaps because they cooked it well and put enough soy sauce in it to be flavored appropriately. Oh, and we ordered the chicken version, but most people prefer prawns.

Pat ordered the laksa, which you see here topped with sambal. Laksa is Pat’s favorite Malaysian dish, so you will be getting a write-up from him down the road on all his fave laksa places in Sydney. I, however, can’t handle the fishy flavor that is always in it that comes from the prawn paste (one of the most vile parts of Malaysian cuisine – I think I’m the only person in the world that doesn’t like it, though). What I did learn from Pat was that the soup was at a nice consistency mixed with the right amount of coconut milk and sauce.

Tony ordered up the assam udang, which the menu describes as “prawns cooked in a tangy tamarind sauce with fresh tomatoes”. Overall, not bad, but I didn’t try any myself given “prawn” and “tomatoes” were in the description.

We also ordered up a side of roti, but they were nothing on Mamuk, mainly because these were more of the frozen version, fried up when ordered, instead of the fresh, fluffy and flaky ones over at Mamuk.

Malaysian Desserts

The dessert menu was quite extensive, and it displayed my beloved ice desserts of ABCs and cendols. Pat ordered up a banana fritter, which also looked amazing:

All in all, we left STUFFED and happy! If you’d like to try any of these dishes, be sure to check out Malacca Straits on Broadway: 66 Mountain Street, Broadway NSW 2007 (through the Quadrant Building), ph: (02) 8021-7069, Open for lunch & dinner: Mon to Sat.

And, big thanks to Malaysia Kitchen for asking me to be involved in the blogger ambassador program to taste new Malaysian food around Sydney!