101 Woodville Road, Cardiff. 029 2023 5616 / www.jalanmalaysia.co.uk
Food **** Atmosphere ****
I’m given to understand that Cardiff harbours a large Malaysian community, which might surprise you as it did me. The caveat is that most of them are students, which means that (a) they’re apt to pass unnoticed by most non-students and (b) they all fly home when term ends. This was a snag in the business plan of Jalan Malaysia’s previous incarnation, Café Malaysia, and a factor in their recent relaunch with both name and menu altered.
The culinary focal point of Jalan Malaysia is nasi lemak, which can include a wide variety of ingredients but whose constants are rice and coconut milk. Each of the six main courses currently offered here add side garnishes of cucumber, a deep-fried egg and a mixture of tiny anchovies and peanuts, which would rule hard as a slightly outré bar snack. They work on the plate here too, though, although one’s dining headspace has to accommodate the Malaysian street food tradition.
First up, we dive into slightly rubbery spiced fishcakes and apparently good chicken and vegetable dumplings, both £3.50 and served with chilli sauce. The main courses earn their headline status, though. Beef rendang (£10.95) is cooked with coconut, lemongrass and lime leaves, a dark pool of unctuous, complex flavours that literally has my guest booking a table for the coming weekend before it’s finished. My lamb shank (£13.60) betrays its five-hour cooking time with each wobble of spoonable flesh, sinking into its rich, spice-spiked sauce. I don’t know if many lamb shanks are eaten in Malaysian streets, nor do I much care when faced with something this good.
The waitress, who is an excellent host despite only starting here – and getting her first Malaysian food tutorial – a week ago, pulls an amusedly dubious face when I order the durian dessert. You may know of this Eastern fruit’s malodorous rep. Ever sliced up the last, ageing onion in the house, found a layer that’s started to ferment, and put it in the pan anyway? It’s kinda like that. I’d eat it again, because I’m a damn renegade, and I’d not only eat at Jalan Malaysia again, I’d take all of you with me.
words NOEL GARDNER