Kopitiam, Yes Ma’am.
Kopitiam Malaysian Cafe
594 Harris Street, Ultimo 2007
Ultimo should be very proud of this place. Kopitiam serves Malaysian ‘Hawker Style’ cuisine, and has a bit of a reputation in Sydney as the place-to-go for Nasi Lemak and Hainan Chicken Rice. Penultimo is not a restaurant review site, so we’re not going to labour the language here. Put simply, the food at Kopitiam is: richly flavoured, peanuty, oily, salty and satisfying. And someone said something about the chicken being tender. Yeah, the chicken is tender.
It is imperative to arrive hungry. Kopitiam has saved us many a time, post Ultimo kickboxing, when we were so energy depleted, we could barely walk.
So - you stumble in, you’re hungry… what to order? It is pretty much required to order the House Special, Nasi Lemak:
Since we have lost our camera (sob), we borrowed this photo from someone called Jenny. Thanks Jenny.
As you can see, the Nasi Lemak involves a boiled egg, peanuts, dried anchovies, chicken, potato, sambal and rice. Serious comfort food. They forgot our cucumbers this time, we disappointed about that - the freshness would have been welcome. We’re still not 100% sold on the dried anchovies, but it arguably gives this dish the edge it needs. Otherwise it’s just a solid coconut-curry.
Kopitiam’s Roti is also delicious (mind you, the sauce tastes very similar to the Nasi Lemak sauce, but YUM - who cares?).
This photo was also nicked from Jenny.
It was a hot day, so we wanted something icy and delicious. We asked the waiter and she suggested another house special, the Malacca chendol, which has coconut milk, shaved ice, sweet stuff and green jelly stuff. It was very very rich, but quite delightful.
Photo borrowed from Augustus Gloop.
Appropriate name for the photographer
of this gloopy drink, we thought.
There are many other comforting dishes at Kopitiam, these are just a few to get your taste-buds revving. Prices are very reasonable, and the decor (brightly coloured walls, plastic & metal tables), is laid back and informal, without feeling particularly manky. On this occasion we arrived there on a Saturday at lunchtime - it was packed, but they managed to find a spot for us.
