Kampong Ah Lee, Edinburgh

I have never lived in Malaysia.  Sure, I've been there: visiting family, perhaps a dozen-odd times in all, a cumulative total of probably somewhere between 3 and 6 months in my entire life; not nearly enough for it to be somewhere I've lived.  But, perhaps because of its association with family albeit not home, or through some kind of inherited nostalgia, I do have a special place in my heart for Malaysian food.  (It doesn't hurt that it's mostly delicious.)

Malaysian cuisine is, I feel, somewhat under-represented amongst UK restaurants in general.  Manchester has one Malaysian restaurant in the city, much-vaunted in these parts; on my visits so far, I've generally been of the opinion that it's very nice but doesn't quite match my expectations of Malaysian food -- honed not only by countless visits to the famous hawker food centres of Penang, which prides itself on being Malaysia's food capital, but also by the Proustian power of childhood memory.

Roti canai with curry dipping sauce

And that, I suppose, is the problem with the "food of one's heart": how can reality live up to an ideal that is not just about flavour and texture and smell but is invested with significance precisely because it is an ideal?  It doesn't matter how closely a restaurant here can replicate the dishes precisely as they taste there; it will always be here and not there, and not the same because of that.

But even here, it can still taste pretty good.  On Friday I found myself in Edinburgh for the night with no particular plans: a chance to relax, read a book... and try a new restaurant.  Browsing around for possibilities, I stumbled on a recommendation for "Kampung Ali".  An opportunity for Malaysian food was definitely not to be missed, even if it was a one-mile walk away on an icy, snowy night.  But wait, the website mentioned a "first restaurant", the original Kampong Ah Lee... where might that be?  By blessed coincidence, just a couple of blocks away, around the corner from my hotel!

From the outside, it looks like a rather unprepossessing takeaway, with its garish photos and neon sign.  The menu, however, lives up to the 'delight' promised by the sign, with a selection of classic favourites including satay, won ton noodles, prawn soup noodles and mee goreng.

I was particularly pleased to find on the menu achar, a spicy vegetable pickle with peanuts that I remember eating from jars at my grandmother's house when I was a bit too young to handle the chilli comfortably but loved the sweet-sour peanutty flavour so much that I suffered the burning mouth for it gladly.  The version here contained carrot, cabbage, green beans, cucumber and pineapple (the latter addition new to me at least).  It was a little on the sweet side, more similar to the version I've tried to make at home than my grandmother's achar -- which has never heard of a low-fat diet and is deliciously saturated with chilli oil and ground peanuts, intensely tasty and the vegetables retaining a much firmer crunch as a result.  Still, this version was more than adequate (and can any restaurant dish really live up to our memories of our grandmothers' cooking?) and something I'd be happy to eat any day.

There aren't quite as many food bloggers writing about Edinburgh as London, but I was able to find some reviews to give me an idea of what to expect ahead of time.  According to nearly everyone on this site, the roti canai (pictured above) was a must-try.  While it's actually more of a breakfast item in Malaysia, this slightly chewy, slightly crispy griddled flatbread is worth eating whenever you can.  When you order it from the 'roti man' (the street vendors selling roti are always men and always Indian), he takes a ball of firm-but-pliable dough and stretches and pushes it out flat on an oiled surface, so thin it's translucent, oils it again and then folds all the sides in on itself to create a neat rectangular package that is then flipped onto the hot griddle.  The oiled dough forms thin layers while the surface of the bread in contact with the heat puffs up in places and produces uneven brown char-spots that are a perfect crunchy contrast to the tender layers inside, which soak up and help to retain the thin curry sauce which is the traditional dipping accompaniment. 

You can get all sorts of roti variants -- roti with egg, roti with onion, roti with egg and onion, roti with sardines, roti with spicy minced meat (murtabak), sweet roti with sugar or banana -- but plain with curry sauce is my favourite; simple but so good.  The Kampong Ah Lee version came as two generous round (not rectangular) breads: crisp, tender and flaky, almost impossibly light.  If pushed, I'd admit the texture was less thin-chewy-layers and more like a paratha, but they were so good regardless, I couldn't possibly fault them.  The curry dipping sauce was spicy and coconutty; a little thicker than normal but with a taste that was bang on.

Curry laksa...

The various soup noodles on offer, including the prawn noodles (har mee), beef curry noodles and some more Chinese-style offerings such as roast duck noodles, are grouped together on the menu under the heading "Big Bowl Noodles".  The menu's not wrong; my curry laksa contains generous amounts of calamari, prawn, chicken, slices of fish cake, a stick of surimi (though this I could have done without), both thick egg noodles and thin rice vermicelli -- the only correct mix for curry mee, in my view -- and crunchy beansprouts, swimming in a veritable lake of spice-rich coconut soup.  The creamy soup looks a little on the tame side at first but that's easily remedied by another indispensable feature of Malaysian hawker-style soup noodles: a little dish of roasted chilli sambal on the side, which when spooned into the soup creates that pleasing slick of fiery red droplets of chilli oil on the surface. 

... now with added sambal!

There are numerous regional versions of laksa in Malaysia, and I'm not nearly enough of an aficionado to know the different characteristics of each.  Most of the common ones are coconut curry with prawns and chicken, but a notable exception is Penang assam laksa, which has a sour fish broth laced with prawn paste and fresh mint and is one of the things I always make sure to eat while in Malaysia, as it's relatively rare on menus outside the country.  Curry laksa, on the other hand, is a popular classic at Malaysian restaurants everywhere, and is therefore something of a benchmark.  I've had laksas that are so decadently creamy that it's like drinking straight coconut milk (the curry laksa at Nyonya in Lygon St a notable example); laksas that had flat rice noodles in a curry-powder tasting sauce (not a real curry laksa in my book); and, once in Hobart, a laksa that was like a tom kha gai with rice vermicelli in it: delectable but not the curry laksa I'm used to -- though for all I know, authentic in some other part of Malaysia!  This one... was just right.  I slurped the noodles with great satisfaction and spooned up the tasty soup down to the last drop.

Between the huge bowl of noodles, two large roti and the side dish of achar, I had more food than I really needed or could quite manage, and it was with some regret but knowing it was the wise decision that I left half of the last roti uneaten.  The bill for all of this, plus a glass of wine?  Just £15.30.  One of the commenters on the reviews page I read reported that he enjoyed the beef rendang and that the "Only problem I had was that I was paying 4 times the amount it cost me in Sydney".  I want to know where he was eating in Sydney!! Pound-to-dollar devaluation notwithstanding, I can't think of anywhere in Australia, let alone Sydney, where one can get a beef rendang for the equivalent of £2 -- that's around $3.20 in Australian New Dollars, and was still only $5 or so before the GFC (Great Fall in Currency). 

Overall, this place was a bargain and well worthy of calling itself a 'Malaysian Delight'.  And even though it's not quite Gurney Drive, little touches like Malaysian signs for the toilets ('tandas') and Visit-Malaysia posters on the walls made it feel more homely -- for a place I've never called home, that is.  I will definitely be back next time we have an excuse to go to Edinburgh for work!