Old standbys at New Malaysia

My friend and former colleague Marlon crossed the river from Brooklyn to join me at New Malaysia, located in an alley at 46-48 Bowery, just South of the Manhattan Bridge. My friends and I tend to judge Malaysian Restaurants by comparing them to Nonya on Grand Street, one of the few restaurants that stays open past 10 PM in Chinatown, and also the best in its class. I don't usually go for noodles at Malaysian restaurants, preferring to focus on other favorites like Hainan Chicken, but since Marlon agreed to split an order with me I was able to have the best of both worlds. We started out with some Ipoh bean sprouts and an order of Roti Canai- both of which should be ordered each and every time you walk into a Malaysian restaurant, unless you do so every day.

Roti Canai- crepe is not as large as it appears in pictures

Ipoh Bean Sprouts

Roti Canai, much like Pad Thai is to Thai food, is a bellwether by which you can judge whether a Malaysian restaurant has its chops or not. It is a small starter dish of not too spicy curry sauce laced with a few meaty morsels of chicken that is served with a flatbread or crepe.. The Crepe, or Roti, in particular is a good judge of the skill of the kitchen. They should be airy, fluffy, and chewy as well as slightly crunchy with a buttery flavor all at the same time, as they are at Nonya. At New Malaysia, the flavors are there, but we found the crepe itself slightly too thick, and the small pancake diameter wasn't as pleasing as the LP record served with an order at Nonya. The yellow curry was very good, in fact, every bit as good as the one Nonya serves.

I love Ipoh bean sprouts and they are one of the simplest dishes you can imagine. They are bean sprouts blanched for about 30 seconds and garnished with scallions, soy sauce, and sesame oil. On a diet and need a rice or noodle substitute? Ipoh bean sprouts will serve in a pinch. I thought the Ipoh Bean Sprouts were great but Marlon would have liked them just a little crunchier. For heat lovers they are perfectly mated with some Silipadi (see-lee-pa-dee) chili peppers served in soy sauce, available upon request for no charge. The way I remember the name of these chilis is of course to think of Silly Putty, which was ubiquitous in my 70's childhood. If you pressed this magical putty hard enough against a newspaper, you could make an imprint of the funny pages. The putty resembled a big hunk of chewed bubble gum, which is why I'm guessing there are still remnants in my intestinal tract...

Silly Putty in my belly?

Silly putty plagiarizing- so am I by stealing this image.

For the main course, I ordered the curry chicken noodle soup, or Mee Kari, and Marlon had Chow Kueh Teow, a stir fried rice noodle dish with shrimp. My curry soup was pretty good, I'm a sucker for curry soups and usually enjoy them, but the New Malaysia version is no match for the incredibly delectable curry soup found at Cong Ly on Hester St. I'm not a fan of the thick egg noodles they use at New Malaysia- next time I'll have to ask about what some other noodle options are. Marlon enjoyed Chow Kueh Teow. I thought it was tasty, but when I'm going to order flat stir fried noodles with meat or seafood I usually prefer the Chinese preparation of Chow Fon. My favorite variant is Beef Chow Fon, and it's just about the only beef dish I'll order at a Chinese restaurant, barring beef with scallions at Joe's Shanghai. Why order beef when pork, chicken, duck and seafood are so excellently prepared in Chinese restaurants? But I digress...

I want "He loved his curry chicken noodles" as my epitaph

Chow Kueh Teow

Did somebody say cold, boiled chicken? Don't turn up your nose. The very best dish we had at New Malaysia was Hainanese chicken, AKA chicken rice.This is a very popular dish in SE Asia and China too, but alas it's not very popular in the US. That's probably because most people here don't want to eat cold chicken, or boiled chicken, but if you haven't tried this dish, I would strongly encourage you to do so. It is served along side chili sauce and mashed ginger but Nonya makes my favorite preparation, a fantastic variant they call "Thai Chicken" which comes smothered in a brown onion sauce. At New Malaysia, the chicken was perfect, soft, tender, and silky in texture and wholesome and meaty to the tooth. Marlon and I devoured the whole thing, in addition to our main courses and the preceding appetizers. Before you call me a glutton, remember, I'm a professional....I have a blog.

Hainan Chicken and her friends

Marlon hard at work

I eat therefore I am.

We really enjoyed New Malaysia and I actually prefer the setting, tucked in an alleyway off a busy thoroughfare, to Nonya, which moved and remodeled a couple of years ago and no longer has any "noodle joint" feeling to it. Nonya is fancy now and is only really on my radar for dinner and delivery, whereas New Malaysia has the the feeling of a workaday restaurant where the standby dishes are executed well. I'll be back for some Hainan chicken and Ipoh bean sprouts, and perhaps next time I'll try one of the gooey chipped ice desserts Malaysian restaurants do so well. Go get yourself some cold, boiled chicken, you won't regret it.