8/10
12 Pin Oak Crescent, Flemington
I never went to the original locale of this Flemington favourite, but I've heard in moving to new surrounds it lost a bit of its hawker ambience. Now it's clean cut, spacious and has a slightly japanese noodle bar feel to it, which I guess isn't so bad. But the main thing is that the quality and value of their grub hasn't changed. Myself and my fellow diner had a feast of combination curry laksa, sambal king prawns and twice cooked pork belly.
The laksa was tasty; rich coconut and lemongrass tones were everpresent. And the portion size was pretty damn big. My one criticism is that it lacked that bit of chilli kick, but nonetheless this was still a good rendition of this malaysian classic.
The sambal chilli prawns were packed with prawn-punch; the prawns themselves were big and juicy, and the sambal sauce was packed with crustacean flavours without overpowering the pallette. I felt it could've done with a tad more sambal sauce, but that's just me.
Last but by no means least, the twice cooked pork belly. Firstly the aniseed flavour hits the pallette, followed by fatty, indulgent pork belly notes and finishes with a swansong of rich, soothing caramel-soy hits. Proper comfort food.
Adding rice to this, our final bill came up to about $24 each - which is fairly expensive for Malaysian, but good value considering we ate about 4 persons worth of food (with the exception of the laksa, the dishes were probably meant for sharing for 3 people). And with pretty efficient service and friendly staff, I'd be pretty confident in saying that this is Melbourne's best Malaysian offering.
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