Malaysian Cuisine in Houston

Malaysian cuisine and Houston, Texas are generally not two phrases one expects to be used in a sentence. There are, however, two fine Malaysian restaurants in Houston, a city better known for TexMex and barbeque, but has a more cosmopolitan dining selection than is generally thought. These are the Café Malay on 10234 Westheimer and the Malaysian Nonyan Café on 7818 Bellaire.

The Café Malay is located in a strip center where Westheimer intersects Beltway 8. The Malaysian Nonyan Café is in a building that looks like a renovated house on Bellaire just west of Fondren

Malaysian cuisine has been described as a combination of native Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese, though that is something of an over simplification. Malaysian cuisine is really a subtle blend of all three influences. Typical ingredients in a Malaysian meal include coconut milk, belacan or dried shrimp paste, chiles, shallots, ginger, the gingerlike root galangal, lemon grass as well as spices such as nutmeg, clove, star anise, black pepper, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon.

A good start for a first experience with Malaysian cuisine is nasi lemak. It consists of a neat mound of coconut- and pandan-leaf-flavored rice, surrounded by bone-in curry chicken chunks, pickled vegetables, hard-cooked eggs with pungent belacan and crunchy anchovies. Also recommended is the asam fish-head soup, thick with okra, eggplant, tomato and onion, and served in a clay pot.

On a recent visit to the Malaysian Nonyan Café ("Nonyan" means Malaysian of Chinese descent, hence some of the Chinese influenced dishes on the menue), we had beef-rendang, a succulent dish that consists of chunks of beef cook slowly in coconut milk. Another good example of Malaysian cuisine consists of satay, a kabob like dish that consists of chicken or beef cooked on skewers and served with peanut sauce for dipping.

Malaysian cuisine is also famous for it's creatively put together noodle soups. The Penang prawn soup is of particular interest, consisting of a light broth that's been simmered with the crustacean's shells and heads. Yellow egg noodles, kang kung or water spinach, slivers of fried garlic and prawns are later added. Other examples of Malaysian noodle soups contain chicken and/or other kinds of sea food.

Another good bet is daun pisang ikan pedas, a whole fish topped with sambal, a chile-based paste, and grilled in a banana leaf. Many Malaysian dishes are served with Asian style boiled rice.

Deserts can help one cool down ones palate after a good, spicy main meal. Coconut pudding, which is fresh coconut-juice gelatin served in the shell. Another example of a good Malaysian dessert is a kind of sesame paste, cool to the tongue and throat.

In a country that is used to Chinese and even Indian food, Malaysian cuisine has been considered up until now the great undiscovered cooking. But one suspects that will soon not be the case.