The best Malaysian restaurants in Sydney

Crowds of people congregate outside this Malaysian grillhouse in Haymarket (the original is in Strathfield), motivated in equal parts by hunger and optimism that they can find a seat inside this compact diner styled like a laneway street stall, with air fragrant with chilli, garlic and soy sauce. Order soft, pliant rolls of rice noodle cheong fun bobbing about in a creamy sea of coconut and chilli, plus the char koay teow, which is spectacular.

Malay Chinese specalises in laksa lemak, which is made from coconut milk and curry paste and devoured at hawker stalls in Malaysia and Singapore. Here, there are 11 types to choose from, ranging from chicken to beef and prawn. Hot tip: don't wear white (like we did). Be sure to also order the Hainan chicken rice, which takes us back to a humble eatery in Kuala Lumpur, and the slippery and smoky char kway teow.

Malacca Straits isn’t easy to find, but look for the signboard on the street and duck into the sunny residential courtyard that hides this popular restaurant. The menu includes a selection of Thai dishes but you’re better off sticking with their Malaysian specialties, like the delicately steamed Hainanese chicken. Ayam goreng is fried chicken, Malay-style, marinated and deep fried on the bone, served with chicken rice, chilli sauce, salad and soup. If you’re the type of person who likes to pick at lots of different things, get the nasi lemak, a compartmentalised metal plate of coconut rice, cucumber, hard boiled egg, roasted peanuts, deep fried anchovies and your choice of chicken curry, beef rendang or fried chicken.

Is Alice Tan's char kway teow still the best in town? It certainly gives its competition a run for its moneybags. For one thing, Alice's version isn't halal, unlike many other top Malaysian places in town, which means it can be closer to the Platonic ideal of the original version of the dish cooked in Penang, with its little bits of crisp fried pork fat tossed through the noodles. 

Queues still snake outside this Chinatown cheap eat during the week and for good reason. The roti is paper thin, stretchy and the perfect vehicle to mop up nutty lentil curry and funky sambol. But our pick is Malaysia’s national dish: nasi lemak. Rich coconut rice is surrounded by crispy fried anchovies, sweet and fiery sambol, crunchy cool cucumbers, a boiled egg and peanuts. It’s a steal at $13, and you can opt to add a fragrant chicken curry for an extra $5 (which you should).

Never tried lobak? It’s a dish much loved in Penang, and central to any celebration or festival by Straits Chinese. These Malaysian five spice rolls combine tenderised pork mince with the crunch of water chestnuts, all wrapped up in a beancurd sheet and deep fried to a crisp. They’re one of the house specialties at Penang Cuisine, easily missed in its hidden corner within a modest commercial complex in Epping. And yet this compact 30-seater has a non-stop flow of students, families and couples huddled over steaming bowls of curry laksa, digging into plates of mee goreng fried noodles or squabbling over the last satay chicken skewer.

Relax, there’s no hydrogen cyanide left in the buah keluak seed by the time it ends up in your meal here. The seed is found inside the "football fruit" of the keluak tree native to the swamps of southeast Asia – and thanks to that volatile acid, is highly poisonous. So why is it on the menu at this Auburn eatery? Here's why: they first boil down the seeds before burying them in ash for forty days. This allows them to ferment, and converts the flesh from a pale creamy colour to a midnight shade of black. Those seeds are the centrepiece of ayam buah keluak, a dark and spicy chicken stew fragrant with tamarind, turmeric and galangal. You can try it for yourself at Peranakan Place, one of Sydney’s only restaurant dedicated to Peranakan cuisine. 

The enormously popular Malaysian eatery tucked into a little pedestrian laneway in central Parramatta doesn’t go in for frippery or frills – they would only distract you from the flavours in your bowl, and they deserve your whole-hearted attention. The beef rendang will quiet all those tiresome people who come back from a Malaysian holiday only to moan about how nothing here compares. 

Born in Malacca in Southwestern Malaysia, Azizah Mohamed and husband Mahdhar Mustapha love to cook the food of their homeland. Now, the duo has opened up their first bricks-and-mortar restaurant in Sydney's south west, called Warung Taming Sari, inspired by the warungs dotted all over Malaysia. Come for the life-enhancing $13 beef rendang, served with a rich, sweet and salty sambal. Or Warung Taming Sari’s signature dish: charcoal-grilled meat skewers paired with a spicy peanut satay sauce, rice cakes and fresh cucumber. You can snag five chicken bad boys for just $15.

Given there are more than ten PappaRich outlets in Sydney, it seems they’ve hit on a formula for success – affordable, no-frills hawker-style food and drinks. Here, the Hainanese chicken has been so gently poached it trembles to the touch and is served in a dipping sauce fragrant with chilli, ginger, sesame oil and soy sauce. 

It's a tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it type cafe on screaming loud Harris Street in Ultimo. The roti is unbelievable, and they do all the usual Malaysian hawker favourites like chicken curry and roti or nasi lemak. Get your fix of Malaysian telly while you're at it.

Albee's Kitchen's menu is short and sharp. The nasi lemak pops with flavour. It's a plate of coconut rice, beef rendang, oily onion sambal, flash-fried ikan bilis and peanuts balanced with five (count them) thin slices of cucumber. You might expect it to be a greasy mess but you'd be mistaken: the mix of flavour and texture is like a well balanced punch to the mouth.