Café Rasa Malaysia Stratford

This is the real deal! Excellent authentic Malaysian food with warm and thoughtful service. I passed by several times and almost all seats were filled, for good reason. Despite the density of tables, the staff ensure you have plenty of space and move things around for you. We shared roti with chicken curry (delicious and plenty of chicken pieces), king prawn laksa, beef rendang nasi lemak, karipap and chicken rice. All were delicious and the sambal served with the nasi lemak was perfect (I reckon the owner is well aware, as they also sell jars for you to take home!). The fried chicken skin was paper thin and crisp, served with flavourful chicken rice. My only gripe is I wished the nasi lemak was served with more beef rendang as the portion was disproportionate to the amount of rice. The price is higher than the fast food joints around the corner, but is a much better choice by far.

I ordered the fried chicken leg rice set. The chicken leg itself had a nicely crisp skin, but the meat was bland and lacked any tenderness or bounce. The yellow rice was overly salty and didn’t carry the fragrance or richness of chicken oil that you’d expect. As for the soup, it tasted mainly of star anise and salt, with none of the depth or comforting flavour of real chicken broth. Considering the price, the overall quality felt very disappointing and not worth it.

The restaurant is clean, tidy, comfortable, small, bright, sleek, vibrant but no walls for privacy which was not ideal for my friend. The food was delicious, mouthwatering, tasty, colourful, well presented but it can do with more flavour and can do better according to my friend. The staff are friendly, polite, kind, knowledgeable, respectful, understanding, supportive, well mannered, professional and helpful what I liked a lot in this place. The price was £51.22 which includes service charge of £5.02 but food and drink was £46.20 for my friend and I at this place. If you want to go there you can but keep in mind that is small place and it will remind you of Malaysia although you are not in there and you smile when you’re in the restaurant.