When I walk into a restaurant and one of the other diners is Kalpana Sugendran Sugendran, it’s as if all my Christmases have come at once to the bottom of a scruffy flight of stairs on the Edgware Road. Who he? Why, he’s the Roti King, boss of the eponymous Euston restaurant, one of my absolute London favourites. His presence here, chatting to the owner like an old friend, means more to me than any number of Michelins or World’s 50 Best or what-bleeding-ever.
Melur has been popping up on the timelines of the kind of Instagram otaku who takes the search for bergedil or ayam berlada hijau very seriously indeed. That’s where it came to my attention: just as well, because nothing else here is exactly designed to draw in the passerby – forget any kind of kerb appeal. I follow the don’t-read-book-by-cover ethos as much as the next culinary nerd, I know the deal whereby the swankiest outpost is not necessarily the best, but Melur seems almost calculated to repel. From leery, acid-coloured posters of the menu attempting to camouflage the building works next door to those green-walled, scuffed stairs leading down to a windowless basement, it really does not give a gal the glad eye.
But persevere, because there are treasures here, a comprehensive Malaysian adventure from light, crisp fried squid with a lurid sweet chilli sauce (excellent) to pandan pancakes. There’s satay, obviously; from the choice of meats – including beef – we choose lamb. But this is no mere lambkin, this is mutton: the chewiest, charred-fat, muttoniest mutton. It’s the kind of thing that makes you imagine sheep bits scooped from firepits in Moroccan markets, or from flaming coals in Macau side streets, or kept under saddles on the Mongolian steppes. It sure as hell won’t appeal to everyone. But the satay sauce, gingery and peanutty and oily, manfully holds its own, and blocks of nasi impit (pressed white rice) provide much-needed blandness.
We have butterflied sea bream bathed in two chilli sambals, one red, one green. Our sweet server – granddaughter of the house, I think – beams, “This is my favourite”, but I’m less sure: it tastes a little, um, ossified. But the roti, with their resonant split pea and turmeric dahl, or “gravy”, are wonderful. In fact, they’re so closely related to the lacy beauties at Roti King that I’m wondering if the reason the boss is here is not to eat off-menu murtabak, but to give lessons.
Portions are humungous. Nasi lemak is listed under “rice dishes”; like eejits we expect a side of coconut rice with a scattering of the usual accompaniments. Instead, it’s a riotous spread that could easily feed two: a dome of nutty, perfumed rice, a bowl of bone-in chicken curry, fierce with cinnamon and clove, spiky little dried anchovies (ikan bilis), excellent peanuts – truly, some peanuts are better than others – and a deep, scarlet sambal of spectacular heat and sweet richness. And gado-gado could feed a family: a forest of beansprouts, beans, boiled egg, tomato, fat slabs of fried tempeh (fermented soy bean cake) slurping up the peanut dressing. This is food to make an expat sigh for home. Beef rendang is my Malaysian benchmark, and Melur’s is a belter, all sweet and sticky with coconut, the beef collapsed into the sauce. With an added belt of pugnacious chilli and fermented shrimp paste sambal belacan, it’s a powerhouse of a dish.
Melur seems a curious outlier among the phone shops, pharmacies punting recondite joint treatments and many Middle Eastern restaurants of Edgware Road’s Little Beirut, a fabulously foreign strip of the capital fragranced with the artificial sweetness of hookahs and the funk of grilling meat. But then, Paddington round the corner is virtually Little Kuala Lumpur. And this restaurant has a fine pedigree, too: it comes from the same people who were behind Pak Awie and, before that, the old Malaysia Hall Canteen. It’s halal and doesn’t serve alcohol; the many headscarved millennials seem happy with their violently pink rose syrup bandung, or nasty, sugary malted Milo.
I’m going back for the kari laksa. Or pre-ordering the whole crab with all the red chilli. Or the Indonesian-style rijsttafel. Hell, it may not be the most beautiful restaurant in town, but try and stop me.
• Melur 175a Edgware Road, London W2, 020-7706 8083. Open all week, noon-11pm. About £25-£30 a head plus drinks and service.
Food 7/10
Atmosphere 5/10
Value for money 7/10
