We really liked Bijan a lot.  Malaysian food isn’t made upscale very often here in KL; at its best, we’ve found that Malaysian food is best when it’s simple, streetside, and usually served up by someone crusty who doesn’t let you dawdle over deciding what you’d like to order.  Malay food is also different from Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Indian, both of which are also distinct from their origins.  It’s hard to generalize Malay Malaysian food, and I’m sure there are entire blogs, essays, webcasts and academic dissertations dedicated to the subject here.  For me, Malay cuisine usually means some sort of richly spiced curry, the sauce of which is brothlike and not really creamy like Indian curries.  Most Malaysian dishes also contain what I call the “Malaysian Holy Trinity“: shallots, red chillies, and garlic.  Almost every dish I’ve learned to cook while I’ve lived here contains these three ingredients.  Beef rendang, pictured above, is no exception.

The bar at Bijan

What struck me about Bijan was that it really was Malay food as we’ve come to know and love it, except much more refined.  The hubby and I have tried a few other places in town that also bill themselves as elevating Malaysian cuisine, but too often it feels more like the menu has just been adapted for Western palates.  We loved that the dishes we tried (a young mango salad, pineapple prawn coconut curry, creamy chicken, and red snapper and eggplant curry in addition to the rendang) didn’t shy away from the spiciness that is characteristic of the Malaysian curries we’ve had.

The young mango salad had a strong brininess factor due to the liberal use of fish sauce, and we liked that, too.  It was also crunchy, fresh, not overly dressed.

The hubby also noted at the end of the night that it’s the first new place we’ve tried in awhile.  I guess we’ve been kind of in a food rut, mainly because we feel like we’ve found a rich repetoire of places we like to frequent, and there are enough of them now that we never really have a chance to tire of them.  We also have much more limited time now to dine out, even though we take the Gravy Baby everywhere from hawker stalls to high-end establishments.  He rolls with us swimmingly, and for that, we’re grateful, considering we also don’t have to share our food with him right now.

But that’ll change.  One day, sooner than I think, I’m sure.

Bijan Restaurant | 3 Jalan Ceylon | Kuala Lumpur