Champor-Champor

What better way to celebrate Australia Day, Chinese New Year and my birthday than to go to a modern Malaysian restaurant?

Food

We were given a reduced choice menu as there were 12 of us. There was still enough to keep us interested.

• tofu skin with spicy sauce - not much taste but great texture
• banana bread - yummy. I haven’t had banana bread for so long I forgot how yummy it was
• Jasmine tea-braised poussin, tahini sauce; fresh ginger chutney - the sauce was a killer, the tahini giving it a real lift and flavour. The poussin was very subtle in flavour, a perfect foil for the sauce.
• Stir fried frog legs with ginger, galangal and XO sauce (£2 supplement) – at first the frog legs were tasteless, until I figured out that because of the shape of the bowl, the legs weren’t getting any of the ginger sauce. Once I started dunking all the legs in the sauce, they tasted excellent. The XO sauce was a real standout too, so much so that Slokky started eating it by the spoonful when the legs ran out
• Mutton kofte in korma curry; satsuma skin pilau; bean sprout rojak – actually, just mutton kofte. We were missing all the side dishes, and I told Slokky that, but he insisted that there was no accompaniment, so I believed him. There’s where my mistake was, I should’ve checked myself and never trust Slokky…seems a never learn. Anyway, the mutton kofte was nice and “smelly”, as only mutton can be. It was quite gamey. The sauce itself was very mild and accompanied the mutton nicely.
• Pigeon & plum hot pot; spiced congee; mooli som tam - this was rather hot, as in spicy. The pigeon was nice and pink, very soft and tender. I love the dish, with the spiced congee cutting the heat. I just found out som tam means green papaya. It certainly tasted great.
• Pandan sponge & butter pudding; green tea ice cream - desserts were a bit disappointing after such a great start. This has avocado as a topping too. While I do like avocado I am not sure it worked in this case. The green tea ice-cream was excellent by the way – so smooth and creamy.
• Mascarpone-filled cinnamon pancake; longan & mint salsa - my favourite dessert, the pancake was subtle, while the longan was very refreshing.
• Coffee & burnt sugar cake; toffee cream - I couldn’t taste coffee in this. It really reminded me of my sticky date pudding, especially the sauce. After eating it every day for a week I was a bit sick of it, and I thought the cake was a bit too heavy to finish the meal.

Rating - 8

Atmosphere

The restaurant is quite small, with dark exotic tones on the wall and in the furnishings. A scary looking puppet watched over us the whole time. On this rainy Wednesday night, they didn’t quite manage to fill the restaurant up, but considering it’s located in a dingy side street of London Bridge, with nothing else around, its appeal has to be due to the excellent food and the great service.

Rating - 1.5

Service

As I said, great. They catered to us without any problem. Well, we were mostly left on our own, pouring our own water…etc. Still, the staff was friendly and smiled at us while they delivered our food. For a big group, we didn’t have to wait long at all, and that’s all you need really.

Rating - 3.5

C-factor

For a group, we had to have 3 courses. Also we get a more limited choice of menu, but there was still plenty to choose from. It was £29 for 3, plus drinks and service, so the total came to £37 p.p. I think it is a bit expensive, but the food was great, so I won’t complain too much.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 13.5

Info

62 Weston Street
London
SE1 3QJ
Phone +44 (0) 20 7403 4600
Website