Restaurant Review: Malaysia Kopitiam

It’s been a while since my last review! This past week I haven’t been trying out many new interesting places – until this past Friday night. A friend and I went to Malaysia Kopitiam located near Dupont Circle on M Street. We were both in Singapore last summer and missed the local foods that we found there. The restaurant was pretty empty at 6:30 on a Friday night, and the waitstaff were very attentive and provided prompt service.

The restaurant offers a variety of dishes, from appetizers to noodles and stir fried vegetables. We decided to share an order of the watercress and get our own appetizers. I chose the otak otak, a salmon, chicken, and shrimp paste with spices grilled in a banana leaf. It’s definitely a strange concept to American tastes, but they sell these savory treats all the time on the streets in Singapore. It’s not the most pleasing dish to look at, and the texture is a little odd (a bit spongy) but it has a great savory taste. Two pieces of otak otak was about $3.

The watercress was really fresh, and the portion was large, definitely enough for two people to share. The sauce that the vegetables were cooked in was not too greasy or heavy. It’s made with a fermented tofu paste, which sounds strange but gives the dish a nice sharp and salty flavor. The dish was $10.

Unfortunately we did not try any of their signature noodle dishes, so I feel that I cannot adequately judge the restaurant overall, but the food that I ate was of the expected quality. Additionally, I think this may be one of the only Malaysian restaurants in the area, so if you are up to try a new cuisine I would recommend Malaysia Kopitiam. Don’t worry if you don’t know the first thing about Malaysian cuisine, as the menu has lots of photos of the food.