Herald rating: * * * ½
Address: 487 Khyber Pass Rd, Newmarket
Phone: (09) 520 7977
Cuisine: Malaysian
Open: Wed-Mon, 11.30-late (closed Tue)
From the menu: Laksa noodle $12.50; Beef rendang on rice $12.50; Sambal sweet and sour prawns $12.50
Vegetarian: Lots
Wine list: Unlicensed
Newmarket. Monday, 6.30pm. Ghost town. The malls and the stores are lifeless and the label junkies gone to Remmers, every one. Broadway is the great black way, the dairies shut and shuttered.
I am walking empty streets looking for a wine store. The restaurant has told Sue that it is
BYO and I am in danger of failing my host responsibilities.
There must be people somewhere, for there are cars. In every parking spot from here to Kingdon (St) come. Perhaps they are all in the Rialto. I slip behind the Great Hardboard Fence of Lumsden Green and into an Asian supermarket.
It has six bottles. Organic. Merlot-rose, I think.
Outside the restaurant I meet Tom and Sue. "Put that away," she hisses. "But I thought ... "I respond, before realising that I am chromosomically unsuited to thinking. "It's not BYO," she says, "it's unlicensed. We can't drink wine inside."
"Could we," Tom improvises, "tell them that it's cranberry juice?" Jude arrives with something paler. "And that could be albino cranberry juice."
We are voted down.
Along the foothills of Khyber Pass, one place has lights on, and people only too happy to serve us. There is no one else inside - we look like we're posing for Nighthawks at the Diner - but we've heard good things about Selera. Perhaps we're here at the wrong time: the $7.90 lunch special postered on the window (the only other decoration is framed A-grade food-safety certificates) packs'em out. Or in.
Coming here was Sue's idea. There are few places around the city where she can find the tastes of her childhood, fewer where they're re-created to meet her reminiscences. KK's in Epsom. Sri Pinang on K. Rd. And here, in the pan-Malaysian tastes of Selera, which means "appetite".
We won't get into the never-ending debate about whether there's an indigenous Malaysian cuisine or several subsets of the neighbours' kitchens. In the multicultural nation locals have adapted each other's dishes to suit their tastebuds: Malaysians of Chinese descent have diluted and de-spiced Indian curry; Chinese noodles have been crossed with Indian and Malay tastes to create ... Malay fried noodles and Indian fried noodles. Because most Malays are
Muslim, chicken replaces pork in Chinese dishes.
Nyonya food is unique: invented by the Peranakan people of Malaysia and Singapore, it uses mainly Chinese ingredients, blending them with Southeast Asian spices such as coconut milk, lemon grass, turmeric, chillies, sambal.
The 30 dishes on the laminated menus take a little from each fork of the cuisine. At this point I'm handing over the column to my fellow diners:
"The starters we had - tofu bakar, pandan chicken and lobak - were the highlights of the evening," Sue reckons. I'm considering going there just to have the starters in future. The lobak is the most authentic that I've tried in Auckland so far. If I had to fault the dish I'd say the only thing I missed was the special brown dipping sauce that usually accompanies it - the garlic chilli sauce seemed to overpower.
"Although I was a little intrigued by the measly pandan leaf covering the chicken, the taste and aroma were absolutely spot-on - one of my favourites of the evening.
"The kon low mee (wan tan noodles) were a treat. Really made me feel like I was back home. I loved the fact that they provided both char siu (barbecued pork) and har gow (shrimp dumplings) with the noodles.
"Assam king prawns were extremely disappointing. I was expecting a sour tamarind-based sauce - definitely didn't deliver. The battered prawn shells (I say that because I didn't have any prawn meat) were laughable, considering they charged $15.
"Overall, though, it's a great place to go with a group to try a variety of dishes - amazingly reasonable prices, especially for Newmarket."
Tom adds that Selera is no-nonsense and honest compared with restaurants from neighbouring cultures with their overworked interiors and cheesy music. Service ditto (no-nonsense and honest, he means). "The help-yourself water and Chinese tea saved a lot of to-ing and fro-ing."
I can't say fairer than that, so I won't.
The recessionistas will be pleased to hear we sampled 10 or 11 platters for $100. They don't do dessert or fruit and, anyhow, we didn't need any: we'd also sneaked a sample of the organic merlot-rose and it left a lingering aftertaste on the palate. Of watermelon.