Green & Oak Malaysian Restaurant — Restaurant in Burnaby

Three weeks into 2023, and I'd been wracking my brain about which favorite place of mine should I write my first Yelp review of the new year for! And then it struck me - but, of course! Green & Oak Malaysian Restaurant, the awesomesauce place which the missus and I have visited 4 times (no less!) since we discovered it barely 3 months ago when craving for hot and tasty food on a cold Fall day in Raincouver! And we can't seem to stop going back for more of their yummy offerings.

Located on a pretty, well-lit stretch of Hastings St in the Heights neighborhood of Burnaby, Green & Oak is not hard to find. There's ample street parking up front or down the road, and there's also a private parking lot at the back which we've never had to use thanks to finding a vacant spot by the front door on each of our visits. The restaurant decor is lovely - bright, cozy and colorful - and has a very soothing and cheerful vibe. The floor space is well utilized with decent capacity and the tables spaced out without crowding the place, and it's easy to get seated without much ado even when it's busy, which is usually the case. The wide windows offer a nice view of the world continuing to function outside while you blissfully drift away into a satisfying food coma as your meal progresses!

The staff are always very kind, patient and helpful, and greet you with a hot cuppa of green tea which feels like a warm hug as soon as you're seated! I'm not kidding you when I state that all of their food offerings are delish, and you can't go wrong with your, order. The menu is extensive but not complicated and many of the items in there have accompanying pictures which are helpful but also accelerate the mouthwatering, especially if you're hungry! That said, feel free to ask for recommendations and rest assured you'll get some good pointers from your hosts.

Our favorite-est of food offerings at Green & Oak is hands down the Roti-Canai droollll (damn, I knew that writing this review at the ungodly hour of 2 AM was a bad idea, and I'm now craving for the fantastic combination of flaky, tender and crunchy flatbread with hot, spicy and delightful curry! dreamy sighs). We also love their other specialities: Mee Goreng (noodles), Belachan Fried Rice, plethora of soups (Laksa, Tom Yum) and Malaysian Curry options with Yellow Chicken Rice, etc. Each of these is flavorful and lip-smacking stuff, and your taste buds and tummy will thank you for the treat. If you're adventurous and like tasting new food items, do try the Durian Bombs for dessert - so unique and good, but be warned that it's not for everyone!

Their portion sizes are really good, and I can't seem to get enough of the food, so always find myself in a EBTT (eyes bigger than tummy) situation unless I mindfully stop myself on hogging and request for takeout containers. I recommend getting your own boxes if you plan beforehand on taking food home since they charge for the plasticware they provide. Also, kindly note that they accept only cash or debit cards, so please keep that in mind to avoid any inconvenience.

Once again, I can't recommend Green & Oak Malaysian Restaurant enough - it's just what the doctor ordered, especially during these cold winter days. I rest my case, and...

Green & Oak is one of the newer Malaysian restaurants in town and situated just east of Boundary Road on Hastings Street. We arrived in mid-April (right before they were set to temporarily close down for some kitchen renovations) for a late lunch/early dinner and were fortunate that they were still offering their special lunch add-on menu (where you can order smaller versions of their appies).

The interior of this restaurant is spacious and there’s plenty of light coming in from the large windows.

With the special lunch-time add-on menu, we were able to try a lot of different items: Chicken and Beef Satay ($2.95 for 2 skewers), Chicken Wings ($3.75), Fish Cakes ($3.75), and Roti Canai ($2.95).

We also ordered the Hainanese Chicken Set Meal ($9.95) which comes with minced ginger and a spicy dipping sauce along with chicken rice.

The satay was accompanied with a peanut dipping sauce. I found that the chicken was much better than the beef (which was drier and a bit chewy).

The fish cakes had a paper-thin crisp exterior which encased the plump fish patty but it seemed to lack any fish flavour. Meanwhile, the roti had thin and flaky layers and a curry dipping sauce.

The 2 full chicken wings (tips intact) were crispy and accompanied with a tart dipping sauce. Not on the level of chicken wings that you’d find at Phnom Penh (but few are).

Last up was the Beef Curry ($9.95) which was served with a bowl of rice. The mostly tender chunks of beef and large pieces of potato were swimming in a delicious curry sauce. You definitely need the rice to sop up that curry sauce.

We revisited three months later during National Ice Cream Day and ordered the Milo Godzilla ($5.25) – given how hot it was outside, this was a really good choice. For those of you unfamiliar, Milo is a chocolate malt beverage. This “Godzilla” version is iced and topped off with ice cream that’s been dusted with undissolved Milo powder.

We again ordered a bunch of items from their lunch add-on menu… the Spring Rolls ($3), Roti ($2.95), and the Chicken Satay ($3.50). Again, these add-on items are perfect for trying out a bunch of different items.

For our mains, we stuck with the Char Kuey Teow ($12.50) and the Hainanese Chicken Set Meal ($10.95).

Overall, the food was rather good. They also have a shelf under the tables where you can put your bags (although I kept hitting my leg...

Came here with my daughter for dinner. The reviews had us thinking we were in for a treat. I don't normally leave reviews but google asked and thought I'd share our experience.

We've travelled through singapore, malaysia, brunei, love the food. Not a food snob by any means either.

My daughter ordered char kway teo, I ordered beef curry, we had satay as an appy.

Serving staff was great, asked if we could handle some spice, we both said yes.

CKT was too sweet, one note - why ask if we can handle spice if there is no spice? I couldn't tell if there was any fish sauce or belacan as it was just sweet. Heck, I suspect it was dark soy and sugar, no oyster sauce or kecap manis even. Definitely no chili oil or any spice. I know CKT is generally sweet, and that there are a ton of variations, but this was just a one note dish. It wasn't terrible, nor too greasy and we've had much worse noodle dishes but... I mean I make it better at home in a teflon fry pan. I expect a bit more from a professional kitchen.

My malay beef curry was also disappointingly flavorless, thin and sweet. Meat was overwhelmingly fatty, which I don't mind that but some might (thinking about it, the fatty meat is about the most authentic thing about our visit). It was decently tender. But again, why ask about spice tolerance when I could feed this to my sister who believes black pepper to be mouth blistering spicy?

Satay and peanut sauce were just ok, nothing exciting.

Look, it wasn't a bad meal, I was just disappointed because I was hoping for a bit more authenticity, a bit more flavour. If I wanted to introduce my sister to malaysian food, I'd consider this place as she loves sweet and can't handle heat. Me? I prefer a little funk and a little spice. Sadly this place did not deliver on that.

I wish the restaurant the best, I hope they do well. Maybe it was an off night. Maybe we just ordered the wrong dishes. I want to see more malaysian options around. But I doubt I'll bother to...