Sambal Shiok Laksa Bar — Restaurant in London

Not authentic, over-priced and rude, slow, supercilious service. We sat down outside early on a weeknight. I ordered Gado Gado, my partner Laksa, with a fried chicken between us. The chicken was good. The Gado Gado was a joke. Tiny like a side dish. It comprised cucumber sliced paper thin as though for a Japanese salad, a peanut sauce and some kind of bits of a crisp thing. No boiled, blanched or steamed vegetables like green beans. No hard-boiled eggs, boiled potato, fried tofu or tempeh. No prawn crackers. OK I wasn’t expecting lontong. The Laksa was weird. It’s hard to describe what was wrong with it but if you’re from the region or have had the real thing you’d know. The base was too thick, the noodles too soft, the few tiny pieces of chicken pre-cooked not poached in the stock and the overall taste was harsh and artificial. I can only describe it as like a canned fish soup with maybe coconut, raw curry powder and chilli sauce added. Normally Sambal Blachan is on the side. The peanut sauce with the chicken was ok but not like a satay sauce and almost identical to the Gado Gado sauce. Our third party member arrived and we moved to a new table inside. Out friend ordered a Laksa and we ordered another fried chicken and two cocktails for us. It took so long for the Laksa to arrive that we thought the order had been forgotten and we had to chase it. It took about 45 mins. After it arrived, a waitress came over and informed us that every table was only allowed 1 1/2 hours and “heads up” that our time was coming to an end. The Laksa which had just arrived was still steaming hot, too hot to eat. She was counting our time from outside as a party of two and adding it to inside as a party of 3. But the table outside had been filled with new diners and we’d been at our new table for a very short time. I asked her what she expected us to do, now that our time was up? Leave without eating the Laksa? She said she told all tables they only had 90 minutes but there was nothing on the menu about it and we weren’t told before sitting down or before ordering the second Laksa. We drank up quickly, didn’t order desserts and pushed our son to finish his Laksa under the stares of the staff. The meal was already not great but the staff serving food late and then telling us our time was up, accompanied by dirty looks etc, ruined it. Just moved in round the corner but we...

I don't get the hype. Flavour-wise it was so-so and definitely not value for money. Firstly, the food at £13 for a bowl of laksa is on the expensive end. But the portions are tiny and the bowls are really small. The laksa itself is also too sweet. A more balanced Laksa can be found at Laksamania or Roti King. The fried chicken starter is a decent size and tasty enough but it doesn’t go with the peanut sauce it's served with because you end up with a sweet chicken on top of a very sweet peanut sauce –again overly sweet and a miss for me.

For the wines, they serve wines in 125ml (not the usual 150ml or 175ml) and have priced it so that buying a bottle (more on this experience later) gets you 2 glasses for “free”. Obviously, we got a bottle and it wasn't cheap.

And here comes my biggest sore point with the whole experience, we came on a busy Friday night, waited patiently as we’d read an amazing write up in the Guardian, got seated and was super excited with what’s coming. 50 minutes after sitting down, we had just finished our meal and were still enjoying the rest of our bottle (there was still half a bottle left) when the bill came and shortly after we were asked to leave. Don’t sell a whole bottle of wine if you’re not going to allow the time for your customers to enjoy it. Just sell by the glass, as Londoners we understand the concept that some restaurants need to turn around tables quickly to have multiple seatings and they do this by only selling wines by the glass, and of course we adjust our expectations accordingly when this is the case.

But when the cost of a meal consisting of 2 mains, 1 starter, and a bottle of wine comes to over £70, don’t rush the customer out after just 50min. I understand these guys came from a street stall/pop up background but there is a big difference between the fast and easy service of a street stall vs a sit down restaurant charging £73 for 2 people. Up to that point, the service was fine and friendly and even when we were asked to leave the waiter was perfectly nice but keeping in mind the price point and time we had, the whole experience was very...

I was keen to go here, as not many places in London which offer laksa have a vegan/vegetarian option, and given that I only live a mile or two away I had a sense of local pride that somewhere in my part of London had received a lot of buzz which might make my South London friends jealous. Plus I had enjoyed the Laksa Kitchen popup which had been in Kentish Town a couple of years back, and though this might be in a similar vein.

...but sadly on this particular day the vegan laksa was just a bit underwhelming. I cannot claim to be a connoisseur - I haven't been to Malaysia - but I just expected bolder, more vibrant flavours from it. Maybe it's traditional / authentic to do it this way but the fairly large pool of plain and seemingly cold coconut milk on top (not really blended in with the soup as I assumed it would be) seemed a little excessive, and I suspect may have contributed to damping down the flavours from the rest of the dish a bit too much. The broth lacked depth of flavour, and I didn't get the heat, the vibrancy, the fragrance I was hoping for. The little cubes of fried sweet potato seemed out of place. Maybe I should have gone for the hot rather than the medium? I thought as I was getting older I was losing my ability to deal with chilli and so ordered conservatively, but surely all the other flavours should still be there?

It's hard to reconcile the hype surrounding the place with the actual laksa I had. Maybe this one particular serving went a bit wrong, somehow the proportions weren't right or they were having an off day? However given what a bun fight it is to get a table here and the fact I'm getting a bit too old and grumpy for hip places like this, I'm not sure I have the enthusiasm...