Rasarumah — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Pretty mid overall. Pros- great service, very attentive staff. The ambience is awesome, they have acoustics down perfectly! And the chicken skewer is pretty awesome as a first impression. It’s juicy, tender, flavorful and comes with a pineapple peanut curry sauce.

Cons- Pork Jowl skewer- not as good as the chicken skewer, a bit bland on its own. So I dressed it up a lot with the sambal! Normally pork is my favorite protein, but chicken won this time Gado Gado- only had 3 tofu “croutons” which were pretty flavorless (needed salt and seasoning). $18 for gem lettuce, endives, and 3 pieces of tofu isn’t worth the price. It was really heavily recommended to us, and the dish just felt underwhelming… but healthy? Crispy Rice cakes- honestly really really disappointing. First bite sent me back to college; cooking for myself for the first time and dumping wayyy too much white pepper into my food. I wanted the rice cakes to be QQ (chewy) and denser, a more satisfying bite. They were nicely crisped though. The real complaint goes to the insanely heavy hand on seasoning the bean sprouts. I was unfortunately grimacing taking more bites of the bean sprouts. Again, too expensive for very subpar stirfry. Beef Rendang- was super excited for the star dish. Unfortunately it doesn’t stand up to the beef rendang I had in a mom & pop Malaysian restaurant. It was too oily, too fatty, and the seasoning only carried through 30% of the bite, and then the flavor plateaued into just oil and fat. I do appreciate the additions of pickles and herbs, because it’s helpful with cutting through the fat. But the rendang I’ve had before has been so much more flavorful and not so oily. This dish was still good though, just not mind blowing.

(And please fix the bathroom lock! I accidentally walked in on another customer in the bathroom because he had done it wrong. I had to ask for help to learn how to lock it myself, it shouldn’t be that difficult! I mention this because the toilet is so far from the door, it’s a bit unfortunate if it’s opened...

Been hearing the buzz for this place so was excited to try it.

Beautifully decorated, cozy chic vibe. Menu is meant to be shared and focuses on Chinese diaspora cuisine in Malaysia with influences from other parts of Asia.

Overall solid options. Some of the dishes seem to only loosely fit the theme while others I felt could’ve taken the flavor profile up another notch.

Service is friendly although our server was pretty aggressive about pushing us to order a lot of dishes. We ended up ordering 6 dishes for just the two of us and were way over stuffed. Drink menu is limited to one shochu cocktail, beer, wine, and sake. The shochu cocktail is absolutely fantastic. So refreshing and balanced.

Dishes wise: Shrimp chips: served with an assembly of sambal/dipping sauces. 5/5 can’t go wrong with this starter. The dips vary in terms of spiciness and was pleasantly surprised about the punchiness of the fermented one Bergedil: potato fritters with sambal mayo 5/5 one of my favorite things here Chicken and pork jowl skewers: 3.5/5 pork came with a hot mustard dip, was sort of a let down flavor wise Rojak: mango, fruit, herb salad. 5/5 refreshing, bright salad among heavier dishes Crispy smoked chicken wings: the flavor profile was largely just “spicy” 3/5 would pass next time Char Kway Teow: sort of like a Chinese/Malay rice noodle stir fry. 3.5/5 good but sort of like a pad Thai but not as good. I enjoyed the Chinese sausage but the snap peas seemed out of place, were barely cooked so the nearly raw vegetable just seemed out of place. Would give it a 4/5 without these Mushroom curry clay pot: 3.5/5 loved the crispy rice covered with a curry sauce which had a sourness to it that I didn’t enjoy as much. Also came with nearly raw snap peas

Very promising start. Would love to see how the...

We were greeted warmly. Our reserved bar seats were ready for us. The lighting and music were spot on— the place’s decor was great. Love feeling both the chefs style and the restauranteurs style blended in those four walls.

The shiso calamari soju drink was perfect. All of the sambals were delectable. We ordered shrimp chips to eat them with and our amazing server gladly refilled the sambals as we quickly devoured them.

The skewer six pack (not actually called that) was delicious. The salad was fresh and perfect as a first course before and overlapping it.

Haven’t had char kay teow since I was in Malaysia and boy was this a great version of one. So good with the shrimp and Chinese sausage and the acid squeezed on top.

We were stuffed by the time the Wagyu beef cheeks came but ate the roti with a few bites of herbs and coconut curry sauce and beef… just so the roti didn’t go to waste! It was really delicious, we put the spicy sambal on top of this one too.

Cendol for dessert. Love the flavors (been making faux cendol at home for the last weeks so this was welcomed). It was in a cute sundae sort of set. Home made pandas jelly was cool. I wouldn’t change a thing but it was a warm day and we were so stuffed so I had the thought that I wish the cendol had ice in it to lighten it.

Anyways— 10/10. Would love to walk over again soon!!! Thank you to the staff. Everyone was SO warm and hospitable. For a moment it felt like pre-covid...