I recently met up with a friend for business over a warm bowl of laksa (these in my opinion are the best kind of meetings!). I’ve heard lots of great things about Kaya that has recently opened up on Oak and Broadway and have been meaning to try for a while now.

They have lunch specials which are a little cheaper than the dinner menu and you can add a drink special for $2 more on top of your meal. Great deal.

We started off the Roti Canai ($6) which was AMAZING here! It was crispy, doughy, hot and fresh. It’s served with curry sauce which is made for dipping and a bit of the flavour. But seriously, I could eat this on it’s own it’s so good. I love roti canai.

I ordered the Singapore Laksa ($8) – the soup was enormous, made with coconut broth and served with shrimp, egg, tofu, fish cake, sprouts and a lot of noodles. The noodles used are the skinnier noodles (I don’t remember whether it was vermicelli or a different kind of egg/rice noodle). I could barely finish the noodles. However, our server politely informed me that I could ask next time for less noodles. Might just have to! I liked the amount of items in my bowl, but I felt that the broth was a little bit on the watery side. I’m not sure if this is deliberate to cater to more general tastes, but other than that, there were lots of toppings and lots of noodles.

My friend ordered the Hainanese Chicken ($8) which is basically cold chicken (either steamed or roasted boneless) served with peanuts, ginger, chilli and garlic spicy sauce. I can’t really comment on this dish as I didn’t try it, but Hainanese chicken is a very popular Asian dish as well.

You’d be hard pressed to find a fantastic Malaysian and South East Asian restaurant – especially along the Broadway corridor and I think that Kaya has great potential to be a super popular place. I’d definitely like to come back and experience the dinner – papaya and mango green salad, mee goreng, rendang beef to name a few. So I’ll be back for more Kaya!

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Check out their website and menu here.

Kaya Malay Bistro on Urbanspoon