Alice's Makan, Sydney CBD

When it comes to food I often find myself wishing that I was something (or someone) other than Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi. When I think of what Australian food is I don't really know - snags on the barbie, Vegemite on toast, lamingtons and pavlova.  Those foods are fine (really, they are)...they're just not as interesting, varied or tasty as the delicious food that Asian cultures can dish up.

On my tour to adopt a new cultural food background I'm currently leaning towards being adopted by  Malaysia as it's one one of my all time favourite cuisines (along with all my other favourite cuisines like Greek, Lebanese, Turkish, Thai, Indo and Japanese).  I'm also toying adopting Chinese and also Indonesian, but for now I'm eating my way through Malaysia...thanks to Alice's Makan shutting up shop in Thornleigh and reopening in our CDB.

Radish Cake is one of my all time favourite Malaysian dishes though I'm not exactly sure what it is - possibly shredded radish mixed with some other stuff like flour + water.  This concoction is compressed or steamed or something and chopped up and wok-fried until the edges are crisped + charred (whilst the innards remain soft + bouncy). Sadly when I rocked up to Alice's they had all but sold out (wah)! They managed to scrap together a half serve for me when they saw how upset I was. and it was PHENOMENAL!

Mr Shawn managed to nab a full sized serve of Char Kway Teow - another of my favourite Malaysian dishes that is tasty a stir-fry of fat, bouncy rice noodles. I was lucky enough to grab a few bites of this CKT and it was really good, a nice charred wok flavour that all CKT hunt for.

Because I only had a half serve of radish cake (which was huge anyway) I felt this justified my ordering a Nasi Lemak ($10.50) which is, surprise surprise, another favourite of mine.  I love that this dish is a mix of a bunch of different things - a perfect dish for a glutton who wants to taste everything...all at once. My dish came with a mild beef rendang and Miss Chicken ordered the chicken curry. My favourite thing about Nasi Lemak is probably the peanuts with ikan bilis - crunchy fried anchovies - that give everything a super salty crunch.

I can't resist a big icy cup of Teh Tarik - a frothy, milky tea that gets its froth from being poured vigorously from jug to jug. It's a very refreshing drink on a hot and + humid night and I remember drinking bucket fulls of the stuff on our Singapore holiday last year.  I was however a bit weary of the colourful Kueh Lapis that Mr Shawn had bought us for dessert. The Boy + I tried this steamed layered cake in Singapore and it turned out the pretty green colour we opted for was Durian - GROSS! Lucky for me Alice's version was just nine layers of tasty tasty sugar.

Alice's Makan is in the foodcourt of the HSBC Centre at 580 George St (Cnr of Bathurst St), Sydney.