21 Great Windmill Street
W1D 7LQ
Tel: 020 7437 2745
Date of Last Visit: Sunday, April 24
The Victims: Brian, Jeff, Rafa, Ana, Bernard, Sarah
Every so often, I get together with my former classmates for some sort of brunch. Because we’re a motley international crew, we like to pick someplace relatively international. Qualities we look for are large restaurants, no booking necessary, and good/interesting food.
After some searching, and feeling like trying a new cuisine, I chose Melati. I headed over to Picadilly and wisely avoided spending any money at HMV before lunch–but did not escape my fate after lunch! Bad Krista!
So then I entered Melati. And honestly, it smelled like pee. But maybe that’s just the oil they cook in. So I cut them some slack.
The music was fantastic. It was like my high school prom. Tainted Love! And the vegetable fritter starters were AMAZING. I fell in love and forgot about the urine smell. Besides for the fritters however, everything else in our vegetable-mixed-starters plate was a bit questionable and I stayed away from it.
OK, and here’s where I made more mistakes. I had read some reviews of Malaysian restaurants elsewhere and everyone was talking about Nasi Lamak. The coconut rice part sounded delicious. And it was a Sunday, so the fried egg was also an intriguing option. And I do appreciate a good anchovy. But well, the execution was just not what I expected. The anchovies were dried, and the curried part was super spicy. I ate the egg and the rice but golly–that wasn’t enough. Get me another vegetable fritter!!!
Service throughout was nice, but a bit weird. At one point at the beginning, they made us all get up and move down two tables, rather than just moving one table away from us. It was annoying. And I wasn’t quite sure if they understood our English! But oh well. What can you do?
The Verdict: Funny smell is the clincher for me. I made the mistake of ordering the wrong dish for me, and I can’t hold that against them. I’m just not sure I’d go back! Perhaps only to eat the vegetable fritters. A big plate of them!
