(funky beats)
- Cheers.
- All in one go?
- Yeah.
- How'd you make a sausage roll?
You push it.
- Do you joke like that
when you go on dates?
Is that why they leave?
(laughs)
- Probably, yeah.
Hello, hello, hello, and
welcome back to the channel,
as you can tell from the
title, today's gonna be,
our beer's just arrived.
(laughs)
- Clap, clap, clap.
(laughs)
- Cheers to that.
Cheers, guys.
- Cheers.
- Hello, hello, hello, and
welcome back to the channel.
As you can tell from the title,
today's video's going to be
all about trying Malaysian food
in London, so I've got a
very special guest, Nigel Ng.
- Yes.
- Is that right?
- Nigel Ng, yes.
- Ng.
- Follow me on Instagram
in my little tag here.
- Bling.
- I am a comedian and
also a content creator
for YouTube and Instagram, and TikTok.
And I'm here today because I
am from Malaysia originally
and Shu needs my expertise to show her
what real Malaysian food
is and whether or not
we can get good Malaysian food in London.
- First stop today.
- Mei Mei, Borough Market.
- Mm hmm.
- Let's go.
- [Shu] Mei Mei is a restaurant
based in Borough Market.
The closest tube stations are
London Bridge and Borough.
It's run by award-winning chef
and friend, Elizabeth Haigh,
one of the most impressive people I know.
Liz competed on BBC's MasterChef,
featured British Food's
water for change issue,
and was the founding head chef at Pidgin,
which was awarded a Michelin star
within a year of opening
under her guidance.
I've always loved her cooking,
but this was my first time
trying the dishes at Mei Mei.
It's had rave reviews and
after months of waiting,
today was finally the day
to indulge and reminisce
about my time in Singapore.
- What I recommend, you get
the kaya toast and the tea set,
and also the two soft boiled eggs,
and then we have to do the nasi lemak.
If you ever make a vlog where
I get to take my shirt off,
please.
- That could be the next video, Nigel.
- Yeah, slide into my DMs.
(laughs)
- Okay, can we get any coffee?
Kopi, kopi?
- Coffee you can, I'm just
gonna get a teh, teh tarik,
it's a classic.
- [Shu] Should we get one of each?
- Yes.
- What's a kopi gu you?
- Gu you, it's Singapore's
specific type of coffee,
it has butter in it.
- Do you wanna try it?
- Yeah, let's do it.
- Okay.
For those who love condensed milk,
you'll love the sweet
and creamy kopi and teh.
You can also have it served without sugar.
Also I hope I pronounced that right.
We placed and paid for
our orders, sat back,
and waited for the magic to arrive.
Quickly, due to the unfortunate
events happening in London,
Mei Mei is temporarily closed,
but the website is offering
gift cards to redeem
as soon as it's back up and running again.
Despite us chatting on Instagram
for a couple of months,
it was actually my first
time meeting Nigel in person.
I think I was telling him
that he doesn't look forty
with his mustache shaved off,
and he was probably roasting
me about one thing or another.
And then the food arrived,
and all conversation stopped.
What should we start first?
- [Nigel] You wanna do the eggs, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Nigel] Let's do the
eggs, cold eggs are weird.
- How exciting.
(laughs)
- You can tell who's the comedian here.
- Obviously me.
So it's already got soy
sauce and white pepper
and you just mix it all together, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
Crack it.
It's a little--
- [Shu] Look at that yolk, oh, my gosh.
I actually get quite
excited when I see eggs.
- [Shu] In Malaysia, this
is the best way to eat eggs,
you know?
Because it takes no effort.
When you boil an egg, you gotta chew it.
That's too much time.
- Wait, you just eat it like this?
- Yeah.
- Huh.
- Just drink it from the bowl.
It's just salmonella, ain't it?
Kaya toast is composed with
a type of coconut butter
that's sweet and then
regular Western butter.
- An iconic brunch dish in Singapore,
for a more in depth review,
I made a video all about this
when I was in Singapore.
- What do you think?
Good?
- (squeals) Mhm.
- Do you squeal every
time you eat nice things?
(laughs)
Wanna make a dirty joke to everybody.
I refrained.
Don't know you well enough yet, Shu.
- It tastes like a more luxurious version
of the ones I've tried in
Singapore for breakfast.
I think it's because there's
more of a generous layer
of the kaya, which is the coconut jam.
- Because they are charging five pounds.
(laughs)
That's why they have to make
it a bit more luxurious.
Otherwise, people aren't gonna come.
In Asia, this kind of
thing is very casual,
you have it every day.
If you do an exchange rate,
it's like 40p per toast,
so yeah, it's more luxurious
because it's everyday food.
- Next up, the satay set at seven pounds.
Choose between chicken,
beef, or a mix of the two.
Mm.
- [Nigel] Is it good?
- [Shu] It's a good
street snack on the go.
- And we got this on the house too.
Liz was kind enough to give it to us
as a bribe for a nice review.
- Free food always tastes better.
(laughs)
No, I like it.
I like it for like an in between starter.
Nasi lemak.
- Nasi lemak, which translates
to fat rice, literally.
- [Shu] Does it actually?
- Yeah.
Nasi is for rice, lemak's fat.
- [Shu] Uh huh.
- It's a very classic
Malaysian dish, again,
they poshed it up a bit
for the Western market
because again, in Malaysia
this is very casual.
You get it like 60p, 80p,
you can get a dish like this.
But they have to make it Instagram worthy,
so people, Londoners, come eat it.
Right, so they put extra things
and they plate it nicely,
they put the fried chicken
on, but it's gonna be good.
I've had it before, it's
a classic Malaysian dish,
slash Singaporean dish.
- [Shu] So you've got
some peanuts in there,
some cucumber in there, rice--
- Yes, that's true, which I like,
because notice how when we ordered this,
they didn't ask if you had any allergies?
That's how the way Asian
food should be consumed.
Take a risk, eat a peanut.
(laughs)
- Nigel, you're killing me.
- You're cutting this too?
Mm.
- [Shu] Oh, yeah, wait so--
- My airways are closing,
I have a peanut allergy.
A severe one.
- This tastes like a bit of
like healthier fried chicken.
- Yeah, of course, in London market.
- [Shu] It's very succulent.
- Yes, that's why Malaysia and Singapore
are the Asian countries with
the highest obesity rate.
Because our food is so good.
It's true, because we are
starting to get wealthy now.
- [Shu] Yeah.
- And our food is really good,
so that's a terrible combination.
Don't forget the shrimp
paste, sambal, too.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Little bit of a kick as well.
- This is the kinda stuff if
you microwave in the office,
your coworkers would hate you,
which is a mark of a good meal, you know?
If you microwave a jacket
potato, nobody hates you,
because you know, nobody
likes jacket potatoes anyway.
But any good meal should be like,
you should be hated after microwaving it.
That's how you know it's flavorful.
- Oh, my god, that paste is so,
I would say if you can't
handle mild amount of spice,
it's gonna be too much for people
who have very mild tolerance to spice.
But if you can handle
spice, then this is great.
- If you have a palette that
hasn't lived a life before,
you're gonna hate this.
So what's the last dish, Shu?
- (excited humming)
Hainanese chicken rice,
which is one of my all-time
favorite dishes of all time,
so I've been very excited to eat this.
- That's true.
- Essentially poached
chicken, and also the rice
is normally cooked with
chicken oil, fragrant rice.
- [Nigel] Yes, yes.
- [Shu] And then we've also
got some pickles on the side,
some coriander, and also some soup.
- Yeah.
- So.
- [Nigel] I wanna specify,
the rice here is special Asian rice.
It's not Uncle Ben's.
They didn't microwave it from a pouch.
- Mm.
- Moist?
Do you hate that word?
Most people hate that word, moist.
But there's no other way
to describe this chicken.
The good thing about Mei Mei
is they serve only
free-range chickens here.
So when you taste the chicken,
I can taste the luxurious
lifestyle it's lived.
You know, its hopes and dreams, and...
Mm, I feel its family's sadness.
Imagine coming home one
day and Danny's gone.
They're like, "Where did Danny go?"
(laughs)
Please invite me back, Shu.
(laughs)
This is what Mei Mei's known for.
But personally, I prefer the
nasi lemak we had earlier.
- If you're not used to spice,
or some of the signature Malaysian dishes,
then this is like a entry-level
soft approach into that.
- Yes.
- Delicious, and I think it's
kind of, if you love chicken,
if you love rice, there's not
much to not like about it,
unless you don't eat meat.
Then you wanna turn it up a notch
and have a little bit of heat, some spice,
a little bit of a party in your
mouth, then the nasi lemak.
- Yes.
- It's where you go.
- Party in my mouth, always.
If your only experience of
Asian food is Wagamama's,
go with this.
But if you, you know, you want
something more adventurous,
that.
My parents are all back
in Malaysia, right,
and if one day something happened to them
and I can't go back to
visit, I'm gonna come here
and I eat this and I'll
cry when I think of them.
So this will evoke
memories of my childhood.
- Right, and time to eat.
These two tummies were happy, satisfied,
and on the hunt for Malaysian food.
Next stop, Laksamania.
We hopped on the tube,
changed to the central line
and arrived at Oxford Circus.
Laksamania is situated on Newman street,
a mere seven minute walk away.
Founded by Malaysian chef Danny Tan,
the restaurant aims to show
his traditional favorites,
unique dishes, and the
famed street food culture
to the people of London.
Danny started as a chef
at just 17 years old
and went on to work at various
restaurants in Kuala Lumpur,
including Hotel Sangri-La.
There's also a vegan menu
available with Danny's take
on classic Malaysian dishes
with a plant-based twist.
- We'll have the mango
kerabu salad to share.
We'll share everything,
actually, so a salad,
and then the melaka,
right, melaka curry laksa.
And a penang assam laksa.
How good are you guys with spice?
- I'm quite good.
- Quite good?
Two chili signs, then.
Do you have chili padi?
- [Waitress] Yeah, inside.
- Can I have some on the
side also, a bit more?
Chili padi, it's like the--
- Padi?
- Padi, yeah.
It's Malay, it's like really tiny chilis
and the tinier they are
the spicier they are.
So if you go to Tesco you buy peppers,
those are really big chilis.
- Yeah, they're not spicy, right?
- Yeah, those are Wagamama's level chili.
But you come here, chili padi,
we're gonna have a chili
paste, like a chili-off.
- I thought she said chili
party and I was like yeah,
let's have a chili party.
(laughs)
A chili party indeed.
It was time to test my
senses at a few of these
and a pint of beer.
Here we go.
Gonna try three chilis.
This is the chili padi?
- Chili padi.
Translates to chili for Asian people.
- Okay.
- Cheers.
- All in one go?
- Yeah.
It's all right, you know?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, but--
- Heat's coming, the heat's coming.
- Have you tried the spicy
noodles, from the Korean ones?
- No.
- (gasps) They make you
go to the toilet after.
- Ooh.
- But they're very, very good.
That's fine.
- I feel the heat coming though.
It comes after you swallow it.
- You're like crying a bit.
- Yeah, a little bit.
Ooh, I'm struggling.
- Certified Asian.
(claps)
My dad taught me well.
- All right, let's eat.
- Aw, are you actually,
are you struggling?
- Yeah, I think I ate a lot of seeds.
- First up, we have
the melaka curry laksa,
which is, according to the menu,
a bit of hot and sour
with a dash of sambal,
which is Malaysian
shrimp based curry paste.
Very nyo-na?
- Nyonya.
- Nyonya, which means--
- Nyonya is a race of people.
So in the old days, the
Portuguese were the first
to colonize Malaysia, so
when the Portuguese mated
with the locals, the result is Nyonya.
- Very Nyonya.
- I'm 90% sure I'm correct,
but please Google it.
- Fact check him.
(laughs)
We've got some yellow egg
and rice vermicelli noodles,
bean sprouts, bean curd
puff, my fave, shredded egg,
fish balls, and king prawns.
Are we ready, I'm ready.
- Sounds good.
- Okay, so this is the
egg and the vermicelli.
- Yes.
- Never had both together.
- I know, because you
haven't lived yet, Shu.
- Mm.
- Delicious.
I have nothing bad to say about this.
- Little bit spicy, I
wouldn't say it's very spicy.
It's a little bit of sour.
- Yeah, a little bit, but
that's gonna be some more,
the thing we have next will be more sour.
- Yeah, thank you.
I've got some--
- So that's Shu trying out her Cantonese.
The three words she knows.
- To all the British fans,
this is called being bilingual,
you won't get it.
This is the kind of stuff
you have beside a highway
in Malaysia, you know?
Where there's no permit,
there's no food hygiene, really.
I remember growing up, there was this,
we just ate it behind a lorry.
There's a truck, there's a food truck.
And then one day the food
truck stopped coming.
And you don't know why,
the owner could be dead.
Or maybe just he found a
different job, you never know.
You're not supposed to.
Because good food should be enigmatic.
- Mm hmm, and I was gonna say before,
what time of the year do you eat it,
but then I realized that's
quite a stupid question
because it's hot in Malaysia
all year round, right?
- Yup, yup.
- So there's not even
like a differentiated,
summer, winter comfort dish or anything?
- No, no, we just eat
it anytime we like it.
- The one thing I love about Laksa
is I love that they always
come with the bean curd puff
'cause I love it that it
soaks up all of the broth.
- Yes.
- So then when you eat
it, it's kind of like--
- Squirts in your mouth.
The squirting in your mouth sensation
might be foreign to some of you.
(laughs)
But not for me, I'm a legend.
(laughs)
- How'd you make a sausage roll?
You push it.
- 'Ey, (mimics air
horn) you joke like that
when you go on dates?
Is that why they leave?
- (laughs) Probably, yeah.
This one.
- This is penang assam laksa,
which has a different flavor profile
to the curry laksa we just had.
- Sorry.
Love it, I'm gonna use this in an article.
- I say flavor profile, it's
a way to sound impressive.
- It does.
- It just means they taste different.
And this is really, really fishy.
You can smell the fish
scent coming out of it.
Yeah, if you microwave this,
they will hate you too.
You will get fired if you microwave this.
No severance package.
- Worth it.
- They let you go immediately.
Penang assam laksa.
A particularly popular
laksa in West Malaysia.
A rich fish broth is cut
through with a sweet and sour
from lime and tamarind.
Thick rice noodles, flaked
mackerel fish, red chili,
shrimp paste, pineapple,
cucumber, and onion.
All the flavors white people
fear are in this dish.
And then you're supposed to
have it with the chili padi.
Did you want like an extra kick?
- I keep thinking it's
chili party (laughs)
and I just have these
dancing chilis in my mind.
What made you become a comedian?
What was your journey?
- You know at parties, I try to be funny
and I always shock people too much,
but I still think I was funny,
so I just started doing stand ups,
so I have a place for me to
express these crazy ideas.
I've given up a lot for this.
- Yeah.
- I ruined a marriage for stand up.
- Really?
- You can't put it in.
My ex-wife and I, we're on good terms.
She understand.
Yeah, I used to be married.
But standup is all-consuming, you know?
With any craft, you have to suffer.
That's where greatness comes from.
There's always a price
to pay for greatness.
This is good, but these
noodles are different, too.
- Kind of like udon but not as dense.
- Yeah, it's silkier.
- Silkier.
- Silkier.
- And they've got the
mackerel paste as well,
which is good, because
it's not chunks of mackerel
and there's also no little bones in there
that would catch you by surprise.
- Yes.
- Very important.
- It's basically mackerel jam.
- Yeah.
- Can't serve mackerel paste
to an unsuspecting English bloke.
You'll freak them out.
- [Ed] I mean, I was a bit taken aback
when I first tried it.
- Yeah, see?
- So you've got some red
onions in there as well
for an extra bit of crunch.
- And the pineapple
gives it a citrus-y feel.
In the camera shot, the colors
of this look horrendous.
It looks like I'm gonna be
eating mud with noodles in it.
But it's delicious.
- I always think the uglier
the dish is, the tastier it is.
There's less focus on
making it look pretty,
but more on the actual
flavors and combinations
and how it tastes.
- I think we should only be superficial
when it comes to people.
- Do you speak Hokkien at home?
- No, I can't, I can
understand a bit of Hokkien.
You say, jiak png is rice.
- Jiak jiak png.
- Jiak Png.
Jiak ba beh is have you eaten yet.
- Oh, jiak ba?
- Jiak ba beh.
It's a good salad.
Normally, I'm the, you
don't friends with salad,
you don't make friends with salad,
but I'm making friends with this salad.
I don't usually like peppers.
- [Nigel] Really?
- One time, my little
sister said to my dad
that she loved peppers
so my dad brought home
a bin bag full of peppers
and we ate it every meal
for a week, so now I don't like peppers.
- So many questions.
Where'd he get a bin bag full of peppers?
- Takeaway.
Laksa, done.
- Yes.
- Beers, done.
- Almost.
- Kinda.
- Yes.
- And this wraps up the video today,
we were gonna make it on to
the third place but frankly,
we're quite full.
And I'm laughed out.
Can't take anymore jokes.
- Are there gonna be jokes in here
or are they all gonna be cut out, Shu?
- I'll keep some of them in.
(laughs)
- We have a blooper reel for patrons only.
Yeah.
- Maybe, maybe.
But thank you so much to
Nigel today for joining me,
for being my very special
and very funny guest.
- Thank you, Shu.
- Make sure to check out
his YouTube, his Instagram,
his TikTok, his upcoming
tour dates, his Patreon.
(laughs)
- Wow.
I am a hustler, aren't I?
- Thank you so much for watching.
If you enjoyed this and didn't
wince too much on his jokes,
give the video a thumbs
up, consider subscribing
if you haven't already
for more food, lifestyle
and travel videos, and see you next video.
Oh, and let me know in the comments
if you'd like to see more
of Nigel in the videos.
- Please say yes.
- And also a big thank you
to Ed behind the camera
for being the best cameraman today.
Yeah, we need to introduce
Ed as well at some point,
you should come in and pop in.
- The guy with no face.
I'm meant to be behind the
camera, but I made it here.
- No, you can be in front of the camera.
Here's Ed.
Yeah, we're good for today.
- Yeah.
Share another beer?
- Yes.
- Yeah, okay, bye.
(laughs)
(light bouncy music)
