C & R Oriental Cuisines

We’ve been trying different foods during our stay in London and decided to try this restaurant near our rented flat. We put ourselves in the hands of a lady who I believe may have been an owner. She walked us through the menu letting us know what was more or less spicy. It was just the right amount of food and EVERYTHING was wonderful. They had a nice wine list and the ambiance was pleasant. We’re definitely going back!

This place offers a good variety of Malaysian food. The suton soup is my favourite! Very flavoursome. Recommend it as a take away option!

We went as a group of 4 on a Saturday, one of our party born and raised in Penang. The food was delicious, 3 – 4 stars worth. But the service was poor. When the entrees arrived, we waited … and waited. until our friend from Penang went into the kitchen to ask about rice. For Asian people, waiting for rice is like being served the sauce without pasta. The waiting again became an issue while trying to attract attention for tea, or the bill. So the service knocks them down to 3 stars, but overall, A-​OK as a 3 star place worth going to, if in the area.

Went with a friend, thought it would be the same as the one in Chinatown. Definitely not the same… my friend had the Singapore Laska, it was too salty and I ordered the prawn noodle soup… it was the same too salty. But the ambient in this location is better then the one in Chinatown. They also charged us 10% service fee in this location but not the Chinatown location.
I would recommend going to the one in chinatown. Much better food. Ambient isn’t great cos it is a small little place. Sometime it smell like dead fish inside. But the food is great.

I cannot believe the reviews on this site for this restaurant, it was the worst asian food I have ever had. Im sick of these asian restaurants in London serving up such lacklustre food and charging a fortune for it.
I happen to be Australian so I grew up on thai, malaysian, and chinese food in Sydney and had some of the freshest tastiest food. But time after time I’m disappointed with the restaurants here.
My GF and I had the special menu which had a mix of dishes including noodles, fried meat (I say meat as I don’t know what meat it was, could have been any animal really), sweet and sour prawns, chicken satay sticks.
The sauces used were thick and gluggy (would you like some food with your MSG?) the amount of chicken on the sticks was smaller than my pinkie finger, the satay sauce was very oily, and the noodles were oily and tasteless
The bok choy was nice however.
All this for 50pounds, I would never go here again, and won’t be recommending it to any friends or enemies.
Try this place if you must, but be wary.

The London Unilocal gang enjoyed their first taste of Malaysian at C&R Café in Chinatown last week. It was one of the trailblazers for South East Asian food in the capital and scores highly on the authenticity scale.
This second branch opened in Westbourne Grove a few years later and a few weeks ago, I was able to give it a try as I met a friend in the area who was keen to try Malaysian food.
The most striking thing is that there’s a whole conventional Chinese menu available here unlike the central London branch which is quite rigidly S E Asian in its offerings. Perhaps there’s a bigger tourist base to cater to here.
However, we stuck to the Malaysian dishes. Roti canai came as 2 buttery pieces of flaky pastry to dip into the accompanying curry sauce. Only fault with this dish really was that we wanted more sauce to dip the delicious pastry into.
My Unilocal ‘dish to eat before I die’ is char koay teow — fried broad rice sticks, which is cooked at high temperature to get charred edges and enhanced with umami-​laden black sauce which I haven’t been able to reproduce at home despite a lot of trying! My friend was suitably impressed by this dish.
We also split a nasi lemak, which is a sort of Malay thali with coconut rice surrounded by chicken curry, deep fried anchovies, peanuts, hot sambal, boiled egg and pickled vegetables. Nice variety of things to munch on.
We were the second table to be seated but by the time we left, the place was packed. Nice to see Malaysian restaurants prosper!

This restaurant serves Malaysian cuisine. I wouldn’t say it’s authentic Malaysian cuisine, but they do with what they could offer for London standard (maybe they could’t find the produce and use substitute in their cooking method) –that’s if you want a Malaysian food fix. Food portion is generous, food is reasonably good.

This place is authentic, great value, and the food is really good.
We were 6 people, we each ordered something different, and I tried every dish. Not one was a dud. Don’t miss the Roti Cinai starter — a lot tastier than it looks or sounds.
The place was run by Malaysians and had plenty of Malaysians eating there, which is a good thing in my book.
It’s not going to win prizes or a Michelin star, but all in all 2 thumbs up.

C&R is your best option for Malaysian/​Singaporean food in London. The Westbourne Grove location is also less crowded than the one in the alleyway in Chinatown. Everything is pretty authentic, but the highlights for me include
Curry chicken — this is really authentic. I could drink pints of the curry sauce
Hainanese Chicken Rice — the chicken is pretty good. But the rice is spot on. You know the rice is rigt when you eat it by itself and call it a meal.
Wat Tan Ho — the chinese equivalent of Thai Rad Nah — yum!
The satay was kind of bland, but that doesn’t detract from a great eating experience

C & R provides reasonably good Malaysian/​Singaporean food. My girlfriend is from Malaysia and she said that the food is ordinary and really expensive compare the ones you get back in Malaysia. Well, I think it is understandable but although I can’t really taste the difference between authentic Malaysian food and the ones served in C & R, she insisted that it is not fantastic. In my own opinion, I think it is alright and affordable in comparison to London cost of living. I quite like the laksa noodles.

Bei dem bemitleidenswerten Kollegen, der das C&R Restaurant für den vom unverzichtbaren Stadtmagazin Time Out (
) herausgegebenen Gastro-​Guide London Eating and Drinking 2008 (
) besucht hat, ging so gut wie alles schief.
Er wurde zwischen zwei Tische gequetscht, die so eng zusammen gestellt waren, dass er im voll besetzten Restaurant jeglichen Hauch von Privatsphäre vermisste. Und dann war auch noch der Reis zu dem von ihm bestellten malaysischen inoffiziellen Nationalgericht Nasi Lemak trocken und lauwarm.
Zum Glück hatten wir diese Restaurantkritik nicht gelesen, als wir auf dem Rückweg vom diesjährigen Notting Hill Carnival (
) zum Hotel in Bayswater zurückliefen und am C&R vorbeikamen.
Wir wurden zu zweit an einem achtsitzigen Tisch platziert, hatten also genug Privatsphäre. Die Servicekräfte waren sehr freundlich und plauschten im Lauf des Abends immer mal wieder nett mit meiner der kantonesischen Sprache mächtigen Freundin.
Auch ich wählte aus experimentellen Gründen Nasi Lemak. Es gab andere Gerichte, die mich spontan eher ansprachen; da ich aber noch keine großen Erfahrungen mit malaysischer Küche sammeln durfte, wollte ich beim ersten Mal lieber etwas wirklich Typisches versuchen.
Wie auf dem Foto zu sehen ist, besteht das C&R-Nasi-Lemak aus einer guten Portion Kokos-​Reis, um das herum die anderen Zutaten drapiert sind: z. B. eingelegtes Gemüse, ein halbes gekochtes Ei, mit Schale geröstete Erdnüsse (hervorragend!), frittierte Sardellen (knackig!), mild gewürzes Curry-​Huhn (für mich etwas zu mild) und als Ausgleich Sambal (Chili-​Würzsauce).
Das Gericht war insgesamt interessant, aber der Reis war salopp gesagt der Hammer. Einen solch fluffigen Reis, der zudem noch durch eine dominante Kokosnote glänzte, hatte ich vorher noch nicht genossen.
Nette Feinheit am Rande: Die Krabben– bzw. Shrimps-​Chips (eine Krupuk-​Variante) waren dunkler als die in Deutschland üblichen Fisch-​/​Krabben-​Cracker und schmeckten intensiver.
Meine Freundin hatte Hainan Chicken Rice; ein traditionelles Gericht, bei dem Ingwer und Knoblauch sowie in manchen Varianten auch Chili dominieren. Die relativ milde Version des C&R mundete ihr (und mir) bestens.
Spontan bin ich geneigt zu sagen, dass ich im C&R bald wieder vorbeischauen werde. Aber das werde ich wohl nicht, obwohl ich am C&R nichts auszusetzen habe. Denn zum einen gibt es im Multikulti-​Viertel Bayswater viele andere spannende Restaurants, die ich noch nicht kenne, sowie sehr viel bessere Restaurants als das C&R, die ich lieber ein weiteres Mal besuchen würde.

I didn’t think I would enjoy but I did! Really enjoyed the food there especially the Asam Laksa which is my all time favourite.
Good servie too. Price is reasonable, may be a little bit on the high side.

Fab chinese /​malaysian place — great service