Tukdin: authentic flavours of Malaysia and a new favourite *heart*

In case you didn’t notice, my wee bloggie here has gone a little bit matcha crazy lately. Eating matcha, baking matcha, dreaming matcha and oh hai is that a line of green matcha powder there? Inhaled. Sorry but I probably would sniff matcha if that was the only way to consume it, I love it that much.

To divert my one track mind from this AA-able addiction, my girls and I had our date night at Tukdin last week, a Malaysian restaurant who don’t sell matcha and *gasp* don’t even have green tea.

“You want tea? What sort of tea?”

“Uh yeah… green tea?”

“What? No. Is jasmine ok?”

Incidentally, they also have teh tarik which in all its condensed milk glory is totally equally addictive. I didn’t have that though. I ordered a glass of rose syrup with soda water and proceeded to study the traditional Malaysian menu.

So this Tukdin is a bit of a mystery to me. Named after the chef himself, who is still the head chef (followed closely by his son Fauzi), I’d never heard of either of them before, the rubbish Malaysian person that I am. For me it’s the usual: Kiasu (heart), Sedap (heart), Satay House (rojak!), Rasa Sayang (certain dishes), C&R (meh), Kopi Tiam (meh), Jom Makan (blergh!) and Awana (erm.. well).

Where the heck did Tukdin come from?! Who cares. What matters is that they came straight out of the blue and into my heart like a bolt of fire.

“The bolt strikes her with such intensity that she stumbles back, clutching her heart with her hand. She raises frail fingers to her quivering lips, enchanted. Sigh. Ah, to be struck by cupid. Me and Tukdin. This is meant to be.”

Ok whatever. Drama queen. It wasn’t exactly out of the blue. By complete un-randomness, I tried their chicken satay goreng at Taste of London a couple of weeks ago and it was bloody good and so I bloody went back to try more stuff.

Rather less romantic, isn’t it?

Tukdin’s menu isn’t huge (like, er, no roti?) but what they do I dare say they do well. They only have three starters for example, the satay goreng (which was still as fabulous this time around), sup asam manis (prawn and squid sour soup) and karipap (chicken or potato pasties).

And with the exception of the yellow-ish beef curry above, which tasted more like a Thai green curry (no rendang!), all the mains were To. Die. For. especially the rasa khas, a large slice of deep fried sea bass in Tukdin’s special sweet and sour sauce *big big heart*

Everything was appropriately spicy, the sambal udang (prawns) carrying a delightful kick and the kangkung belachan, that one made my nose run and so it absolutely should!

To challenge their limited starters menu, Tukdin offers all of two – that’s right, count with me now: one. two. – desserts. Bubur pulut hitam (black glutinous rice with coconut milk) and pisang goreng (banana fritters).

The pulut hitam came with a large dollop of vanilla ice cream which would seem rather generous to ye olde regular bystander but here’s the thing: this dessert is never served with ice cream! Totally veering left of tradition here but hey, it worked. And it worked a treat.

And the banana fritters? I think the ‘nanas were a little unripe but hey, that’s not their fault.

So my girls and I ate and ate and ate and talked about the usual work and babies and weddings and holidays and gushed over bling and talked more about babies and babies and oh, yeah, totally clucky here.

I know, it’s 100% pukey but that’s what girls nights are for, right? At least we do it whilst consuming much deliciousness and look at that, I’ve found me another Malaysian restaurant to love and by the way, all this food? It came to £16 a head, including service. Win!

Tukdin
41 Craven Road
Paddington, W2 3BX
0207 723 6955
website