Mambow, Peckham Rye

The sign of a great restaurant is that they make it look all so easy. When a tiny basement space round the back of Euston station began serving fresh roti and dark, complex mutton curries a few years back, the natural first reaction wasn't "this is great" (at least, it wasn't only that) but more pertinently "why has nobody done this before"? Dainty, flaky roti made to order matched with carefully constructed, wholesome curry, served for barely more than a fiver a pop, it's no wonder they soon had punters queueing down the street, but also scratching their heads as to why there wasn't one of these on every street corner.

Of course, if it was that easy, there would be one on every street corner. An attempt to recreate the success of Roti King in Victoria's Market Halls (Gopal's Corner) never quite reflected the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of the original, and feels oddly out of place shoehorned in next to fried chicken and taco stalls. And consider Mandy Yin's Sambal Shiok, serving giant bowls of completely wonderful curry laksa for not very much money up on the Holloway Road. Over the years it's been gathering armfuls of great reviews and nobody who's tried the food has a bad word to say about the place, but an attempt to branch out into nationwide delivery during the pandemic did not survive the Great Reopening. There's clearly a demand for Malaysian food in London, but so far it has not reached critical mass.

Mambow might be about to change all that. I had the same thrill the new as I bit into a piece of lor bak, a kind of loose pork and prawn sausage encased in flaky pastry, as I did the first time I was presented with the bone marrow varuval at Hoppers. Bold, brave and something genuinely new (to me, at least) in the capital, here was an approach that did to Malaysian cuisine what Hoppers did for Sri Lankan - simultaneously honouring traditional flavour profiles and techniques while still feeling like something fresh and modern. Alongside a seriously addictive sweet chilli sauce, this felt like a statement of intent. It felt important.

Achar awak (Nyonya pickles) had a lovely balance of chilli and salt and sour, and though we had every intention of quietly working away at these throughout the whole lunch, I'm afraid they had disappeared before even the lor bak did.

The Hainanese chicken sando is a lunchtime special, and is so good it made me want to find a job in Peckham just so I could go and eat it every day. Weirdly, it's hard to put a finger on exactly why it's so good; like a great cocktail it's one of those strange sitautions where each component works in complete harmony with no one element sticking out or jarring. Certainly no small part of its success is the Frog bakery sourdough, cut just the right thickness to hold it together without it being difficult to take a clean bite. The chicken itself was moist and gently pickled and bound with something called 'chicken fat chili sauce' which definitely sounds like something worth investigating but really, you don't need to know too many more details. Just know that it's great, and a bargain (we easily had enough for two), and you should go at lunchtimes just to order it.

Somehow, Mambow have managed to pull off the holy grail of chicken dishes - to keep the flesh inside firm and moist while maintaining a crisp, salty, crunchy skin at the same time as it all being drenched in a gloriously thick and rich black pepper-curry sauce. It was quite literally perfect in every way, an absolute joy of a dish that would give Mambow another reason to exist even if it was the only thing on the menu.

It was all so good - so easily, unpretentiously enjoyable - that even as we paid the astonishingly reasonable bill (£31.25pp which included a bottle of lovely Gran Cerdo natural white between two, and service) I was having a slight panic that maybe we should have ordered some more to keep the lovely experience rolling on. In the end, common sense prevailed but we had already decided by this point that Mambow was one of the better meals we'd had in 2022 and that we would be back the very next chance we had to hoover up things like the glass noodles with grilled prawns, which were off that day, and the jackfruit curry whose empty tins were upcycled quite heartwarmingly as cutlery holders.

Time will tell whether we are looking at the birth of a new Malaysian streetfood smash hit chain in the style of Hoppers, or if it's just a wonderful one-off. If nothing else, once they get to Mambow No. 5 they at least have a theme tune waiting for them to use. Either way, right here and right now we have plenty to be thankful for, a new star of Nyonya cuisine ready to thrill the jaded appetites of post-pandemic London. And God knows we need a bit of that right now.

9/10