Oldtown Kitchen for Lunch

Oldtown Kitchen
221/247 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley

I eat at a fairly culturally diverse range of restaurants but something that isn't too frequent in my dining agenda is Malaysian cuisine. Because of this, when I eat Malaysian food, my mind goes straight to my trip to KL and Boreo last year. This was even more so the case with Oldtown Kitchen because Marc and I went to a restaurant called Old China Cafe and the names are similar.

Not being a regular Valley-goer, I'm not familiar with all the Asian restaurants around. Even so, I was surprised to see Oldtown on Urbanspoon with such a high rating because I'd never heard of it before. The restaurant is located in the McWhirters building, accessible from both the street and the shopping centre. It's split-level with plenty of tables available.

Marc had spent the morning trying to teach me to ride a bicycle and dealing with the subsequent psychological breakdown I had of not being able to do it... so he had worked up a big appetite. We ordered 2 entrees to share and a main dish each.

Satay chicken skewers

Our entrees comprised of chicken satays and lobak. The chicken satays were very flavorsome with a familiar salty, sweet and tangy seasoning. They were served with a peanut dipping sauce.

Penang lobak

We didn't know what the lobak would be like but they turned out to be mince wrapped in bean curd skin, fried crispy. Marc commented that they were like an Asian sausage roll.

Dry curry noodle with chicken and BBQ pork

Our mains were from the lunch special menu. Marc chose the dry curry noodle with chicken and BBQ pork, which was something I was considering too. I tried a bit of the meat and sauce and thought it was really yum. Marc said it was overall quite good but some of the noodle was temperature cold, so that's a bit worrying.

Malacca chicken with rice

My main was the malacca chicken with rice. I normally stick to a rice-free diet but I didn't even try to with this. The creamy, coconutty curry chicken just begged for rice. I thought this dish was deliciously heartwarming and comfortingly mild. I finished just about the whole thing.

I liked the food we had at Oldtown Kitchen. There was such a huge variety of dishes on offer it was really difficult to choose just a few. Service was speedy but it's not good that Marc's noodle dish was still partly cold. The lunch specials made our meal very economical.