Mutiara, Ponsonby

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

Flashing bananas and fake fish: someday someone far more aesthetically aware than your present correspondent will chronicle and celebrate the lighting treatments of our ethnic restaurants in 2000 words with a witty heading in a glossy magazine.

However, the design imperative eludes the four of us as we relax in Mutiara, one of the many small shops that ply their trade around Auckland, flying the flags of many nations that, only a few years back, few who had grown up in these sheltered isles associated with cuisine. In the case of Mutiara and its hospitable owner and chef, Roy Lim, it's Malaysian. And a few others, but we shall get to that.

Mutiara used to have the best set of directions in Auckland. You could tell friends to meet you between the tattoo parlour and the funeral parlour at the top of Ponsonby Rd. Sadly the remains of the funeral parlour are now interred in the casket of yet another bland concrete office-apartment building.

The little (40 seats), brightly lit (as noted), old-style shopfront restaurant celebrates the food styles of Malaysia and its neighbour, Singapore. Just as those lands are home to three nationalities, their kitchens blend the cooking traditions of Malays, Indians and Chinese.

Singapore's Nonya style occupies a fair whack of the menu. If you'll indulge a brief excursion into social history, the reference books will tell you that it dates from the turn of the 19th century, after the Brits arrived to treat that corner of the world to the delights of cricket, contract bridge, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and a place for Somerset Maugham to set his short stories. Chinese, Malaysians, Arabs and Tamils from southern India migrated to the island to enjoy some or all of the above and find work.

Well, Chinese men did: Chinese women were not allowed into the Straits settlements. The immigrants or Babas took Malaysian wives or Nonyas. These women became famous for their cooking; their recipes and methods have been kept alive by their descendants, or Peranakan.

Nonya cooking combines Chinese techniques with Malaysian ingredients: coconut cream and palm sugar, nuts, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and perfumed pandanus leaves (like vanilla). Nonya cooking is hot and uses dried fish flavours.

The essential difference from Chinese cooking is in the powerful spicing; the combination of the very hot, the very sweet and the intensely savoury (cooks use soy sauce by the bottle). Many savoury dishes are started with a paste called rempeh, made by pounding together candlenuts, green chillies, turmeric and blachan (or powdered dried prawns) and shallots.

Penang satay sticks, Hainamese spring rolls, Nonya wontons, and money bags of minced chicken and vegetables were our orientation to Mutiara's cuisine, the four of us nibbling and munching and dipping into dishes of sauce (extra soy, sir?) as waiters waltzed dangerously close to our heads with what could only have been what the menu, without overstatement, describes as Exotic Sizzling Platters.

For those who prefer the management to make the decisions Mutiara offers several set banquets, but we achieved a similar result with our main platters and sides of coconut rice and soft roti bread. Ann and Jess opted for Rendang Kampung, which the once-again informative menu advises is a traditional, country-style-cooked, rich, deep brown, thick and spicy coconut curry. How rich, deep brown and thick? Both thought they'd been served piquant beef rather than the chicken they'd ordered. A mouthful proved they had.

When in Kuala Lumpur ... Mutiara's specialty is the Nyona claypot, where meat is cooked slowly in a thin broth of lighter spices, bean sauce, mild chilli, so I was more than happy. Alex likes to probe the soft underbelly of the city's ethnic cuisines. Last time it was eel: tonight he veered towards sambal, a far stronger blend of shrimp paste and chilli spices than anyone else at the table would have been comfortable with, and opted for sotong, or squid.

As with most Asian cuisines, seafood and vegetable dishes occupy their share of the two-page menu and wine doesn't. We used a bottle of Quarry Road pinot gris though one of the workhorse aromatics might have been a better call. Desserts are almost an afterthought, fruits like mango, lychee or rambutan with icecream.

So how does Mutiara rate? These days, everyone seems to have their favourite ethnic haunts, places that they swear serve the best curry in town or a pad thai that they'd kill for, and threaten to whack us if we mention them in Viva because they can't get a seat for weeks after. So let's just say that this rates as an enjoyable if not unforgettable night out. That's on a scale of won to ton.

Open: Dinner seven days 5.30pm-late, lunch Mon-Fri noon-2.30pm

Owner/Chef: Roy Lim

Food: Malaysian

On the menu:

Lucky Money Bag - five bags of pastry-wrapped butter-minced chicken and vegetables $6

Prawn Spinach Soup $6.50

Sambal shrimp paste and chilli spices cooked with a choice of beef, chicken or fish $15.50

Assam Curry Fish fillet cooked with tomato, pineapple, beans, spring onion with sour tamarind juice in Malaysian spices $16

Vegetarian: "Green corner" on menu

Wine: Limited selection of NZ brands, supermarket prices

Smoking: Smokefree

Noise: Spicepop

Disabled access: Street level

Parking: Plenty of street space

Bottom line: Roy Lim's hospitable little eatery at the top of Ponsonby Rd draws on thecuisines of Malaysia and Singapore, particularly the hot, sweet, savoury and spicy Nonya style. It's one of the many enjoyable ethnic restaurants that have made Auckland a far more exciting place to eat in recent years.

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