RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Taste of Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur

Once upon a time, Indonesian restaurants appeared and put their best foot forward--a massive, multi-course meal called rijsttafel that was impressive and delicious and so huge it gave people the idea that Indonesian food is the sort of ordeal you subject yourself to maybe once every four years.

Kuala Lumpur, however, is a Malaysian restaurant with no such baggage to deal with. You can order as many or as few dishes as you want. No posters of temple dancers hang on the walls--in fact, there’s scarcely anything on the walls of this spare, white, artsy place. The menu lists 20 appetizers and entrees, and instead of being starred to indicate spiciness, the hot items have been artistically spattered with red ink.

Malaysian food is essentially Indonesian. But since Malaysia borders on Thailand (the Thai dish chicken phanaeng gets its name from the Malaysian city Penang), it is a little freer with fish sauce and fish paste. As with Indonesian food, you find Indian influences, such as the use of tamarind and the practice of serving sambals (relishes) on the side. On the other hand, there is also a distinct Chinese presence--chopsticks, a lot of noodle dishes.

The star of the appetizers is a spectacular fruit salad called rojak : papaya, mango and pineapple with cucumber, jicama and puffy squares of fried tofu, all flavored with crushed peanut, hot peppers and a thick, sweet, garlicky soy sauce. It’s a marvel, light and crisp and full of surprises. There are excellent satays (chicken, pork, beef, shrimp) flavored with a curry-spice mixture that is heavy on the turmeric and ginger. All are quite palatable, even without the usual peanut sauce, which, in fact, costs extra.

The other appetizers pale a bit by comparison. Mee Siam is a pleasant but unremarkable dish of noodles cooked in a broth flavored with fish, coconut and chili. Dofu is an odd business made with sections of bell pepper and stuffed with a stodgy filling of pork and fish. Lama-lama shrimp is one huge tiger prawn, about the size of your average banana; nobody else seemed to dislike it, but I found it had an awkward smell of boiled hay.

But you can’t go wrong with the main courses, especially the flashy shrimp dishes. Udang asam rebus nenas is shrimp in a peppery sweet-sour sauce with pineapple, and pulau shrimp is a very attractive, though rather heavy dish of fried shrimp in puffy breading. It comes with an irresistible sweet-sour sauce--rather on the sour side--flavored with garlic, red pepper and lemon grass.

K. L. mein is a soothing dish of soft, soy-flavored noodles with cabbage, onions, chicken and shrimp. There are two nice, simple chicken dishes: ayam panggang, soy-marinated grilled chicken, and chicken Selangor , with a peanut-sauce topping. Curries, the sweet Southeast Asian kind, are rich with coconut and come in a decorous little chafing dish. My only quarrel is with rendang, a dish of beef stewed with coconut; I’ve had rendang much more tender than this.

For dessert, there are quite good fried bananas in the same puffy breading as the shrimp, and one of those Southeast Asian desserts involving red beans, papaya and coconut in sweetened milk with chopped ice. For the adventurous, they have durian ice cream (I trust they actually do; they were out when I asked). Durian is a smelly fruit that has been compared to the world’s best papaya, only served in a sewer. Maybe frozen is the best way to taste it.

Kuala Lumpur, 133 Martin Alley (enter through 132 W. Colorado Blvd.), Pasadena; (818) 577-5175. Lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Sundays. Beer and wine. Street parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $27 to $45.