Five Centuries of Fusion

In the recent novel “The Glass Palace,” author Amitav Ghosh describes dinner at a home in Malaya--fish cooked with pink ginger buds, prawns roasted in pandanus leaves, and chicken with blue flowers. “With every morsel their mouths were filled with new tastes, flavors that were as unfamiliar as they were delicious,” he writes. The visitor says she’s never eaten anything so wonderful and asks where it is from. It’s Nonya cooking from Malacca and Penang, the host tells her, “one of the world’s last great secrets.”

I had been reading this novel of Burma, India and Malaya when I learned about a new restaurant in Pasadena called Nonya. Of course I wanted to taste this unique blending of Malaysian and Chinese ingredients and techniques that goes back as far as the 16th century, when Chinese laborers and traders married Malaysian women from the straits of Penang. It’s basically Chinese cooking embellished with the spices and flavors of Malaysia--Chinese with a dash of coconut milk and sour tropical fruits.

London restaurateur Simon Tong chose Old Pasadena for his first U.S. venture and found a location on the same block as Yujean Kang’s and Xiomara. That’s a good thing in one way, but not so ideal in another. For some unfathomable reason, the crowds that throng Colorado Boulevard seem to be under some sort of evil enchantment that keeps their feet glued to that street, while a block off the boulevard, excellent restaurants struggle.

Those who do take the trouble to walk around the corner will find a handsome Asian setting in a historic corner storefront. At the entrance, a low ceramic fountain planted with reeds lends a soothing murmur to the room. Dark lacquered Chinese chairs and tables signal a casual chic. There’s a large brick-walled bar, separated from the main dining room by a row of Ali Baba-sized jars stuffed with twisting branches. The crowd is a mix of young Asian Americans and locals who have serendipitously discovered the restaurant.

Tong brought with him Tony Pat from Tong’s Ho Ho restaurant to cook, and from the first, Pat’s experienced hand gave the food a vivid taste and consistent execution. The surprise is that none of the flavors are too unfamiliar. It’s a kind of fusion cooking that comes built into the cuisine. And it works, especially given a peculiarly California focus on salad greens that puts roughage on almost every plate.

It’s hard to go wrong with any of the appetizers. If you’ve ever wondered about the term “grazing,” this is it. Come with friends and order up a slew of appetizers. They’ll arrive in no particular order.

Beef satay is a surprise. The strips of marinated beef threaded onto bamboo skewers are tender and moist, but it’s the peanut sauce that stands out. Instead of the sweet peanut butter-based sauce most Southeast Asian restaurants serve, this one is thoughtfully made and complexly spiced. Slender shrimp rolls enclose a single shrimp in a thin, deep-fried wrapper but leave the tail sticking out. The pleasant sweet-hot dipping sauce is flecked with chile. Al dente green beans are bundled and wrapped in supple eggplant slices and are paired with asparagus for an appetizer salad.

An icy raw beef salad is decorated with dabs of rip-snorting mustard. There’s also a delightful salad of grilled halibut with fresh, juicy mango and thin slices of sweet red onion in a lively lemon grass and lime vinaigrette. Other discoveries are bean curd stuffed with peppers and onions, swathed in a spinach puree, and a graceful seafood broth laced with coconut milk and brimming with shrimp, bean sprouts, noodles and fish cake. At large convivial tables of youths, all with spiky hair, cell phones chirp and burble and heavy watches are consulted as their owners share dish after dish.

When it comes to main courses, I’ve enjoyed the intricate embroidery of spices in the curries. They aren’t the most visually appealing dishes, but I found myself scooping spoonful after spoonful of the chicken curry’s brown gravy onto my rice. The spices taste as if they’re freshly ground.

A favorite is lembu curry, which is beef and eggplant in a reddish brown curry. The eggplant is almost crunchy, and the dish comes with fat little scallion pancakes. They’re good, if heavy, although you begin to notice how oily they are as they cool. Another compelling dish is the charbroiled lamb drizzled with a pungent chile sauce perfumed with garlic and lemon grass.

I also like the sambal shrimp in a bright-tasting red sauce lit up with chiles--though not as many, I suspect, as would be used in a Malaysian kitchen. Most of this food is tame by Southeast Asian standards. Still, it must be too spicy for some tastes, since the waiters are eager to steer you toward the milder dishes, whether or not you’ve asked. It’s an indication of how difficult it is to sell exotic cooking in Pasadena.

Everybody--that is everybody who doesn’t mind the work of eating it--will enjoy the whole crab cooked with handfuls of black peppercorns. It comes already cracked, but to help wrest every morsel from the claws and legs, the appropriate utensils are provided.

A few of the dishes lose focus. I don’t know if they’re deliberately less intense or the result of an uneven kitchen, but the flavors could be stronger. The red snapper grilled in banana leaves isn’t very appealing, mostly because it’s overcooked and too sweet the night I try it. The diced pickled vegetables that accompany it, however, are an interesting taste.

If you love fried rice, try Nonya’s special rice, stir fried with small shrimp and flakes of delicious Chinese ham. My friend Ellen’s 3-year-old was entranced with the miniature shrimp, and she had her chopsticks dancing across the plate, searching out each pink morsel.

Service, from a young staff that doesn’t seem to know much about the food, could use an infusion of energy. Almost any question about the menu sends the waiter to the kitchen for an answer, which can make ordering tortuous. What’s lacking, too, is a sense that someone is in charge.

By now you probably won’t have room for dessert, which is a good thing. Pretty little sesame crepes, with canned-tasting litchi nuts and sliced kiwi and arranged in a pinwheel on the plate, are disappointing. Coconut creme brulee would be better without the garnish of kiwi and out-of-season strawberries. It’s fun to share an ice gajat, though, a fanciful creation of vanilla ice cream, squares of green “herbal” jello, fat red beans and coconut milk in a tall glass. When we ordered it, our waiter brought us four long bamboo spoons. When so many new Southern California restaurants are French or Italian or sushi or Mediterranean, this fusion of Malaysian and Chinese cuisines offers a welcome alternative. While Nonya is careful not to offer anything too exotic or challenging, the menu is different enough to make this newcomer interesting.

Nonya

61 N. Raymond Ave.

Pasadena

(626) 583-8398

Cuisine: Malaysian-Chinese

Rating: **

AMBIENCE: Casual yet stylish Asian bistro with large exposed-brick bar and private dining room. SERVICE: Willing if uninformed.

BEST DISHES: Beef satay, prawn spring rolls, rare beef salad, whole Dungeness crab with black pepper, tamarind chicken curry, beef and eggplant curry, charbroiled lamb, Nonya fried rice. Appetizers, $6 to $9. Main courses, $12 to $42. Corkage, $10.

BEVERAGE PICKS: Taittinger Champagne NV brut; 2000 Beaulieu Vineyards Pinot Noir, Napa Valley.

FACTS: Lunch Sunday through Friday. Dinner daily. Valet parking. Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. **** Outstanding on every level. *** Excellent. ** Very good. * Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.