The latest development in my life is that I now don’t work Fridays. Instead, I work the 36 hours a week that I’m expected to work in four days, so that I can take Fridays off. It’s a development I’m rather pleased with. The words “life giving” come to mind.
Friday just been was my second non-work Friday, although I will confess to spending some of the morning in a meeting with my Chief Executive, because I am such a dedicated and diligent public servant. Friday just been was also a 22 degree day, which made it a very good day indeed for not being stuck in front of (or is it behind?) my laptop. My plan was to go for a big walk along the Regent’s Canal after I was done with my morning meeting - maybe stop in for some food and coffee at Towpath Cafe, now that it’s open again.
During the course of the meeting with my Chief Executive, I saw a newsletter from Vittles pop into my inbox. Its headline read, “Vittles Reviews: London’s Finest Food Hall…Some of the best new Malaysian cooking i…” You don’t know how much I had to resist the temptation to open and read the newsletter then and there, but, because I am a dedicated and diligent public servant, I waited until the meeting was over.
When I finally got to read said newsletter, I would learn that the place serving some of the best new Malaysian cooking in London was called Cham Kampung Boy, and that it was located in the Queensway Market, a place I knew just a little about and that I’d been meaning to go to. The newsletter’s author suggested it was hard to describe CKB as a restaurant, that instead it was more of a corner store with scattered seating that gets moved to make way for Friday afternoon prayers. The author went on to talk about some of the best nasi lemak and beef rendang in London, and a very fine looking and sounding chicken curry. The score was settled: Towpath and the Regent’s Canal were off the menu; I was making my way to Queensway.
Getting to Queensway Market proved to be easier than I expected: a walk to Chancery Lane Station (which turned into a walk to Holborn Station, because I ‘needed’ to swing past Honey & Co on Lamb’s Conduit Street for hot-cross buns), and a six-stop journey on the hideously noisy and hideously stuffy Central Line to Queensway. From there, it was a one minute walk up the road to Queensway Market. Across the road from Queensway Station is one of the many entrances to Hyde Park. Rest of the day sorted.
Queensway Market is an intriguing place. It’s a hodge podge indoor market of food stalls and barbers, shops selling tacky London souvenirs and broken computer parts. The space is well-worn maze, with creaky, uneven wooden floors, and its fair share of disused space. I kept walking into spaces that I was sure I shouldn’t be in - both empty spaces and a space that looked like the entranceway to a small prayer room (the giveaway, the sign telling you to take your shoes off). When I arrived shortly after midday, it was reasonably quiet, save for the sounds of shopkeepers yelling at one another across the way, an electric razor humming against someone’s beard, and a few pans of food sizzling away.
This is all intriguing because Queensway Market is right slap bang in the middle of both a very wealthy, and a very commercial touristy, part of the city. A part of the city where people are carrying flash handbags and driving big flash cars. A part of the city where you only need to walk five or so minutes and you’re at the back of Kensington Palace. A part of the city where people wander round looking dazed and confused with their suitcases on wheels and bags of Tower Bridge key rings. Queensway Market feels like another world, in an otherwise distinctly regal, distinctly one-of-the-stops-on-the-Big-Red-Bus-Tour part of town.
As I said, I found Queensway Market a bit of a labyrinth, and for a while I was worried about whether I’d actually find Cham Kampung Boy. Eventually I spied a stand holding a sign with red arrows pointing in the direction of the restaurant-cum-food stall. I arrived to find a small stall that looked barely open - there was a stack of tables and chairs to the side of it, and an otherwise large empty space; and there were reusable shopping bags of plastic containers strewn over the stall’s benches. A friendly guy spied me, smiled, and said hello. I asked if he owned the stall and if he was open. “Yes and yes,” he said.
The man told me that he’d set up a table for me - and that the tables were just pushed to the side for the time being because prayers would be starting at 1.30pm. He plonked a table and one chair right in the middle of the gaping empty space for me, with a direct view into a bookings-only barber shop. I ordered nasi lemak, and the man asked me if I wanted it with fried chicken or beef rendang. I asked what was best, and he told me the beef rendang. He asked if I’d tried Malaysian food before, and I said I had, said I’d even been to Malaysia many years ago. As I sat on my lonesome, in a space that would soon be full of prayer, I contemplated how hard it has been to find good Malaysian food in London, and how spoiled we are with such good Malaysian food in Wellington. I found myself in my own moment of prayer, hoping and wishing that this spot would be my saviour.
As the kind man busied himself getting my food ready, two beautiful elderly women arrived, and placed their orders. The man quickly appeared from the kitchen to set up another table and chairs, which he placed about half a metre away from mine. The two women sat next to me, and began chatting with me. They told me that the food here is really good, some of the best in town, and the food they’ve found that is most like the food they had at home. I asked where they were from. One was from Malaysia, the other from Singapore - “Our food is very similar in Singapore,” she said to me. They asked me what I’d ordered. I told them the nasi lemak with beef rendang. They were sufficiently impressed. “It is so delicious, and it is so good that you like Malaysian food, have you been to Malaysia before?” the woman from Malaysia asked.
My nasi lemak arrived. In a small bowl was a portion of beef rendang. Alongside that was a little brown paper wrapped parcel, shaped like a chubby small pyramid. I unwrapped the paper to find another parcel, this one wrapped in a banana leaf. Inside the banana leaf was a small mound of steaming coconut rice around which sambal, crispy anchovies, some peanuts, a boiled egg and a few thin rounds of cucumber had been carefully placed. It was the best nasi lemak I have eaten, and undoubtedly the best Malaysian food I’ve eaten in London. Prayers answered, this nasi lemak was my saviour.
I caught the older women sitting next to me sneaking regular glances in my direction to see how I was reacting to the food. “Isn’t it goooood?” the woman from Malaysia said to me. The woman from Singapore asked me if I’d tried one of the curry puffs. I said I hadn’t, and she told me that I must; that because I am young I don’t need to worry about eating more food and putting on weight like she and her friend do. “I’m not sure about that,” I said, as I got up and ordered myself a curry puff. That too was delicious - the pastry was flaky and savoury, the beef and vegetable filling spicy and rich.
As I left, more people arrived - a young Malaysian woman, a couple wanting food to take away. The guy who served us all beamed as he did - proud of his and his wife’s work. And rightly so. The women who I sat next to told me that the man’s wife does a lot of the cooking from home, and that they bring in the food to heat and serve from their little corner of the Queensway labyrinth. The food they’re serving might be home cooking, but it’s so much more than that. It’s extraordinary.
Then I found myself by the pond in Hyde Park, leant up against a tree trunk reading Elizabeth David’s An Omelette and a Glass of Wine in the sun. After a while, I went for a wander round Hyde Park, and found myself at the Serpentine South, before wandering again to the Italian fountain garden, where I sat in the sun and ate soft serve ice cream in a cone with a chocolate Flake sticking out of it.
See, life giving.
