Sofia Levin reviews: The Taste of Borneo

In a sentence: A taste of Borneo in Springvale
The damage: starters $6.50-7.80; mains $12.90-21; desserts $5.50-9
Top tip: order dishes with regions in their names (i.e. “Sabahan style fried fish”)
Quench your thirst: sweet & traditional hot or iced drinks that double as dessert
If you like this: Sarawak Kitchen (Clayton, CBD), CCwok (North Melbourne), Ipoh Parade (Armadale)

It’s unfortunate that the English translation for petai is “stink beans”. The green thumbnail-sized legumes have an astringent, grassy flavour that balances out sweet and shrimpy stir-fries. They don’t smell that bad, though they tend to have the asparagus-effect when you visit the bathroom.

You can try petai at Taste of Borneo in Springvale, a Malaysian restaurant that opened in August 2019 across the road from a behemoth Bunnings, honing in on Sabahan cuisine from northern Borneo.

The stink beans features in a few dishes, but I ate them in kampung (village) fried rice, which was also sown with ikan bilis (dried anchovies). It reeked more of wok hei than stink bean, that ‘breath of the wok’ smokiness that comes from high heat and expert use of a well-seasoned wok.

From the noodle department came mee goreng mamak, where mee = noodles, goreng = fried and mamak is a person or stall selling Tamil Muslim food. The slippery noodles were lathered with sweet, dark soy and every mouthful had something chunky and delicious in it: sliced fish cake, omelette, bok choy, bean sprouts. It’s one of 13 noodle dishes along with Sabahan laksa mee and ham choi (pickled mustard greens) fish head noodle soup.

Usually beef rendang is a solid indication of the standard of a Malaysian, Singaporean or Indonesian restaurant. Not at Taste of Borneo. I found it overly sweet and saucy, without enough of a kick from the usual lemongrass or kaffir lime to cut through. The better option was the black pepper la la (clams). The plump little molluscs took one final swim in thick, black pepper sauce before we slurped them from their shells and mopped the liquid up with rice.

The star dish, listed first under the chef’s specials, is bakso Sabah. Bakso is a meatball noodle soup popular throughout Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. This one contains mee hoon (rice vermicelli noodles), fried chicken, beef brisket slices and tendon in beef broth so thick that it passes as gravy. It’s redolent of warming, winter spices like star anise and cinnamon.

I found myself wishing I were a cow with four stomachs as other dishes landed on surrounding tables. Pattaya fried rice swaddled in an omelette blanket. Prawns battered with Netsum, a Malaysian multi-grain corn cereal. Steaming Japanese clay pots bobbing with fish cakes and prawn balls.

Desserts and drinks meld together at Taste of Borneo, served in what I can only describe as a stein. Ais jagung, literally “ice corn”, is a milky, crushed ice dessert-beverage hybrid made with corn and coloured syrups. Cincau susu – grass jelly milk – is exactly as described.

There’s parking out the back here, plus outdoor seating beneath a fenced-off marquee complete with fake lawn. Indoors they’ve installed a huge orangutans poster reminiscent of a media wall. Beside it are eight titbits of Borneo’s history printed as blown up postage stamps, so you can read about the Dyak indigenous people, headhunters and the proboscis monkey while tucking into nasi lemak.

The Taste of Borneo
1678 Centre Rd, Springvale
tastesofborneo.com.au