Normah's Cafe
23-25 Queensway Market, London W2 4QJ
Nearest Tube: Queensway/Bayswater
Buzz Factor 3/5 stars
Food 4/5 stars
Value for money 4.5/5 stars
Curry laksa at Normah’s Cafe, Queensway
Eat-in or Take-away
Once in a while, you get lucky and stumble onto something special. Normah’s is one of them. It is hidden away in the corner of a God-forsaken place of Queensway Market and stripped to the bare bones with canteen-type tables and chairs in a space no bigger than someone’s dining room. On the walls, you can see a big TV looking down on you from on high and a framed letter, congratulating Normah’s for having been shortlisted for Asian Restaurants Awards 2019.
Normah cooks in the tiny kitchen by herself. She talks passionately about her cooking especially about the use of spices. She came to England 16 years ago and worked as an accountant at a leading accountancy firm, Pricewaterhouse until 2015. She left, exhausted and stressed and took a few months off to work out what she wanted to do with her life. While working, she would cook over the weekends as a form of therapy. When the site in Queensway Market became available, she jumped at the chance of having her own restaurant.
The basic surroundings were contrasted by the luxurious food in terms of flavour attack. There was real oomph in the laksa and you could really taste the lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, chillis in the broth, sweetness from the crispy shallots and just the right level of richness from the coconut milk. It was a shame that the soup was too salty for my taste and I said so to Normah. A touch less salt and the laksa would have been pretty special.
Normah’s Ayam Penyet was truly delicious. The marinaded chicken was apparently steamed and then deep fried. It was so skillfully fried that the skin came away from the meat. The skin was as crunchy as your favourite crisps with the chicken still juicy. Both the meat and the skin were full of flavour.
Roti (a type of flatbread often eaten with curries and rendang to mop up the sauce) was served with the classic Beef Rendang. The beef was really tender that you wouldn’t need to have many teeth to eat it. The roti had a few crispy flaky bits bubbling on the outside but was soft on the inside. It was a little greasy but otherwise tasted great with the rendang.
This is an intimate casual eatery with one waiter, who was courteous but quiet. Normah came to offer suggestions herself.
With food this good and at such great value, I was surprised that there were very few people during lunch when I went. If you are like me, someone who loves food no matter the surroundings, then you have got to give this one a try. Maybe next year, Normah’s might just win one of the Asian Restaurants Awards.
