(This venue is closed.) Hainanese chicken over rice was indifferent, at best, at the Taste of Chinatown festival. On a previous visit (different restaurant name, same phone number, don't know about the chef), the chicken rice ($3.50) was very moist; in addition to the requisite helping of chili sauce, it was accompanied by a bowl of chicken broth for dipping. Towering next to it was a dome of delicate rice, flavored with that same broth.
The restaurant's rendition of the "fruit salad" called rojak ($4) was a tedious assembly of cucumber, pineapple, white turnip, and toasted bread, but at least it was generously doused in a sweet, dark, syrupy sauce laced with hot peppers, then topped with crushed peanuts. A deep bowl of asam laksa ($4) — here, a fairly hot, very sour version of the soup — was filled with a hefty helping of thick white noodles, plus onion, hot green peppers, tidbits of fish, and a few hunks of pineapple.
Bagus Malaysia Restaurant
(formerly Malaysia Village)
1 Doyers St. (near the Bowery)
212-962-5555
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