Uncle Lim's Kitchen, Croydon

Whilst browsing through The London Paper a few weeks ago, I found a listing for an apparently authentic and cheap Malaysian restaurant in Croydon, which happily for me is only about half an hour by bus away. I've always found Croydon just a touch bleak and a little too suburban for my liking (ahhhemmm ... says the girl who lived in Kingston for 4 years and grew up in suburbia KL!) but it's not such a bad place to hit the high street shops. A quick Google search confirmed the article's rating of good food at Uncle Lim's Kitchen at the Whitgift Centre, so to Croydon it was.

I have been shopping in Croydon several times (it's godsend at Christmas when Oxford Street goes into meltdown - the situation only slightly better in Croydon but as long as it's better than meltdown - fine by me) and I still find a the Whitgift Centre one of the most confusing places to navigate (and I usually have a pretty good sense of direction). I picked up a map of the building and still wandered around the centre twice before I found the restaurant. More of a cafe than a restaurant; it's spartan but clean with their small menu posted on the wall. There's a choice of picking a meal deal from the 'economy rice' section or picking from their cook to order one plate dishes - a variety of fried noodles and rice. I was definitely going for their economy rice sets - I was starving. After a bit of oo-ing and ahh-ing I settled for rice (they only have egg fried and not boiled - a touch annoying as I've never warmed to fried rice when I'm having dishes) with sambal prawns, sweet and sour chicken and fried mix veg. All this and a tin of soft drink for £6. Not bad.

Of the three 'dishes' the prawns were the best. They were very good in fact. The prawns were a good size and still freshly crisp. The sauce had a good heat to it, not mind-blowingly but not just a passing puff either, and the coconut came through nicely. Although better than most takeaways, the sweet and sour chicken was forgettable in comparison to the prawns. The vegetables were nice -well, they were just stir fried noodles with garlic.

The meal left me with a smile on my face ... and so darned full! I was definitely going back again. I did a bit a research after my visit and found another recent diner at Uncle Lim's Kitchen - LondonEater who raved about the Hainanese Chicken Rice and knew that my visit to Croydon was going to be a lot sooner than I thought.

The next visit was today - perfect as the chicken rice is a weekend special (£5.80 a plate). And oh how right LondonEater was. The chicken, drizzled with soy sauce and sesame oil, was silky, succulent and the experience very probably heightened by the fact I was given a whole deboned leg - not white meat in sight, yay! The rice was full of the garlic and chicken flavours as expected and the chili sauce was good, though a bigger portion would have been most welcome - I could have asked for more but I was too lazy to walk back to the counter. Only disappointment was the lack of chicken broth that usually accompanies this dish. Again I was left with a smile on my face and a very full belly. I did also manage to bag a few chicken curry puffs (£1 each) to take home - there was no way I could have fit them in after the chicken rice. So I'll be having them warmed up for breakfast tomorrow.

Uncle Lim's Kitchen
Upper North Arcade, Whitgift Centre, Croydon, CRO 1UZ