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7 Floor
I would like to cheer ANY Malaysia restaurant which tries to set up in London. There are just too few genuine articles around. I will even take the monumental step (for me) of not making fun of this restaurant’s name, even if it “7 Floor”.
This is why I found myself in Peckham, somewhere I would normally not be in. That’s just because it is fairly out of the way for me, not for any other reasons. Here, the proliferation of Market Hall means that it is trying to cater for the South East Asian food segment. There was bubble tea across the hall from 7 Floor, some Vietnamese pho shop a few doors down and a Japanese ramen kitchen a bit further on. Turning to the food at 7 Floor, you turn up, collect your number and then collect it on the bell and bring it to the communal dining area. Charm, this place does not have.
Chicken hor fun, deliciously delicate flat rice noodles served with shredded chicken and chicken and prawn broth. Ignore the presentation and the packaging for a moment. The noodles were excellent. The soup was great. Sadly, the toppings were sparse and rather boring. The chicken tasted a bit like boiled or perhaps microwaved chicken breasts. The spring onions and bean sprouts were a bit lackluster. Together, they lacked any real add value.
Prawn mee, gently simmered flavour packed prawn stock with a bit of heat, served with shredded chicken, fresh prawns and springy yellow noodles. The noodles were not as good as the hor fun but they still made me happy. This could have been great but it is a little miserly when you cut so small prawns in half to make them look like they are twice what they really are. I know inflation is biting but it is biting the eaters too.
Chee cheong fun, plain rice noodles in a sweet sauce with sesame seeds. This was probably the best dish of the day, as it didn’t have (sparse) toppings to detract attention from the quality of the noodles. Sweet, bouncy, succulent, this cheong fun was a thing of joy. In the sweet sauce, even more so, allowing the unadulterated flavour to shine through.
I really wanted to give them a higher score. Good Malaysian noodles like this deserve to be rewarded. However, being a bit too cheap sometimes can do you in. Here I must add one small comment as I have been holding this in this entire time. Perhaps a better name for the restaurant might be Bargain Basement, on account of the stingy topping portions, rather than 7 floor. Seems to be a long way up till then.
A quiet eating 7/10.
Dinner was (1.5 dishes) was GBP15 excluding drinks and service.
7 Floor (there is no website)
10, Aylesham Centre, Rye Lane, Peckham, London, SE15 5EW