Pak Hailam Kopitiam - Parramatta

We visited this restaurant over the weekend, having never seen it before. Since we enjoy Malaysian cuisine, we decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, we found the food to be underwhelming. It may have been because we've had better Malaysian food at other restaurants in the past. As for returning, it's unlikely. While it's not terrible, we wouldn't necessarily recommend it either. It was just average.

On our second visit to the restaurant, instead of ordering individual dishes, our group of six decided to create our own small banquet and share five different dishes. All of the dishes were successful and delicious, with just the right amount of food. It would have been helpful to have more detailed descriptions of the dishes on the menu, as the waitress's English wasn't sufficient to answer our questions. We did find the price of the bottled wine to be a bit high, although it is also BYO. However, the corkage price was not displayed.

Although it wasn't the best Asian/Malaysian food we've had in Sydney, the meal was still decent and reasonably priced. The beef rendang had good flavor but the meat was a little dry. The salt and pepper chicken was reminiscent of popcorn fried chicken and the roti was tasty. Overall, it was a decent dinner experience and I would rate it 3.5 stars.

I used a coupon for a two course meal with drinks for $25. It was good value as the meals were quite substantial. We started with a fried noodle with chicken curry on the side and a wanton noodle with dumplings and chicken curry. I felt both meals were more than adequate . Our entrees came after the meals, because it took longer to cook. Our entrees were chicken satay and a onion roti with dhal. We had 2 cold drinks that came with the deal.After we had finished everything, we were given 2 red bean soup desserts. By this time, we were so full we could not eat anymore. However I must comment the dessert was very watery and rather tasteless.So the deal was very good value and I would not hesitate to use it again.

My second time to this place. Once was when I was passing through and had lunch and my second time, was there for dinner with my family.For lunch, had their beef noodle soup, supposedly to be their signature dish, it was salty. Thought it's an ad hoc miss and missing Malaysian food, being a Malaysian, thought we had dinner since I was craving for satay whole week. The satay was totally tasteless. The sauce was well off. Instead of ground peanuts you can still see whole peanut and there was no taste of peanut at all. The nasi lemak was average as the sambal was tasteless. The mee goreng was also salty. The better dish was the wantan mee.The good thing about this place is that it is spacious and the deco blend in with the name "kopitiam". Unfortunately this is one Malaysian eatery taken out from my list.