Malaysian restaurant looks to set to WAU the town
A new restaurant serving authentic Malasian food to open in Newbury
A NEW restaurant serving authentic Malaysian street food will open its doors in Newbury later this month.
The restaurant, called WAU, will be based in the building formerly occupied by K’s Café in Cheap Street.
Promising ‘casual dining’ with an open-plan kitchen, diners will be able to see their food being cooked in front of them.
On the menu will be classic dishes such as Malaysian curry, beef rendang, barbecue pork bun, dim sum, satay lamb, satay prawn and coconut rice made with coconut milk and the blue pea flower from Malaysia. WAU is the brainchild of Emmy Ooi, who originally lived in George Town, Malaysia, but moved to Newbury five years ago and previously worked at Chenz Chinese restaurant on Barth-olomew Street.
She will look after the front of house while her brother, Jason Ooi, will run the kitchen.
The restaurant is named after the famous Malaysian wau bulan, or moon kite, that is one of the country’s national sym-bols.
Traditionally, the moon kites are uniqely designed and richly decorated with colourful patt-erns of flowers and leaves.
Miss Ooi revealed that they had been going to call the restaurant Nyonya – a term used for a mix of Malay and Chinese food, but changed her mind as she thought it might be difficult for people to pronounce. She chose WAU instead “as it sounds like the English word ‘wow’ and is something people would remember”.
Speaking to the Newbury Weekly News ahead of the opening, she said: “I don’t think there is anywhere in Berkshire where you can get freshly-cooked authentic Malaysian street food, so it is very exciting to be bringing this to Newbury.
“You usually have to go to Chinatown or to Birmingham.”
She added: “I started cooking Malay food for my friends and regular customers and they liked it, so I thought why not open a restaurant.”
Look out for the Malaysian rickshaw that will be pedalled through the streets of Newbury in the coming weeks to hand out free food samples and promote the opening of the restaurant.
