Med Salleh, London: 'Kopitiam is homey'

Med Pang explains why his food is rich in influences. From Thai, Indian, Malay to Portugal

Welcome to pan-cultural Malaysia

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“Kopitiam is homey. Every time my parents or grandparents took me to [a] Kopitiam they knew each other like family,” says Med Pang who runs Bayswater’s Med Salleh with Koi Lee.

The kopitiam is a Malay hospitality concept which encompasses cafe, street food and restaurant culture and can be found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand.

Put simply, they are ramshackle coffee shops (think a humble brew with condensed milk) that usually also offer food. A simple definition is hard though because of cultural, regional and national differences.

Med’s first forays into a kopitiam was when he was aged seven growing up in Malaysia and would be handed roti bakar (toasted white sandwich loaf) in the mornings in Hunanese institutions set up to serve tin miners from the age of seven.

On the opposite end of the scale are ones I’ve been to with my dad that reflect his Indian-Malay (and Singaporean) background - they were called Mamaks (these get the name from the Tamil term for maternal uncle, or maa-ma). There’s also warungs, which are traditional bamboo stalls.

If this sounds confusing then this might be because Malaysia is so rich in diversity or as Med, who is of Chinese descent, puts it the cultures - especially in food - crossover each other. What Med ate at home is Chinese food, such as poached chicken, choy sum, gai lan but his neighbours and friends were Malay and they would sit on the floor and eat their food.

A kopitiam may have started out serving one type of culture’s food but they soon became a meeting place for the hyphenated nature of Malaysian’s population helping everyone consider themselves Malay. Their food soon became everyone’s.

And in Med Salleh, Med and Koi, are offering their take on a kopitiam as well as trying to introduce customers to this pan-cultural Malaysia.

‘It’s not Chinese food’