Reviews Kreta Ayer Restaurant

Very good Malaysian cuisine

The crab was perfect. The sauce was delicious and the price was quite reasonable.
Seating is ample in this restaurant and the staff are quite friendly just like any good old Singaporeans.
Thankyou for that.

I've been here twice and usually go for the mud crabs! This time round I decided to give the Moreton Bay Bug a go and it will definitely be something I order the next time I come here. The dish was full of flavour and the meat was soft! Never had issues with blandness as few have mentioned. Service was fast but this probably because the last time I went, it was on a weekday. The only thing I can really fault at this stage is they do not accept cards which is quite inconvenient since I rarely carry cash!

Came here specifically for the 🦀. They show you the crab and the weight before cooking. Ordered the Singapore chilli mud crab which was fresh delicious, although it was on the sweet side and wasn't spicy enough! Not the cheapest dish to have but a worthwhile experience!

The suburb of Ashfield in Sydney’s Inner West has long been known as “Little Shanghai”. The Chinese shop front signage, the Chinese-speaking staff in the Asian groceries stores; a stroll down the main street almost transports you to South East Asia or China. Along the Liverpool Road dining precinct many establishments specialise in traditional Shanghainese and Chinese flavours, hence the nickname.

Our dining destination this time, for a change, is not Taste of Shanghai or New Shanghai. We deliberately chose a Kreta Ayer, a Malaysian restaurant at the quiet end of Liverpool Road away from the dominant Shanghainese craze. The dark wooden tables and benches add a rustic feel to the venue and are a trip down the memory lane of eating street food at an Asian night market. The L-shaped dining area is furnished with small and large round tables to cater for various group sizes.

We were offered both the lunch special menu and the full menu. As we were ordering drinks, the staff reminded us that the lunch set menu came with a non-alcoholic drink such as milk tea or green tea. The lunch set is a fixed-price menu at $12.50. With so many rice or noodle options, we eventually settled on the classic Hainanese Chicken and Rice. The succulent chicken was accompanied by two dipping sauces – sweet soy (kecap manis) and chilli sauce. The rice was cooked in home-made chicken broth and soaked up the goodness and flavour from the stock. It is not an uncommon dish but Kreta Ayer ensured that the chicken was moist and tender and the rice flavoursome.

We ordered the rest of the meal from the main menu. On the day we visited, the mud crab was $36 per half kilo with an average crab weighing around 1.5kg. We were keen to try the Singapore chilli sauce used to cook the crab but didn’t want to go through the hassle dealing with the shell. As an alternative we ordered Singapore Chilli King Prawns cooked in the same sauce. The six lightly-fried, large prawns were presented in a pyramid shape and topped with shredded carrots, the presentation was unusual but visually impressive. But it was the sauce that had us nodding. It had a rich, bright colour from the tomatoes; the mixture of sweetness from palm sugar, sourness from vinegar, and heat from the chilli were beautifully blended together. It was an absolute pleasure sucking the sauce off the prawn before digging our teeth into the chucks of prawn meat. Even better was that this whole dish cost only $25.80 which was unbelievable value. Apparently the owner goes to fish market every morning and sources the freshest prawns he can find. That really shows in the quality of this dish.

One section of the menu was dedicated to Pipis or LaLa as they are called in Malaysia. The cooking options included Black Bean sauce, Sambal (chilli sauce), however we opted for XO Sauce. The generous portion meant we could suck on the delicious shellfish to our heart’s content and even had some left over to take away. Each individual pipi was meaty and considerably larger than we had seen at other restaurants. What was hard to believe was this huge plate of Pipis cost less than $20 – again, exceptional value.

Seafood is definitely a highlight of the menu but we also enjoyed the satay chicken and beef skewers as well as the Egg Drop Beef noodles. The latter is a beef fillet served with fried rice noodles and a sauce largely made up of runny, lightly cooked beaten eggs. The sauce prevented the dish from being too dry but also provided a silky texture to each mouthful. The satay sauce was exactly the right thickness and both chicken and beef had a charcoaled smell from grill.

We finished the meal with Ice Kachang - shaved ice mixed with red beans, corn kernels, cendol, and palm seeds. It is a very popular dessert in Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of South East Asia and you can see why – it is perfect on a humid hot day.

 
In total the whole meal with three non-alcoholic drinks, five main dishes and rice set us back less than $90. The leftovers we took away were enough to feed another two people easily. This was a true “cheap and cheerful” experience but without compromising the quality, ambience and service.

Kreta Ayer is without doubt a Malaysian gem in “Little Shanghai”.

This is a bit of a catchup post of a group visit to Kreta Ayer a few weeks back. We basically went there and stuffed ourselves with whatever we felt like eating. By the end of the meal we had to allocate all the food to be eaten by each person so that we wouldn't waste anything even though we were well and truly stuffed.

Lovely food, lovely staff. I had the dumpling noodle soup and my partner had the garlic prawn fried rice.
The garlic prawn fried rice was fragrant and flavourful. The dumping noodle soup was a bit bland but not terrible. The other people in our party immensely enjoyed their food too.

The salt and pepper crab, softshell crab and squid are flavoursome and filling. 

However, I just wanted to share an insight into my experience. I went in eager to try their crab but their smallest size was 1.9kg which was a bit ambitious for two people. So, the next day, I called them up and they told me they had a crab around 1.4kg and would place it on hold for me. Upon arrival, the staff were confused and denied any such promise. So we decided to get the crab anyway because it looked delicious, but we were notified that we had to order $30 worth of food to receive the advertised special price of $25.80/half a kilo. If you don't order $30 worth of food, it's around $30 per half a kilo. The waitress was really nice and patient with us which I'm super grateful for. However, just be wary that they accept cash only and it might be better to go with a group of 3-4 or go early to avoid disappointment :)

Came here for some Singaporean Crab tonight! The tables were all filled up when we arrived at the restaurant at 630 and there were small groups waiting near the door already. Between 5 people we ordered the:
Fish head soup -lovely fragrant soup base but would probably either get the boiled or fried fish fillets for some meat next time
Penang Chow Kway Teow - probably my least favourite dish, as the Kway Teow didn't have much "wok hei"
Steamed Long clams with garlic - the clams were very fresh but wasn't a great fan of the flavours. The sauce was very buttery and sweet
Salty Egg yolk prawns - massive fresh prawns deep fried in salty egg yolk
Singaporean Chilli Crab - the market price for the mud crabs were very reasonable. The crab wash very fresh with a lot of meat and the tomato based sauce was a good accompaniment.
Seafood fried rice - fried rice with a egg drop gravy with seafood bits inside. There was no oily after taste in the fried rice and it was nice and light.
Tofu pudding - super smooth tofu comes in a wooden bucket with sugar syrup and brown sugar. A nice way to finish off our meal.

I didn't give it a 5 rating because service was quite slow. We had to grab our own menus but in all honesty, the restaurant was quite busy. A couple of waiters, perhaps less experienced didn't have much knowledge of the menu and provide us with recommendations. Would definitely come back to try their other dishes

The salted egg crab is so good. We had four people and they gave us a 1.9kg crab. The crab meat is so yummy and you can't stop it. Btw, menu is well designed, and you feel hungry when you look at it.

I love the Singapore chili crab here. This family owned restaurant has a good atmosphere, a good amount of seating, great food and service. I always come here either to eat in or takeaway and have never been disappointed

No fuss, straight up good tasting honest food. Fair pricing for chili crabs, taste is really good too. I remember it tasting the same as what I ate in Singapore! BRB is the term i would use since I want to go right back there for another meal.

The food here is delicious and full of flavor! There is no way you could leave here without being satisfied. The dishes I've tried here never disappointed me or my family at all. I really enjoyed my time here with my family and will always come back:))

one of the best Singaporean / malaysian restaurant here in Sydney. the best laksa is served here at kreta ayer. the laksa here reminds me of that of the laksa I had in Singapore. it’s so yummy and very addictive. love the cendol too. it reminds me of Malaysia 🇲🇾 which I was in the market trying my first ever cendol. too bad they removed the complimentary lychee drink from the regular meal combo. I would strong recommend this place. every meal I had here was always great and I always look forward on my next visit to this shop.