Picture of Uncle Lim's Kitchen, CR0 1UZ

Historical version 7 of Uncle Lim's Kitchen, CR0 1UZ (view current version)

Malaysian restaurant/cafe in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon.

It isn't necessarily immediately obvious that there's anything worth eating here, but it's worth looking beyond their hot food counter of generic offerings cooked in advance and kept warm, since they also have a menu of Malaysian specialties photo — some of these, however, are only available on weekends (e.g. the Hainan chicken rice is only available Friday-Sunday).

bob visited on a Saturday afternoon in January 2011, just before the lunchtime rush. I had one of the weekend specials, the Hainan chicken rice (£5.80) photo, which consisted of some very tasty rice cooked in chicken stock and some very succulent poached chicken.

Kake visited on a Friday lunchtime in June 2012. I got there around 1pm and it was fairly empty. I chose one of the Malaysian dishes, char kway teow (炒粿條; £5.80) photo. They offered me a choice of spice levels; "medium spicy" was around the middle of my tolerance level and I'll probably go for "spicy" next time. It was pretty good, though I think not the best I've had in London. I might have preferred to get more than three medium-sized prawns, and the Chinese sausage that usually features in this dish was entirely absent. However, the squid was nicely cooked (not chewy at all), the fishcake was juicily-textured and well-flavoured without being too salty, and the dish as a whole had just the right amount of oil to stop the noodles sticking together without making it too greasy.

They also do takeaway; Kake got the prawn mee (prawn noodle soup; £6.90) as a takeaway in July 2012. It was well-packaged, with the soup in a cling-wrapped tub separate from the noodles, and a generous portion too. The noodles had a good texture, the prawns were cooked just right (not even slightly overdone), and the broth was wonderfully prawny.

Accessibility: The entrance to the cafe is open and flat. While it is on the first floor, the shopping centre has several lifts. There is only one toilet, but it's an accessible one. There are highchairs available for children (though as of January 2013 these have no trays).

Getting here: It's on the first floor of the Whitgift Centre, opposite W H Smith and next to Clarks.

See also:

Last visited by Kake et al., January 2013. Opening hours taken from a flyer collected in January 2011.
OS X co-ord: 532293 OS Y co-ord: 165729 (Latitude: 51.374685 Longitude: -0.099060)
This is version 7 (as of 2013-01-28 22:06:46). View current version. List all versions.