Sedap

A little oasis of tranquillity, thanks to its piped chillout music & lone goldfish bowl on the counter, Sedap (Malay for ‘delicious’) is a perfect hideaway if you want to escape the jarring traffic & chaos on a busy stretch of Old Street. Head chef Mary Chong serves up excellent Chinese-Malaysian food, including dim sum, curries, noodles & laksa dishes, while her daughters work front-of-house. If you’re there during the day, go for the bargain two-course lunch (£6.95/7.95), which might feature a refreshing ‘kerabu’ vegetable salad flecked with mint & coriander, followed by a gutsy beef rendang, which impressed us with its deep, slow-cooked spiciness. To drink, try the authentically Malaysian teh tarik (tea sweetened with evaporated milk) – an excellent thirst-quencher when the sun is out.