The Malaya, Food, Art & Films at King Street Wharf

Good Food Month starts today, and one of the first mid-week events of the festival is Thursday night's commencement of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf – King Street Wharf, that is.

King Street Wharf has partnered with Arts Brookfield to present a combination of food and art for the month of October. There will be an outdoor pop-up art gallery run by art space Platform 72, an outdoor cinema on the wharf showing foodie films, and dining offers from participating restaurants on the wharf.

King Street Wharf will host Food, Art & Films by the Wharf during
October's Good Food Month
(Image courtesy of The PR Partnership)

Free foodie movies will show at 8pm every Thursday and Friday night in October on an outdoor screen next to Cargo Bar, with free entry for the first 100 people – it's first in best dressed with the area opening from 7pm.

Films showing include one of my all-time favourites Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as well as Julie and Julia, Fried Green Tomatoes and one of my favourite animations, Ratatouille .

Movie reward tokens

The outdoor cinema will feature a fully-stocked candy bar with popcorn, gelato and fairy floss. In addition to special dining offers during Good Food Month, participating restaurants will be rewarding diners with free candy bar tokens to use during the movie screenings (while stocks last).

As part of the launch of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf, we were treated to a preview of the Malaya's lunch offer for the month at the iconic south-east Asian restaurant by the water.

Salt and pepper prawns from The Malaya, Lime Street, Sydney

The Malaya's Good Food Month lunch offer comprises two courses and a glass of wine (or beer or soft drink) for $45, starting with ever lovable salt and pepper king prawns.

The huge crustaceans arrived crisply battered and golden fried, as a plate to share, seasoned liberally and garnished with sliced shallots and fresh chillies - some of which had some serious kick.

Coconut beef rendang

The main course of the lunch offer comprises two selections, in proper shared Asian style. The first was beef rendang, an Indonesian style curry of fall-apart tender beef in a spiced coconut sauce.

The Malaya's rendition is moderate in spice heat, with the rich curry sauce completely delectable over a bowl of steamed rice.

Kapitan chicken

The kapitan chicken was a milder curry featuring lightly battered chicken in a Penang style curry sauce with coconut cream.

The small battered fillets provided additional texture to the chicken dish, which also had a sauce worthy of eating with rice alone.

Roti

While steamed rice is the carbohydrate of choice with curries, we also had some roti flat bread on the side - not some of the best in Sydney but a welcome addition nonetheless.

Chilli bean sprouts

Providing freshness amid all the curry and carbs was a vegetable side of crunchy bean sprouts, dried shitake mushroom, Asian spinach and chilli.

Black rice pudding

Separate to the Malaya's lunch offer, we were treated to additional desserts that appear on the restaurant's '50 Years of Spice' menu, also on offer during Good Food Month.

The black sticky rice dessert arrived in thankfully petite glasses with thick coconut cream, palm sugar syrup and fresh seasonal fruit, including contrastingly tart passionfruit pulp.

Chilli chocolate ice cream petit four

Dessert was followed by chocolate-covered ice cream petit four bites; best not left to melt. I think the subtle chilli tingle was in the chocolate coating, which was then appropriately soothed via a bite of a nondescript ice cream flavour.

The Malaya's Good Food Month lunch offer is available during lunch throughout October from Monday to Saturday (minimum 2 diners; maximum 8 diners). See the King Street Wharf's Food, Art & Films by the Wharf event schedule here.

Food, booze and shoes attended the launch of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf, at The Malaya, with thanks to The PR Partnership.