There aren't that many decent Malaysian restaurants in Sydney, Temasek in Parramatta being one (though they are more Singaporean), and Kopitiam in Ultimo being the other. Wikipedia has a good explanation of what a kopitiam is, and check out the See Also section for stuff you should definitely experience if you're ever in Singapore or Malaysia.
Last night mum, dad & I tried out Kuali in Lane Cove. Kuali is the Malay word for wok. We had a few sticks of satay for entree which were pretty typical of satay in Sydney - tasty but unspectactular. Satay in Malaysia is typically really thin sticks of meat rather than the rather crude lumps you get here - but its probably unreasonable to expect the same here due to the rather large difference in labour costs. :) Its usually also served with slices of onion, cucumber and ketupat which is kind of like a compressed rice; these three are great to dip into the peanut sauce and together with the satay can form a complete meal.
On to mains. We had heard good things about their mud crab and had expected it to be a chilli mud crab (being a common dish in Malaysia and Singapore). That option is available but we opted for their signature dish of mud crab with Poh's curry sauce, named after chef John Poh. And it is fantastic. We had it with roti canai which is the perfect way to suck up the rich curry sauce. My only beef here is the $3.50 tag on each slice of roti which we confirmed with the waitress is of the frozen variety available in Asian grocery stores. Our other main was the KL Hokkien Fried Noodle (better known as Hokkien Mee). This is a family favourite probably because mum is Hokkien, and its a famous KL dish. Its also what we tend to judge Malaysian restaurants by. Kuali passed with flying colours; their Hokkien Mee has the rich flavours of fried sole (the fish, not the one on your shoe!) and pork drippings. I have to point out here that their menu claims they do not cook with lard or pork, which was initially disappointing as lard is a key ingredient in Malaysian cooking as far as I'm concerned. It was thus delightful for me, but perhaps worrying for our non-pig-eating friends, to discover pork drippings in the Hokkien Mee.
Dessert. At this point I'm reminded that I forgot to mention at least one other Malaysian eating house - Alice's at Thornleigh. Alice makes the best kuihs in Sydney, no contest, so when I ordered the Kuih Ketayap at Kuali I had pretty high expectations (its very similar if not meant to be identical to Alice's kuih dadar). Alice's kuih dadar explodes in your mouth, releasing bountiful flavours of gula melaka (a palm sugar) whereas Kuali's kuih ketayap is much drier and you find yourself chewing through a little more coconut than probably necessary. I'd recommend they shred the coconut finer and keep the filling wetter with a touch more gula melaka. Of course I'm completely unqualified to make any recommendations seeing as I have never made this dessert in my life. But I have eaten buttloads of it. :)
One dessert is never enough; we also ordered the Sago Gula Melaka. Kuali present this in a Western style with the sago arranged in a neat lump drizzled with coconut milk & gula melaka. Serving it this way makes it a little too rich IMHO, and I was a little disappointed as I'm used to this being served in a much milkier, soup-like manner. That said, for those who've never experienced the other version, Kuali's sago is definitely worth trying as you get to experience the full blown flavour of the gula melaka.
All up Kuali's is up there with the best of Malaysian in Sydney (what a qualifier :). All of the places mentioned in this post are worth feeding at, and in order of upmarket-ness it probably goes Kuali (Lane Cove), Temasek (Parramatta), Kopitiam (Ultimo), then Alice's (Thornleigh). There's also To's in North Sydney which is a fast & cheap lunch spot with excellent prawn mee and also a distributor of Alice's kuih on Saturdays.
