Chahaya Malaysia

Name: Chahaya Malaysia
Address: 1690 Montreal Road, Ottawa
Hours: Tue-Thu 11:30am-2pm, 5pm-10pm;
Fri 11:30am-2pm, 5pm-11pm;
Sat 5pm-11pm; Sun 5pm-10pm
Contact: 613.742.0242
Parking: Available Parking
Price: $20-35

I debate weather or not to put this on my blog. At the end I decided to DO IT.
The reason of the delima is because this is a very nice place and looks very promising as you walk in. SEEMS like an authentic restaurant, until you try the food.

Everything looks nice and very ethnic.

We start off with shrimp chips. Good starter I give it 1 star.

Penang Laksa
This is the most horrible dish ever. Nothing is authentic about this. It is suppose to be a variation of Assam Laksa. Assam means Fish and Laksa means sourly soup base noodle. That is why they usually put lemon and pineapple in it.
The dish they serve us is very Fishy, but you can tell it is can fish. The rice noodle is a very cheap noodle they use, and a proper Laksa noodle is suppose to be clear thick noodle or a mix of yellow thick noodle and a very thin rice noodle.
The also put some shrimp paste to make this dish more fishy which is a horrible mix. Way too Salty and Way too Sourly. Very distasteful!

This is suppose to be beef, but as you can see it is very brunt with a lot of black wok ash. It is very cancerous and disgusting. Plus, as you can see it is overly greasy.

A chicken dish, which is simple stir-fried, no technique involve. The only eatable dish on the table.

My personal must order in all Malaysian Restaurant, Assam (shrimp). $18
I do not know what I am eating. The dish is priced high enough to demand for some real shrimp. Unfortunately I cannot spot a single regular size shrimp, as if that is not bad enough those are frozen shrimp with shell sticking to every one of them.
It is extremely salty, to the point it start to taste very salty. Extremely Sourly as well.
They took it back and switch it up for us. The second plate was cooked by the owner himself, but it is just as bad salty and sourly not at all Assam.


Take it from me, I have been to Malaysia and eaten enough Malaysian food to know what is home cook authentic or restaurant authentic. This owner even thought that I am a Malaysian, from what I ask to order.
Their menu is not at all named properly. Their food is either Malaysian nor eatable.
Their service is horrible. The owner's wife is rude and annoying. She keep asking us how the food is, and all we can offer her is dead silence. Thought she would get the hint after the first few times. With all of our complain they did not even offer us a discount.
The dish is full of MSG and SALT I am currently having a sour throat from that meal.

If you want good Malaysian food try the ones in Toronto. Even if it is own by Chinese they are closer to authentic Malaysian then this. At least they will not kill you with MSG and SALT and CANCEROUS BURNT FOOD.