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Sugar Prawn

Simone Egger

Sugar Prawn's flamingo-pink dining room.
Sugar Prawn's flamingo-pink dining room.Wayne Taylor

Malaysian$$

There is nothing unusual about pineapples, if they're on a plate. But when five of them are perched high on a shelf in a flamingo-pink dining room and dramatically lit, their green tufts splaying like fireworks and their yellow-mesh skin looking like a chorus-line poised to bust out the can-can, that's a different story. 

And that's without having touched a drop, I promise. Disrupting the usual context can bring a new level of appreciation for something you thought you knew, which is what "new" Malaysian restaurant Sugar Prawn has done.

At its core is Malaysian-born chef Travis Tong's playful plates of food that are rooted in the hawker scrums of his motherland and making whoopee in his hometown. He's been cooking on this site for a few years, opening in 2013 as Masak Masak. In the current spirit of collaboration he's teamed up with the gang behind Magic Johnston studios and members-only nightclub Hugs & Kisses. They've given the place a new lairy face, and it's turning heads and tastes.

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Master stock bone marrow perched on a prawn cracker.
Master stock bone marrow perched on a prawn cracker.Wayne Taylor

Sugar Prawn's embrace of colour and plastic – joyously kicking against the sea of raw, industrial-finished places with recycled materials and plants­ – is in part responsible for the red plastic chairs, camp-tin plates, the lightweight gold chopsticks, and the window displays. On one side are bright, coloured sieves full of fruit, and on the other side, a turntable spinning a prawn, and spinning tunes from guest DJs semi-regularly. They even endorse MSG, begging the question what's wrong with the occasional chemical substance, especially one that "induces states of eye-flickering flavour".

With hypnotic electronic mixes, kitsch-glamour and a short booze list (giving equal weight to wines, beers and cocktails), the menu – a fair chunk of it carried over from Masak Masak days – feels more pumped. The chicken satays are still tasty – soft, juicy meat sealed on the stick with a charry outer. They're served with peanut sauce that has a breath of chilli, shaves of cucumber, compressed rice cubes, and cleansing pickled ginger.

Technically a "small plate", the buttery bone marrow, brined and grilled in master stock, and served in the bone, is huge, perched on a giant prawn cracker.

Prawn curry served in a coconut shell.
Prawn curry served in a coconut shell.Wayne Taylor
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Bigger share plates include chilli crab claws that come with fried brioche to swipe through thick, sticky, glistening chilli sauce after you've finished wrangling the sweet flesh from the enormous claws. It doesn't come with a finger bowl, and it's guaranteed to make you grubby.

There's also a Crystal Bay prawn curry, the coconut curry base with a nice tamarind tang. Festively served in a coconut, the curry contains just whole prawns and whole lychees, which give it a slight sweetness that's beautiful and strange: Sugar Prawn in a (coco)nut shell.

Do … Look out for the breakfast menu, due to start this Friday, from 8am.
Dish ... Crystal Bay prawn curry
Vibe ... Hyper hawker

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