Matahari Grill

Went with my friend today for dinner to try out Indonesian/​Malaysian food. We ordered off the Winterlicious menu and were left amazed. The food tasted excellent. The spices in the dishes blended perfectly (This was not spicy food that burnt the mouth, it was spices that brought out the delicious flavor in the food. I am definitely a fan and will return for more. The service was excellent although it saddened my friend and I to see only one server juggling five tables and still managing to deliver good service. So Matahari management, please schedule more servers to make dinner rush easier on yourselves. The lighting was very dim and we had to resort to annoying flash photography. Please increase the brightness of the lights so that patrons can take pictures of the food for their memories.
My review of the food was ¹⁰⁄₁₀
We tried each others dishes and loved them.
STARTER
Chicken Satay: The chicken satay was soft and full of flavors. It went really well with the peanut sauce and is a good way to start off an amazing dinner
MAIN
Char Kway Teow: Was very delicious. It had a very nice mild smoky flavor to it that did not overpower the ingredients. The portion was very generous. It was a surprise with every bite since the prawns and other ingredients were placed beneath the noodles and the lighting was dim. It felt a bit like a preview of eating in O Noir lol. Definitely Order it
Nasi Lemak: Very well presented. The coconut rice blended well with everything else on the plate. It was a different flavour with each mouthful. Order it, its good
DESSERT
Pandan Crêpe: The crêpe is just the right amount of sweetness with no excess sugar. Take one of the crêpe pieces and just eat a piece by itself to taste its flavor It is different from that of a regular crêpe. Although the dessert was good there were not enough fruits accompanying the crêpe.. Other pictures on Unilocal display much more fruit than what we got. Still a good dessert and a must try. If u order this, make sure you refer to other pictures on Unilocal where there are more fruit served with the pandan crêpe and have more fruit added. We did not notice this initially since we were focused on catching up on conversations and were worried about the dim lighting affecting our ability to take pictures of the food for foodie memories

This would be the restaurant to go if you crave Malaysian or South East Asian food.
I went there last Friday for their Winterlicious dinner. It is truly a hidden gem. If you just walked pass this restaurant at night, you wouldn’t even notice it since it was very quite from outside. But when you opened their sliding door, you will see a totally different picture: a warm and cozy restaurant packed with dinners that all look very relaxed and happy. This is a great place to celebrate the end of one busy week on Friday night.
I had their winterlicious menu: Chicken Satay for appetizer, Rendang Beef for entrée, and Pandan Crêpe for desert. My friend ordered from their regular menu: spring rolls for appetizer, Matahari Seafood Curry Grill for entrée, and Sago-​Sago for desert. My favorite three are deep-​fried spring roll, Matahari Seafood Curry Grill and Pandan Crêpe. It has been three days but I still remeber the tastes of their food.

Went today for an early dinner with some colleagues. a little too early, as we were there by ourselves for quite some time before anyone else showed up.
Service as such was very good and food was fresh.
I ordered the matahari curry chicken, which is one of their signature dishes. Very tasty, full of spice: similar to butter chicken. Dish was large (a lot of chicken), but I feel that for the price ($ 15), they could have given less chicken and attached a small serving of rice along with it.
Had to get rice on the side.
Comfy, quiet, place. Great for groups. Fountain going on one of the walls.

Nothing overly specular, food was average in taste and quality but over priced for sure. Strangely, most of the dishes sported a bitter aftertaste that’s hard to describe. Tried it on a whim, but 4 dishes split between four people and still leaving the restaurant with a $ 25 bill before tip make my question my life choices… Worth a try once of you’ve got the money to blow, ehh

Came here for summerlicious with my girls on a beautiful day. It was pretty empty around 6 but got busy after. We were seated on the patio. It is such a nice street full of other restaurants of different backgrounds. Lots of street parking but busy so get there early. Our server was really nice and made great recommendations. I started with the satay and it was so flavorful. The peanut sauce complimented it so well. I wish I had it right now. For my main i had the popular rendang beef that came with white rice. This was a huge portion for their 25 prix fixed menu. It was very yummy but a bit of an overload on beef. Some pieces were more soft than others. I thought it would be more saucy but the marinade is more thick. Regardless i would still recommend. My friend got a noodle dish and that was even better than mine. For dessert the server insisted we get the pandan crêpe. It was crazy good. It was warm and simple. The sugar went so well with it and it was perfect. Don’t let the images fool you. Way better than it looks. Ordered prosecco for my drink and it came in a cute champagne bottle. Great service great food great company.

2^nd visit after ages for lunch. Value proposition (Price, Quality/​Taste, Quantity) is good. Is this the best Malaysian or South East Asian food joint in TO? No. But it is yummy. Is this a date spot? Can be.
Service was helpful and the ambiance is fine.
Repeat: Yes

My boyfriend and I agreed to give it a 3.
Why?
He ordered char kuey teow ($ 13) and his review:
Good amount of spice, shrimp was cooked well but there was no punch. It wasn’t very favourable. I tried it and it was bland, not as charcoal-​ish as I expected.
I ordered nasi lemak ($ 13). It’s supposed to be a simple dish yet it’s flavour speaks for itself. However the one I got was far from my expectation. Where’s the sambal? It was replaced with caramalized onions with anchovies. I could barely taste coconut in my coconut rice, another disappointment. The shrimp however was good, it has some rendang taste to it. Also, since when nasi lemak has mango salad? Never! It should be peanuts. Sigh.

Really delicious and different types of curry in every dish. Must try! I loved their home made vegetable spring rolls. Crispy, fresh and the Matahari sauce is so nice and tasty.
The Curry chicken dish was delicious although would have been a top notch dish with a few vegetables in there. Its chicken and potatoes in a curry sauce and rice on the side. The other dish was a vegetable curry which was delicious but if you added chicken to that dish it would have been perfect!
Dessert, simple but tasty.
I highly recommend this place!
Only negative to say is the waiter we had (being the older one and indian) was a bit moody from the beginning and didn’t say thank you even though we left him a 20% tip.

The services was poor. The dishes doesn’t taste ethnic Malaysian. There are better ethnic Malaysian restaurants out there. The service could be better. The place is dark. It look closed from the outside. The place does not taste the same since the owner changed. They were true Malaysians.

Matahari is our go to place for Malaysian food in Toronto. Most times we visit the city we ensure that we have dinner at Matahari.
Favourite dishes are the mango chicken, rang dang beef, and the beef satay with peanut sauce.
Downsides are that the menu is a little pricey, but it pays off in quality. As well, it’s hard to count on them for delivery. More nights than not, if you call for delivery, the driver hasn’t shown up. On the nights the driver does show up, the food is delicious when it is delivered. Make sure you give yourself about an hour before you want to eat though, they’re not the speediest!

Just came from there. Had the Keropok appetizer and the Mango Chicken. The appetizer came with very little sauce (the peanut sauce is really tasty, by the way), and the main dish tasted only okay, like any other mid tier asian restaurant. It is not bad, but for such regular food it is definitely overpriced.

The chicken my friend ordered was cold! It’s like just taken out of the fridge.
The food was average, not worth the price
Will never come back.

This is my absolute favorite restaurant on Baldwin. The service is quick and efficient, and the food is so flavourful — it’s surprising I don’t eat here all the time! There’s really nothing I don’t like about this little place.
On most of my trips here I’ve ordered the Casbah Cashew Chicken (sub veggies and tofu for chicken). They are generous with the cashews and the portion sizes do not disappoint. The dish comes with rice, but I always upgrade to coconut rice. There’s always enough food left over for me to eat later in the day which makes me so happy because I can’t get enough of the wonderful flavours they’re able to pack into one plate. I once ordered the green tea ice cream for dessert, but the server was suggesting the Pandan Crêpe because he was sure I would like it (I really come here a LOT!). I wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous so I decided to go with the ice cream anyway. But when he brought out the dessert, he brought both (no charge for the Pandan Crêpe) because he really wanted me to try it. I was so glad he did! Because it was delicious… YUMM! I just ate here yesterday and now I’m craving it again. Can’t wait for next time :)

Had the Nasi Lemak and Spring Rolls.
That DRIED ANCHOVY STIR FRY that comes with the Nasi Lemak!!! It’s freaking gorgeous. Texture and flavour explosion in your mouth. The other components of the dish? Nothing notable. Spring Rolls were okay. Tasted like most spring rolls I’ve had before, though there were some super crunchy veggies inside.
Given the lack of Malay cuisine near Toronto’s downtown core, this place is worth a go. Just note they have really terrible lighting.

Went here with my Indonesian Husband and complexly enjoyed the meal. All of the dishes were ordered were cooked to the standards we expect and were used to. From the Chicken Satay Appetizer, the Beef Rendang was, along with the Chicken Mango which was serviced with a slice of orange! IF you are craving Malaysian or Indonesian food I highly recommend.

We had an overpriced but okay meal here. The Beef Rendang, the purpose of our trip, was wonderful and enough to take home to munch on all weekend. The roti and the rice was good. The soup with chicken and tofu had no flavour or depth, and the seafood curry also lacked any true depth of flavour. For $ 75.00 it was not worth it. I’d recommend getting the beef rendang to go and skipping the rest.
Also I come from a queer parent family: To the two elderly women having the loudest and rudest relationship fight, you ruined my dinner. Please be courteous to other diners and keep your fights at home or at least in hushed tones. It went on and on and we eventually just packed up our half eaten food and left.
I asked the server to turn on music to muffle the sound, but he didn’t.

Get the rendang beef and DEFINITELY the pandan crêpe for dessert

I find it hard to believe that for such a multicultural city, this is the only Malaysian restaurant downtown. Whilst it’s not entirely authentic, the food here is really great. I came here with a friend for Winterlicious on Saturday evening. The restaurant itself has a nice ambiance, and the service was fast, friendly and unobtrusive. The kitchen was a bit slow, but we weren’t in a rush and it was no biggie. With a glass of wine in front of us, we barely even noticed.
The real reason I wanted to come here is because I absolutely looooove Malaysian roti, but sadly the one they serve here is flatter and a lot more buttery than a traditional roti. I’m also a bit disappointed they don’t have any actual roti dishes on the menu, like a murtabak or roti canai.
I had the chicken satay skewers for starters which I really liked (but how can you go wrong with satay?). For main I had the beef rendang which was tender and flavourful. My friend also really liked her sambal chicken and pandan crepes. For 3 courses and 2 glasses of wine each, the bill totalled $ 50 each which I thought was pretty good value!

3.5 stars.
We had a group of five and ordered an appetizer to share, beef rendang, a vegetable dish and some noodles. I can’t recall the exact name of each dish but they were certainly tasty with a nice mix of sweet and spicy.
I liked the sago sago dessert which had coconut milk and tapioca. Fav dishes were probably the shrimp chips dipped in peanut satay (as a part of the appetizer platter) and the beef rendang which was stewed in texture and tender.
The bill totalled about $ 40 each which was a bit surprising. Most of the dishes are $ 10 – 20, so it can add up. Doubt it was worth the price but it was a solid meal.

Matahari Grill is our 2^nd stop for our Baldwin Food Crawl.
Love the décor, chic, dark and romantic (definitely not good for photo taking!)
Though without reservations, we got seated right away at one of the tables at the back of the restaurant.
We just want a taste of the menu so ended up ordering:
Eggplant Malay ($ 10) — grilled eggplant appetizer
Char Kway Teow ($ 15) — stired fried flat rice noodle in dark soy sauce
Nasi Lemak ($ 15) — Malaysian Coconut Rice went really well with the savoury Anchovy
All nicely done, but just lack that wow factor. Though I requested spicy but none of the dishes were spicy enough to make my Unilocal Friends sweat!
Prices while definitely on the pricey side, though in line with the area restaurants.