Coconut House just outside the city centre on Elizabeth Street is cheap and serves tasty food so at some stage it seemed only fitting that myself, Tris and Ryan tried it out before catching a late screening of a film in nearby Melbourne Central a very long time ago.

Both Ryan and I ordered exactly the same thing – the Hainanese chicken rice with BBQ pork. The violent radioactive orange crockery is a bonus. Wow. I don’t have much experience with this dish, but it could become a favourite.

Tristan, after much agonising, had wonton egg noodles with pork.

Oh, did I mention we also ordered crazy-looking drinks? Tristan of course got the biggest one – the ice cream Milo King Kong. Yep, that’s what it’s called on the menu.

To further continue with the radioactive theme, Ryan got five layer teh tarik. We couldn’t quite figure out what the green glow worm things were, but he seemed to like his drink!

I got the regular teh tarik – just a tad too sweet for me.

Even though we were bursting at the seams, we all decided to share some coconut jam toast. Tris will probably tell me off for using my own photo, but I want the ‘jam’ – more like a very sweet, gooey, honey-like paste to be visible. Suddenly, your tummy has more room. Also, if you’re at Coconut House, you have to have something coconutty, right?

I didn’t really feel I got to ‘test’ enough Malaysian dishes, so I returned for a serving of good old nasi lemak.

On this occasion, we were a few shops down at Little Coconut House which is less rushed. We sat outside and a scooter whizzing past made a sound that took me back to the Philippines, as did the smells of the food and Melbourne’s more usual (of late) humidity.

Tristan ordered the Hainanese chicken rice with BBQ pork this time. I got the mouth-searing nasi lemak with sambal prawns. I did actually want chicken but wires got crossed and I ended up with only the prawns. You might not like this if you’re a chilli wimp but if you can get past it, it’s still pretty damn tasty.

I can’t really comment on the authenticity as I’m still pretty much a noob to this cuisine but I do recommend it for a quick, cheap meal, especially when I need to get my spice on.