Sept, Seventeen Mall

Sept is a Japanese cafe-bistro in Seventeen Mall, from the team behind N.I.C.E. Bistronome, THB Bistronome and Mala Bistronome — a group that has been quietly filling Petaling Jaya with small restaurants for years.

It works in two registers: simple by day, a little more composed in the evening.

What to Order at Sept

Daytime is sandos and stir-fried udon — straightforward, bright-room food. From late afternoon the sushi rolls and rice bowls come out.

The dish that shows what the kitchen can do is the beef hamburg: thick and tenderly meaty, topped with an onsen egg and finished with a beef jus that gives it a French edge. The unagi chawanmushi is the other one to order — satiny, custardy, and genuinely comforting.

For Japanese food in Seventeen Mall or a bistro in Petaling Jaya that changes character through the day, Sept is the newest from a group that knows how to run one.