A new restaurant serving one of the rarest cuisines in North Texas has opened its doors at The Sound at Cypress Waters, bringing halal-certified Malaysian food to a corner of the metroplex that has gone largely without it. Taste of Malaysia is now open at 3001 Olympus Blvd #130, dishing out nasi lemak, laksa, and satay skewers alongside a full bar in the lakeside dining district.
The restaurant's soft launch happened on August 1, 2026, giving the kitchen a chance to fine-tune its menu ahead of its official debut, according to Taste of Malaysia. As CultureMap Dallas reports, the team behind the concept includes Vsruti “Vish” Nair and Shiva Nair, the latter of whom brings more than 20 years of hospitality experience to the venture.
“There are a lot of Malaysians here in Dallas-Fort Worth but not many Malaysian restaurants,” Shiva Nair told the outlet, framing the opening as an attempt to close a gap that has persisted in North Texas dining for years. Nair added that the restaurant aims to bring “Malaysian flavors to North Texas with authentic halal-certified Asian food,” per the same account.
A Menu Built on Malaysia's National Dish
Malaysian cuisine blends Malay, Chinese, Indian and indigenous flavors, and the menu at Taste of Malaysia reflects that mix with signature dishes like satays, spiced soups and rice plates, the report notes. Central to the offering is nasi lemak, Malaysia's national dish, built around coconut-milk rice cooked with pandan leaves and traditionally served with boiled egg, cucumber and ikan bilis. The restaurant serves seven varieties of the dish, including vegetable curry, chicken curry, slow-cooked beef, slow-cooked chicken, fried chicken, fish and spicy shrimp versions.
Laksa, the spicy noodle soup built from rice or egg noodles in a broth flavored with spices, shrimp paste and coconut milk or tamarind, rounds out the menu alongside fried rice, noodle dishes, satay chicken skewers, spring rolls, karipap and chicken kutlet. All of the meat served is halal, and the restaurant maintains a full bar for guests. To help unfamiliar diners navigate the unfamiliar dishes, the restaurant runs a lunchtime-only buffet with 15 to 20 dishes spanning chicken, shrimp, fish, and vegetarian and vegan options, priced at $18 on weekdays and $20 on weekends. “The buffet is served only at lunch so unfamiliar diners can sample every dish,” Nair explained, per the CultureMap report.
Cypress Waters' Growing Food Scene
Taste of Malaysia joins a building at 3001 Olympus Blvd that already houses several food concepts, including Deviled Egg Co. in Suite 100, Ari's Italian Market and Kilwins, along with nearby lakeside venues like Eno's Pizza Tavern, according to WhatNow Dallas. The restaurant also offers a 10% discount on à la carte items and alcohol for residents and corporate employees who live or work in Cypress Waters, according to Taste of Malaysia — a targeted play for the thousands of onsite apartments and offices that make up the master-planned development.
Though Cypress Waters carries a Coppell mailing address and falls within Coppell Independent School District, the 1,000-acre community is municipally part of the City of Dallas, according to the City of Coppell. The Sound at Cypress Waters itself is built around the 300-acre North Lake, which began as a cooling reservoir for a Dallas Power & Light plant in the 1950s before developer Billingsley Company acquired the land in 2004, according to The Sound at Cypress Waters.
A Demographic Fit for Rare Cuisine
The opening lands in an area with a built-in audience for the cuisine. U.S. Census Bureau figures show Asian residents make up 29.8% of Coppell's population, establishing a strong local base for regional Asian food concepts. Malaysian food, in particular, has been historically hard to find in the metroplex — a January 2011 Dallas Observer report documented that authentic options were largely limited to suburban outposts in Plano or short-lived pop-ups, even as Vietnamese and Thai cuisines expanded rapidly across DFW.
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has also grown into a major cultural hub for Muslim communities in the American South, per Wikipedia, fueling demand for halal-certified dining that Taste of Malaysia's fully halal meat menu is positioned to serve. The restaurant's arrival adds to a wave of turnover along Olympus Boulevard, which has anchored retail growth at Cypress Waters for years — Hoodline previously covered Ascension's 2019 debut on the same strip, and in July, Hoodline reported on Casa Comal, a Mexico City-style taco shop that took over the former Chilli Thai space at 8701 Cypress Waters Blvd.
