Bali Brasserie is a place that really has to be experienced to be fully appreciated in all its retro glory.

First opening in Hove in the late 1980s, The Gourmand doubts it has changed in the intervening years.

In a world dominated by trends and fads, it is fantastically novel, and speaks of a bygone time when Hove was a standalone town.

The site's origins go back further still, with a swish restaurant-bar built in within the brutalist Kingsway Court the 1960s.

Padding along the mirrored corridor and into the restaurant's tropical bar feels like stepping into a time-machine.

The expansive bar room is lined with green velvet chesterfield booths, with a red underlit bar giving it the feel of an Oceanic casino.

A popular hang-out for the political and business old guard, you can easily imagine cloak and dagger deals and alliances being hammered out in its semi-secluded underground surrounds over a couple of pina coladas.

Less charitably you might say it is like a tropical working man's club dreamed up by an ageing expat who has just won the pools.

For all its peculiarity, it has outlasted many of its rivals, and perhaps this has something with convivial proprietor Tanjit Calais.

Known to self-respecting regulars as TC, he has a penchant for shiny gold shirts and ties, and established the restaurant after moving it from Worthing where it was known as Sama Santa.

Venture through the tropical bar at Bali Brasserie, and you enter a more formal restaurant, which serves authentic Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine, taking in migratory influences from across the region, including Chinese and Indian.

With the 1980s faded sophistication, there are pressed white table cloths, table top lamps and carved wooden chairs.

The menu ranges from the familiar to the exotic, with the ‘famous Indonesian rijsttafel’, a rice table - set menu, good value at £20 a head for crackers, soup, satay, a hot buffet, and desert.

We order from the à la carte menu, and pick over a strange but tasty snack while we wait - pan friend McCoy’s crisps and peanuts soused in sweet chilli sauce.

Its not all fruit punch at the bar, and our Czech waiter mixes a mean negroni as we ponder satay.

Sadly associated with pre-packaged finger food hawked by Kerry Katona, Bali Brasserie's chicken satay skewers are a reminder of life before Iceland canapes. Well-marinated soft chicken comes with a bowl of excellent chunky peanut sauce, which was good and generous enough to hoard and slather over everything else.

On our waiter’s recommendation we tried the Indonesian sausage, which on paper sounded a bit iffy, and comes out looking more like a meat loaf of mystery meat then a sausage. It was a good call though, the prawn and vegetable filling coming together in a moreish mix, like a fishy black pudding, with crispy deep fried skin.

The beef rendang, a thick, pungent Indonesian curry, is a macho meat treat. The braised cuts are worked to the point of flakiness, and the sauce has a spicy richness from dedicated sauce reduction.

Nicely contrasting with the savoury beef was the ikan lemak, a cod dish in a coconut sauce with lime leaves and lemon grass. It’s a triumphant set of flavours from the off and is well executed, the fish more or less the right balance between firm and supple, and happily bathing in its ambient, fragrant broth.

The only let-down was the nasi noreng, a fried rice dish laced prawns and scallops which were a little bit too funky, and had to go back to the kitchen.

Bali Brasserie would be must-visit just for its unique style; the welcome and service also great. The food is also sterling and stands on its own against a glut of Thai, Chinese and Indian restaurants nearby. When inside you feel like you like you could be stopping off at a grand old hotel in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.

But what might have been unique food 25 years ago, is probably less so now, and while the overall style has a nostalgic charm the food presentation could probably be refined and brought a little up to date without detracting from its authenticity.