The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| Food fit for royalty at Nasi Kandar Kampung Melayu Posted: 26 Dec 2013 06:52 PM PST Located on the ground floor of the low-cost Kampung Melayu flats, it looks like any other small and "low-profile" eatery that has no branch outlets. It occupies two small shop lots and is furnished with simple portable tables and plastic chairs. The dishes are lined up on stainless steel counters along the five-foot way for patrons to inspect as they make their choices. It does not look like a Michelin-starred restaurant, but its patrons will give it a five-star rating; the long line of customers at the restaurant every morning is proof. The place is so famous, it has also been featured in television shows, newspapers, magazines and food blogs. It also has its own Facebook page. "We have become more popular in this Internet age. People take photos of the restaurant, of our food and post them online to tell their friends. We have gained new customers, especially people from out of town, this way," said restaurant owner Abdul Nazir Abdul Razak, 58, in an interview with The Malaysian Insider. "This is not very different from how our food first gained its good name. Nothing promotes food better than its taste and the word of mouth of patrons." Nazir and his wife Zainab Md Eusoff, 50, run the outlet with the help of his sisters and a staff of over 20 people, who are split between the restaurant and his kitchen close by where the food is cooked. The restaurant serves 15 dishes, which include fried chicken, rose chicken (ayam ros), curry chicken, squid, fish head curry, fish and squid roe, beef rendang, mutton, boiled eggs, lady's fingers and roti canai. "The Raja Perlis enjoys our meat dishes with lady's fingers and boiled eggs. Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi enjoys the squid while the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar likes the fish head curry. "They did not eat here but sent their people to buy and have the food packed. I have also taken orders for take-out from former prime ministers Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's aides," Nazir said, adding that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself also came here when he visited the flats in May last year. The good taste of the food at Kampung Melayu Nasi Kandar restaurant and its popularity came from Nazir's father, who opened the outlet in 1970 at the same location. Nazir said his father, who was from Burma, learned how to cook nasi kandar dishes at a restaurant in Datuk Keramat, Penang, and when he had honed his skills, he opened up his own place. "My mother was a Kampung Melayu girl and me and my five siblings all grew up here. I was in my early teens when my father set up the shop. My father was insistent about teaching us the business. He said they have tried to keep to his father's recipes but it is still hard to replicate the good taste of his father's cooking. Without revealing any secret family recipes, he said the ingredient that is most important in nasi kandar cooking is India onions, which make curries more delicious. "They are not cheap, with a bag of 7kg Indian onions fetching RM19 and I need up to 10 bags a day. Getting the onions peeled is a lot of work too, which is why we have to get up at 2am everyday," he said, adding his family also grinds their own spices. His father also put out spices to dry in the sun, Nazir said, which helped to make the food taste better, but with time constraint and his shortage of manpower, he could not do it today. With his restaurant's fame, he said he had been encouraged to set up branches even as far as Kuala Lumpur but he did not have the backing of his four children. "My two eldest are an engineer and a doctor. The other two are in university and Form Three. None of them are interested to learn to run the business. What is the point of opening another outlet? "Most young people these days are not interested in jobs that require hard work. To run a restaurant, they would have to know how to cook, get supplies and even wash the dishes and clean up the mess. Nazir said he have not really thought about what will happen to his business, which has survived two generations, when he can no longer run it in the future. He said even if he decides to sell it to another nasi kandar operator, the business may not survive long if the taste of the food changes or worse, deteriorates. "But I do have a dream. If I can develop packed cooking pastes and spice mixes for nasi kandar dishes based on my family's old recipes, I think they will sell quite well. "Maybe that will be a good family business plan for the future," he mused. - December 27, 2013. |
| Futuristic food: restaurant installs pneumatic tubes to deliver dishes to diners Posted: 26 Dec 2013 03:49 PM PST C1 restaurant in Christchurch has installed a series of "food delivery" pipes which run from the kitchen into the café and deliver the establishment's signature Slider dish, comprising mini burgers and fries, to the clientele. The installation process is already underway and will take approximately a year to complete. Metal cases containing the dishes will eventually be shuttled under the floor and up through the table legs, to avoid the space being cluttered up with tubes. "It's something we've had in the works since before we opened," said owner Sam Crofskey. The café was destroyed in an earthquake in 2010 and has since been rebuilt, with several modifications. "When we rebuilt the cafe, we did so with the goal of being the world's greatest cafe," said Crofskey. "A pneumatic burger tube is just one of the many points of difference that our business has." The invention is the latest in a line of quirky food delivery systems across the restaurant industry. These include the widespread trend of the sushi conveyor belt, the concept of ordering food directly from interactive tabletop surfaces and even robot waiter service at the Hajime restaurant in Japan. Perhaps one of the most unorthodox approaches comes from the Ka Tron restaurant in Bangkok, where chickens are cooked, loaded into a catapult, fired across the restaurant and caught on a spike being held by a waiter riding a unicycle. - AFP/Relaxnews, December 27, 2013. |
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