Eating Out: Mamak [15 Goulburn St Haymarket, 2000]

I knew I had to come here when I was told we were going to Sydney. Claimed to be the best Malaysian restaurant in Sydney, that I cannot confirm as I haven't been to any other Malay places in Sydney but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. This place isn't hard to find, just look for a massive queue. We got there at 8pm and still had to wait 45mins to get a table for 4 best is if you're a table of 2, so next time I'm just going to bring 1 friend =P But then you can't try out as many dishes.....hmmmm the compromise.....the more the merrier of course. One good thing about waiting in line is that you have plenty of time to decide what you want to eat and watch the guys make roti in the window.
Best meal I had in Sydney!

The guys making the roti

I stood there for ages just watching them

The entire time they kept chatting to each other

Whilst the chicks cooked the roti on the hot plate

Kangkung Belacan $13

They really need to put chilli ratings on their menu. My tongue was dying just from this. Nothing special about it though except that the stalks were still crunchy (good thing) unlike mum's version which is normally soft/soggy.

Kari Ikan $16

Chose the fish one because we were already getting chicken satays and my family loves seafood. The curry was packed full of flavour and spicies. The amount of fish was quite generous and firm so it didn't disintegrate into the curry. We also found okra and tomatoes in there. Only one problem, it was insanely chilli for our standards and we required many cups of water as we could not stop eating the delicious curry.

Nasi Lemak + sambal prawns $7.50+$4

Probably the only let down of the whole dinner. There were only 2 prawns!!! Nothing spectacular about the nasi lemak, but if you do get it, choose the fried chicken!

Roti Canai $5

OMG! I wish I could eat this everyday. So flaky, the curry sauce so nice as with the dahl and sambal. Only problem is the price, supposedly it's only like 50cents aussie in Malaysia. Best roti I've had ever (note: I have not been to Malaysia yet). Thinking about this makes my mouth water. I think I need to go to Old Town Kopitiam Mamak and get a roti fix.

Roti Telur $6

Half eaten...whoops

Obviously it was way too delicious and tempting that I forgot to take a photo. Not a fan of roti telur because of the egg. 

Satay Chicken/Beef $14 doz

Most marinated meat, charcoal fire. Damn good satay, best I've had in my food memory. I really really loved the satay sauce, not too peanutty and tonnes of flavour.

We didn't have room for dessert. Completely stuffed.

Just writing this post is making me want to go back to Mamak =[ I think I need to go live in Malaysia for a while. K仔 will you take me there? =D Probably come back double my size though.


Food: 9/10 Only let down was nasi lemak. Everything else was ooooohhhhh sooo yummy.
Service/Environment: 8.5/10 Service was friendly, especially the waitress who was taking down all the names of the people in the line whilst actually doing waitressing inside, she was amazing. The place is clean but cramped. Weird how their uniform includes CROCS......in bright colours, it was quite a sight.
Value: 9/10 Dinner for 4 adults came to just over $60, we were all stuffed without the need for rice (except for the nasi lemak) =O And the quality of the food was exceptional, worth every cent and probably more.


Verdict? I love this place. If I lived in Sydney you'd find me there all the time. Make sure you try the roti and satay because that's what they specialise in. Supposedly their fried chicken, roti tisu and teh tarik are awesome. Next time I'm there, they're definitely going to part of the meal. Sigh...next time is too far away =[

Cooking: Curry Tonight

The commonwealth games are on....and to be honest I'm not interested and too busy to care. Since I've got so much study to do I was aiming to make something simple for dinner on Friday. So for convenience you turn to canned or jarred stuff and since PATAKS curries were half price at Coles, dinner was sorted. However I guess everyone wants curry this week because when I got to the curry section, there were only 6 or so butter chickens, madras' and korma's left. No vindaloo =[

I was trying to figure out how to plate my curry so they don't mix and a rice bridge was the best option. The butter chicken tasted different to the butter chicken you get at indian restaurants. But the madras was alright. Also bought some roti to soak up all the sauce. Add some boiled vegies in to complete the meal.

Only way to make the curry look presentable and half decent was to use the dslr. Good excuse to take it out and play with it.

Eating Out: Old Town Kopitiam Mamak, QV, Melbourne

Another place to cross off the list of places to visit, however I would like to come back here to try other dishes. The day started off with meeting K仔 in the city, getting everything sorted for Sam's 18th in the arvo. The patch of synthetic grass upstairs QV is such a nice place to just sit and relax. Except that it was Saturday morning and tonnes of little toddlers were running around full of energy. After sitting back and relaxing for a while we decided to go to Old Town Kopitiam Mamak for lunch since it was 15 metres away.

I have to say this place has this really awesome feel to it. It's just the way it has been designed, very casual and relaxing. It is very busy especially during lunch hour. I love the back wall of shelves of milo tins, holicks tins, evaporated milk tins and every other tin they use. Which made me wonder whether those tins will ever be used considering there are in perfectly even rows with no sign of usage. On the adjacent wall is the kitchen, open to view. You can watch them make roti and everything. There's just a sense of organisation and professionalism when you look into the kitchen, gives you peace of mind. K仔ordered since he actually knew what half the things were (being malaysian).
Sorry about the photo quality.

Roti Telur $4.50

Only found out what telur means after it came and was told it was EGG! Okay, eggs are not my best friend, I've never actually really liked egg at all throughout my whole life. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Roti was so yummy (especially compared to what I made the other day) however I have yet to try roti in Malaysia so I cannot compare. Curry sauce was nice and the sambal tasted really weird to me. It was surprisingly sweet and super chilli =.=" But K仔 really liked it, is it an acquired taste? K仔 complained this dish would only cost AUD$0.60 in Malaysia, but we're not in Malaysia so it's going to be $4.50

I can't remember the name of everything in this dish as I had an acute eye problem just as this was ordered.

It was part of this menu of where you get rice and a choice of various curries/accompaniments, price depends on how many you choose. This one was the most basic at $8. The rice had a strong lemongrass flavour which was a bit different. The mutton curry had a very very strong star anise flavour and the calamari was cold but still crunchy. Bit of a weird dish.

Food: 8/10 Quite a few things were quite unusual as I'm not used to Malay food. But lots of people ordered roti of some sort.  

Service: 7.5/10 Not bad, I think majority of the waiters/waitresses were Malay. Service was quick as there were many staff.

Environment: 9/10 Personal opinion but I really like the feel of this place. No you don't get super comfy chairs, and yes you may have to share tables with strangers, but it is part of the experience I guess. 

Verdict? I would certainly come back again. So many things I want to try on the menu. Sure it might seem a tad pricey of simple food but it is worth it. Not exactly food you can get anywhere. Also you know the people working there are genuinely dedicated to delivering good food and making it a good restaurant. 

After lunch sat on the synthetic grass in the sun again waiting for time to pass. Soon to be followed by a long night of Wii, PS3, Mahjong, Twister and Poker. 

The rest of the night sort of became a blur, the effects of a few drinks and fatigue started to settle in for a few.

Only managed an hour or two of sleep due to constant chatting and a hard tile floor. It was a good night.

Gotta power through the rest of the day now, hopefully make it to night time. 

I have a big stack of holiday homework waiting for me. 

Back to work now.