Padang is a type of Nasi

Not a small quadrangle of grass,
Encased for burning rubber;
Nor a Malaysian state.

- The Nasi Padang dairies

Nasi Padang stalls are probably right up there with (good) tze char stalls in the list of places you can eat at for more than a year without getting sian.

We went in two cabs to this lovely place Sylvia has been going to for the past 20-odd years. It's a small little corner coffeeshop called Minang, at the corner of kandahar street next to the Sultan Mosque.

"Every day during my pregnancy while I was working nearby I would come here and have the ikan," she claimed.

After the meal, we had no reason to doubt her.


Ok, I was trying to caption the picture, but realised that (because I'm not Malay) I don't exactly know the right names of the dishes. So pardon my weird descriptors for now!

We ordered a total of ten dishes:
1. Beef rendang
2. Fish in black sauce+onions+chili
3. Ayam Masak Merah (At least this is how I heard SS pronounce it?)
4. Ayam in satay sauce
5. Cooked jackfruit pulp (serious!)
6. Ok I cannot remember what this was, but it looks spicy. Probably chicken.
7. Tempeh with ikan bilis and nuts
8. Very cool vegetables
9. Fish with very spicy toppings

Oh, I suppose it was 9 dishes (only?) :D

The winners:
2. Easily the simplest dish of the lot, yet achieves perfect balance between the natural salty sweetness of the fish and black sauce, the spiciness of the chili and the tangy kick of freshly cut red onion. Also the stall's best-seller, so be sure to come early to avoid disappointment. Be warned though, that this fish is of the bony variety, similar to nasi lemak fish.

5. When Sylvia and SS pointed at this from behind the glass, I had honestly no idea what it was. Then they told me it was jackfruit pulp - lovingly stewed in curry. What was intriguing about the dish to me, was its texture. It's somewhere between the soft mush that is stewed brinjal and the cabbage in sayur lodeh. I, for one, have never seen this before, so I suppose it's not too common?

7. I love tempeh. It's nutty - if a little cloying if consumed in copious quantities - and goes superbly with many other dishes, or even on its own and a friend called sambal. Together with petai, which was unfortunately not available that day, they are easily my favourite non-meat nasi padang ingredients for their distinctive taste.

When done right, petai, in particular, makes your mouth explode with an overwhelming bitterness - kind of like when you bite into a grape seed by accident. At the exact same time, the sambal it is invariably fried in comes to the rescue, enveloping your tongue in a protective sweetness. Beautiful.

The losers:
1. To be fair, I think this is just the most common dish in nasi padang, and...well... I've had better. The meat did not fall off the fork (ok, see how impossibly high standards are?!) and the gravy was a tad too salty. Still, better than average but not good enough compared to the rest and thus makes the losers list.

Yep, that's about all the losers that this place deserves.

In sum, this is definitely a place to return to, whenever those nasi padang pangs strike.