What it isn’t…

I went and googled and these were what I got – a mamak is a person of Indian Muslim origin or descent living in Malaysia or Singapore or a street stall or restaurant selling Indian Muslim food.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to see them renovating this place…

…here and as soon as it had its soft opening, I wasted no time in making my way there to see what they had in store.

It is a nice and simple place…

…void of much decor or ambiance but it’s pleasant and clean enough. There are tables outside too so one can choose to dine al fresco if so desired.

When one talks about mamak makan places, what immediately comes to mind would be those mamak or Indian nasi kandar restaurants that I love so much. There will be a whole lot of Indian delights to pick and choose such as nasi biryani, tandoori chicken, banana leaf, all the rotis and so on and so forth so of course, I had my hopes up high and was looking forward to ordering and enjoying these at this new place in town.

Unfortunately, the only thing mamak on their menu is in the name of this mee mamak (RM8.90)…

…that my missus ordered. When it was served, we thought it looked really good but sadly, it did not taste great. She would order mee mamak at many places she went to with a special request for it to be extra spicy and I never heard her complain, not even once. This was the first time ever so obviously it failed to impress her one bit!

We had a bit of a problem with the waiter taking our orders – he did not know whether the “rice noodles” mentioned in the menu was bihun and he did not even have the initiative to go and ask somebody, the chef perhaps but at least, he could tell us it wasn’t kway teow as there was another section in the menu with all the flat rice noodle dishes.

My girl asked for the sambal rice noodles (RM10.90)…

…and just like the mum, she was quite disappointed with it. She made a remark that the chef probably forgot to add any salt as it was quite tasteless and no, despite the name, she could not detect whatever sambal it was that went into the dish.

Now, if you are thinking that there is nothing so far to qualify this place as a mamak or nasi kandar restaurant, you are absolutely right!!! The name that got our expectations up so high was absolutely misleading as it was more a Malay eatery, not a mamak or an Indian one. Other than the noodles, I was left with a choice between their ayam penyet or their nasi lemak.

I picked the lalapan ayam penyet special (RM19.90)…

…which came with this piece of chicken thigh…

…that looked more like ayam berempah than one that had been clobbered till penyet.

To give credit where credit is due, it tasted great – I must say that it was nice and yes, I loved the chicken rice that came with it and also, the two sticks of chicken satay…

Those were good too!

I also liked how they blanched or boiled the cabbage and long beans first and I enjoyed the two types of sambal…

…that they would give you for the special. Between the two, I preferred the one at the top that was less dry compared to the other one. There was probably more calamansi lime juice and sugar in it so it was sweet and sour, making it nicer than the other.

All in all, I must say that I was quite happy with what I had even though it was somewhat expensive compared to the ayam penyet elsewhere, many of which can be just as nice or even a lot nicer without having to feel the pinch!

The ladies ordered a HUGE tumbler of iced honey lemon tea each (RM10.90) which was somewhat diluted – there wasn’t much of the honey nor the lime taste in it and much to our surprise, THIS…

…was served to the three of us on the house! However, only one spoon was provided and we were supposed to share that! Tsk! Tsk! Ah well!!! It did not matter one bit as it was not nice at all – very strong on the rose syrup taste, not lemak (probably from the use of milk, not santan) and so very sweet! I just had a sip to try and that was it!

I did hear somebody saying that they are very new, still testing the water so hopefully, in time to come, they will be able to get a good mamak chef to dish out all those delightful mamak delights that I sure would want to come back to enjoy. As it is, I think we are much better off going some place else that are cheaper and also, nicer!

MAMAK CORNER (2.307165, 111.837312) is located at one corner of the Rejang Park shops/commercial centre in that residential area, beside the volleyball stadium and the surau, facing the vast parking area there