KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 2 — Happy New Year! It’s the start of a new year, and once again, it is easy to feel tempted, almost pressured into “watching” your weight, fixating on numbers like calories and grams of protein instead of the only thing that should matter when eating: am I enjoying this?

It’s no longer just your nosy relatives telling you that you’ve put on a couple of pounds. 

It’s also that oafish guy you went to school with who’s started a diet of only meat and offal and won’t shut up about testosterone, and that anorexic content creator who intersperses 50 pictures of her at the gym with increasingly depressing bowls of yoghurt and berries. 

We’ve replaced enjoyment with guilt, and outsourced it to our social media feeds.

This year, I urge you to reject that line of thinking and embrace the satisfaction of a plate of nasi dalca — Penang’s “other” rice dish after nasi kandar. 

A plate typically combines the hearty comfort of rice cooked in dalca, a lentil-based stew of Indian origin beloved by Malaysians, with deep, rich stews of chicken, beef, and sometimes lamb, replete with warm, earthy spices like cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon.

In Kuala Lumpur, a plate like that can be found at Mamu Signature in Plaza Damas. Opened in June last year, it is located in Block G, across from Rakuzen and next to a Mail Boxes Etc. outpost. 

The selection of main dishes at Mamu is short and sweet. The signature dish is ayam bawang: large pieces of chicken fried, then cooked down in a thick, sweet-savoury sauce, perfumed liberally with fried onions. 

The other poultry option is ayam Tanjung, a spicier preparation with more chillies and fewer onions. 

Either ayam set, complete with rice, kuah dalca and acar timun, is RM16, but if you fancy getting an extra piece of chicken on the side — take that, protein hawks — it’s RM10.

Daging and kambing often sell out quickly, but there was still some daging on our visit. 

Fork-tender hunks of beef sit in a dark, almost chocolatey sauce bolstered with cloves, star anise, cardamom and cinnamon, creating a warm, complex depth of flavour, characterised by intense fragrance. 

A daging set is RM18, but whichever protein you choose, you’re in for a real treat. 

Between the fluffy rice, creamy dalca, punchy acar timun and either sweet-savoury ayam bawang or rich, intense daging, it’s an extremely satisfying plate — one you should enjoy without any guilt.

P.S. If you’re a real glutton like me, there is a stall set up beside Mamu Signature selling classic snacks such as pisang goreng and kuih keria, best enjoyed as a post–nasi dalca digestif.

Mamu Signature

G-012, Plaza Damas, 

Jalan Sri Hartamas 1, 

Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur.

Open Monday to Saturday, 11am-5.30pm

Tel: 017-604 2472

Instagram: @mamusignature.plazadamas

* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.

* Follow us on Instagram @eatdrinkmm for more food gems.

* Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more musings on food and occasionally self-deprecating humour.