PETALING JAYA, June 19 — Nasi Lemak Pak Man is the latest contender to enter Damansara Utama’s nasi lemak scene, throwing their hat into the ring with the likes of Village Park, Say Yes Cafe, a branch of Tanglin and many other roadside stalls in the area.
The scene is a hotly contested one: on weekday mornings, it is not uncommon to see groups of working folks gathering around car boots and makeshift stalls to grab breakfast before heading into the office; on weekends, the line at Village Park stretches around the block, filled with people for whom our national dish starts and ends with only that shop.
It’s not hard to see why the ground is so fiercely contested: there really isn’t a single dish more universal in its availability than nasi lemak, and its appeal is just as universal, and more importantly, timeless.
It’s no viral fad, and although we’ve subjected it to some pretty horrific acts in the name of social media gimmicks, at its core, it is still our beloved national dish.
I, admittedly, am not joining that queue anytime soon — the last time I frequented Damansara Utama for nasi lemak regularly was more than a decade ago, when my family used to buy it from a lovely couple who would set up in front of the dim sum restaurant a few doors away from Village Park.
Now, they are long gone; the dim sum restaurant has become a smartphone repair shop, and I still haven’t found a rendang ayam like theirs. It was my favourite.
The arrival of Pak Man may change things.
It is the brainchild of the same people behind Padangs on Wheels, who opened the first Pak Man outlet last October just down the road from their Padangs on Wheels location in Shah Alam.
In Damansara Utama, it has taken up residence in the same shop on Jalan SS 21/62, which is now home to both concepts.
The draw here? Nasi lemak is available all day (almost — from seven in the morning to midnight), every day.
You order at the counter where all the lauk is displayed, and when I visited just after nine in the morning — too late for the stalls or car boot sellers — everything was available, from the usual suspects like fried chicken and sambal sotong to specialities like rendang limpa (spleen), but it was the rendang ayam (RM6) and sambal paru (RM5) that caught my eye.
I topped it up with a begedil (RM2.30) for good measure, though I needn’t have.
It was probably too much food for that early in the morning, and the begedil itself was a bit too dense and stodgy for my liking.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the nasi lemak biasa (RM5.50) and all its components, from the rice — not the fluffiest, but rich and full of coconut milk — to the sambal, which leans on the savoury-sweet side, with just a touch of heat.
The highlights were the two lauk: the rendang ayam, which had an appropriately chunky, “dry”, and very aromatic paste with lots of lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf, and the standout sambal paru, which spattered around the plate like salty and spicy pebbles.
Any trace of unpleasant rubbery or grainy texture has been fried out of the pieces of lung, rendering them light and crispy, but not greasy.
If Pak Man can maintain these standards — and more pressingly, these prices — it has every chance of succeeding, though this industry is never cut and dried.
These days, getting a plate of nasi lemak I actually want to eat usually means a trip out to Kampung Baru. If Pak Man can keep this up, I may finally have a reason to stop driving so far for breakfast.
Nasi Lemak Pak Man
92G, Jalan SS 21/62,
Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya.
Open daily, 7am-12am
Tel: 011-1903 7672
Instagram: @nasilemak.pakman
* 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.
