PETALING JAYA, Oct 4 — What is the function of a restaurant? Plainly, it is a business that serves food and beverages to customers.
But beyond the commercial and financial incentives behind any business, restaurants are unique in how widely they vary: from bare-bones operations where the relationship between customer and business is purely transactional, like a fast-food outlet, to high-concept, luxury establishments where dessert comes with a side of discourse, and then the bill.
Restaurants often serve more than one purpose, though.
The oldest, and perhaps most essential, can be gleaned from the word itself, taken from the French restaurer, “to restore”.
Restaurants feed us in a physical sense, yes, but they also nourish us, and those that become pillars of their communities nurture the public at large.
Asian Rice Pot Restaurant, a South Indian eatery in Kelana Jaya, struck me as exactly such a pillar on a recent visit.
It has stood on the same quiet row of shops beside Wisma FAM since 2006, and it looks every bit its 20 years: cosy and charmingly dated.
I arrived at 10am on a weekday, when most diners were at least twice my age, sipping Bru coffee or masala chai as they waited.
With the body language of a helpless newcomer, I moseyed around the room, scanning trays of curry, dal and varuval, letting my nose guide me as much as my eyes.
Eventually, a staff member noticed my aimless wandering and correctly deduced that I did not know the drill.
Everyone else was seated, he explained, waiting for the rice and big-ticket items like mutton to come out, which would take about half an hour.
He gestured me to a table and asked me to order a drink first.
Pots and trays kept flying out of the kitchen as the clock ticked towards the half-hour mark.
Then the rest of the restaurant began shuffling over to form a queue at the starting point: large pots of white and brown rice, and massive clay pots of chicken, mutton, crab, fish and vegetable curry.
The next station held the non-vegetarian dishes, such as egg masala, fried chicken, prawn sambal and mutton varuval, followed by the equally bountiful vegetarian station.
I sat down with a plate of rice laden with fish curry, prawn sambal, chicken liver curry and keerai (spinach and lentil) curry (RM16.80).
The prawns, firm and meaty, slipped out of their shells with ease, and the sambal packed heat with a surprising aromatic sweetness from a shedload of fried onions.
The livers were creamy and coated in a rich, addictive gravy, though after the third piece the metallic notes began to compound, as expected.
This is where the keerai stepped up: spinach and lentils came together in a mild, mellow curry that took all that robust heat and tempered it.
To that I added a portion of mutton varuval (RM20), which seemed steep at first glance until I realised it was completely boneless.
Mutton is usually the priciest item at a restaurant like this, and I tend to feel slightly swindled when more than half the plate is bone.
This was the opposite. Each bite of bouncy mutton was doubly satisfying, and the thick masala clinging to each cube was boldly spiced, nutty and evocative of caramelised toast.
Nobody else in the room needed to be told when the rice was ready. Every one of them was recognised by the staff, and I stood out not because I was a young Chinese guy, but because I had clearly never been there before.
It didn’t matter; I was welcomed all the same.
Avilin Rose opened the restaurant about 20 years ago, her son told me over text afterwards.
They call it a family business because they all grew up in it, and because of the relationships they have built with their customers, many of whom are families themselves.
“When Mum opened this place, this row was much quieter,” he said. “Much has changed since.”
Restaurer, then.
Asian Rice Pot has been around long enough to be more than just somewhere to eat; it is a dining room where family is celebrated, and lives are lived.
The diners twice my age certainly aren’t there for the novelty. They are there because, 20 years on, this is still where they come to be fed.
Asian Rice Pot Restaurant
11, Jalan SS 5A/11,
SS 3, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor.
Open daily, 7.30am – 9pm
Tel: 03-7874 6911
Facebook: Asian Rice Pot
Instagram: @asianricepot
* 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 curry-and-rice stories.
