The main stall sign says “Nasi Padang” yet not an item from that dish is offered. They peddle a motley crew of dishes like fried chicken wings, stir fried greens, fish cake, fried fish, eggs but not a shard of rendang and telor dadah is in sight. There is nothing on the stall front that gives any hint of what they are selling save for a homemade paper sign that says “lontong, self service”. Even so, the ubiquitous pot of lontong vegetables and tofu with serondeng (spicy grated coconut) in lemak, synonymous with lontong hawkers, is not visible. To the uninitiated, and in short, you have no idea what they are selling.

The pleasure of being seduced by the sensation of the dish

Yet, there is a gentle stream of customers filing in every other minute who seem to know what exactly they want. They point at the fried chicken wings, the crispy ikan kuning and ikan bilis and eggs. Then a banana leaf of lemak coconut rice is set upon with all those ingredients before they slap a big dollop of their seducing sambal chilli. Still, I looked around for signs until boss Mr Sulaiman Abu points to a large banner up on a wall across and facing their stall that screams “Nasi Lemak”. Suddenly the other ingredients sitting around and flying off the shelf quite quickly, made sense, especially the sambal petai (sambal stink beans) and sambal sotong (cuttlefish). This is one old fashioned nasi lemak shrine. “It has always been this same few dishes we offer with nasi lemak, since my grandmother’s days.”, and Mr Sulaiman pauses to recall “but the fried chicken wing- my mother introduced in the seventies.”

Nasi lemak, in another form has its origins in Indonesia and is very popular in Malaysia and Singapore. In its good-ol-days form, it came simply with coconut rice, sambal chilli, a boiled egg, cucumber slices and ikan bilis or fried ikan tamban (baby herring).But the fried chicken wing topping part escapes me. How and when did it appear in our nasi lemak? It is not a common topping, even in Malaysia. I suspect it is some hybrid of the Indonesian Nasi Uduk (coconut rice with fried chicken, eel or duck with raw salad).

Balancing needs: Mr Sulaiman and his wife Noraini gave up selling nasi padang in the afternoons to spend more time with their family

“My wife and I decided to stop selling nasi padang after the Ramadan break” and before I can hazard a guess about just how well they must be doing to be able to afford such decisions, Mr Sulaiman enlightens, “One of my sons already PSLE age and it is crucial for us to spend more time with him and the family.” So each day, they wrap up by about 1pm, prepare some stuff for the next day, and they head home to cook and nurse the kids. Very noble, very humble. Until you realize their nasi lemak is not quite so.

The rice is done nicely rich with coconut milk, which comes in big bags in two styrofoam containers. It is not done diluted and laced with a hint of chicken stock, like how many stalls do today to cater to the “new generation’s requests and their kiasu health concerns.” It is simply rich and softly firm which comes from the use of Jasmine fragrant grains. My portion has the full blown works- sambal petai and sotong, fried chicken, ikan kuning, fried egg, ikan bilis, cucumbers and lots of sambal, which comes sweet, spicy, sourish and lemak all at once. They use a smaller petai which has less “stink” and softer to the bite and I am a sucker for sambal petai with ikan bilis in nasi lemak which I thoroughly enjoy with the soft spicy sotong. The fresh, hot and crispy fried chicken, done with visibly less batter was, to me, insignificant, but it was not shabby either. The ikan kuning, or at least the piece I had from the stack, was crispy to the tail bone. Addictive. Tamarind is commonly introduced to the sambal but often, too much is used and it mars the overall “lemak” sensation of the dish. But here, just a polite amount is introduced.

If you’ve had the pleasure of being seduced by the sensation of the nasi lemak mentioned above, then you’ll understand why the need of a “nasi lemak”sign at the stall is redundant. Your senses automatically take over and hone in. But do detect it early, they close each day by lunch time.