• A tale of two nasis

    An old friend of mine, when asked where he wanted to go for dinner, used to reply, "I know this lovely little Irish restaurant just down the street." The establishment in question, of course, is neither lovely, little, nor Irish (and it is only just barely a restaurant). It is predictable and convenient: a known quantity. I happen to live in the vicinity of an actual lovely little Irish restaurant; nobody would ever confuse the two. But what if the relationship between a chain restaurant and an individual one were closer?

    I thought of this last night over dinner at Malaysia Kopitiam, a Mom-and-Pop restaurant that has been churning out first-rate Malaysian fare for a good decade or so, and now finds itself just around the corner from an outpost of a growing chain of Malaysian restaurants. The relationship between Penang and MK is a good deal more intimate than one between, say, a neighbourhood Italian restaurant and Olive Garden (or, needless to say, between the two LLIRs above), both because Malaysian food is less familiar to Americans than Italian, and because, iconographically, a "neighbourhood Malaysian" does not exist in the same way as a "neighbourhood Italian."

    That having been said, though, the differences between the two restaurants is vast. Walking past Penang, I saw a gaggle of suit-wearing westerners on cell phones outside, and I imagine the crowd inside was much the same, if only because it has been at the Soho branch, where I have eaten twice. Penang presents itself as a "fun" restaurant with "fun" drinks and a "lively" atmosphere. Outside MK, by contrast, were a pair of east Asian men smoking furiously. A burnished wood, faux-rustic archway tops Penang's door; a tattered red awning hangs over MK's. At Penang a broad staircase leads up to the restaurant; MK's stairs lead down, into a rather dreary, linoleum-floored basement space with Formica tabletop and red naugahyde banquettes. Penang's bar offers (or at least it did offer, when I was last there) an array of flavoured martinis. At MK I was brought a glass of gin on the rocks.

    The real difference, though, was in the eating. All four of the dishes my companion and I ordered had the messiness and savour of homemade food. Filling spilled out of the lobak, but it was the single best example of this dish I have ever had. The stuffed lotus root did not quite hold together, but it was none the worse for it. Admittedly, it is hard to go wrong with nasi lemak, but it is equally hard to go noticeably right, and MK did: the chicken for the curry was obviously cut by hand rather than a machine (and it was made from dark meat, rather than the cheaper and less flavourful white meat), the pickles had the soft fizz of home fermentation, and the fried shallots on top had real spark.

    Penang's food, in my experience, emphasises sweetness, and this is hardly surprising: it is an easy taste to like, and can cover up a multitude of sins. MK's exhibited the breadth and balance that makes Malaysian food endlessly interesting. Leslie and Penny Phoon, MK's owners, do great work: I was glad to see them doing great business (on a Tuesday, no less) as well.


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