Mamak

After hearing much yak about Mamak, I finally decided to give the popular restaurant a try today. Mamak originates in Sydney (majority of places seem to originate in Sydney, but let's be honest... Melbourne is the better city) and graced our city streets in September of this year. The business merely started off to as a Friday night hobby amongst three friends, selling Malaysian goodness at a Chinatown market stall in Sydney. What a tremendous turnout this has led to! The menu is not comparable to Pappa Rich, which has pages and pages of Malaysian food. Mamak has a short and simple red menu, but as quoted by the Broadsheet website, "What Mamak’s menu lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality". 

As soon as we walked into this unknown territory, I was immediately greeted by young waitresses that led me to my table. The restaurant has wooden stools along the wall for patrons who come in two. They are extremely uncomfortable, but I guess it is all a part of their "street food" style. You will have nothing to worry about if you have good posture... something I do not possess. The playlist was loud, but I could still hear my own conversation which was pleasant. As I walked in, Two Door Cinema Club was playing, followed by Kimbra, then La Roux, and had Gym Class Heroes as we walked out. Talk about hipstterrrr music! The waiters were congenial, which is rare in Asian restaurants. The service was fast and the interior was extremely neat and clean.

^ ROTI Canai !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

This beauty is priced at a mere $5.50!!! Let me tell you with delight that the roti (pictured above) was light, fluffy and extremely delectable! I don't know what each of the three sauces are... but the one in the top right corner is extremely spicy! Hoooo boy! Pappa Rich also does roti, but it is flat and served cold. Mamak's roti was more like pull apart bread, feels warm and begs you for more.

^ Teh Tarik, Hot beverage.

This is a well known Malaysian drink. Small, sweet and soul soothing. When I went to the Malaysian Festival at the Queen Victoria Market, Chili Padi actually sold teh terik in BAGS! Very authentic and creative. I thoroughly enjoyed drinking out of a bag that I wore around my wrist. More information about that day here.

^Rojak - Malaysian Style Salad

When I go to a restaurant for the first time, I always order a safe option. I look at the contents of the meal, and try to find something that I like, for example: chicken. Chicken is secure, and I love chicken and it's delicious properties. For some reason, I did not feel like a rice main dish today. Mamak has an entire list of lunch specials in a leaflet for only $11 each. Instead, I opted for this salad, and I can tell you now that I did not enjoy it one bit. It was bland, and half the time I didn't even know what I was eating. There was half a hard boiled egg, a piece of tofu, and the rest of the contents unknown. I do remember reading the menu, and it said something along the lines of deep friend coconut and yam... with cucumber as you can obviously see. The taste of the peanut sauce was unappealing, and was surprisingly bland. I tried adding the dipping sauce from the skewers into the salad, but the vile taste would not go away. I always HATE leaving a restaurant without finishing my entire meal, as I think about people, especially children, in third world countries who are not even fortunate enough to enjoy a meal as lavish as what I have eaten. But unfortunately, I had to look past my values for once and turn a blind eye to my food. What a waste of $14! Do not order this, unless you really really really really really like salad!!!

An open image of the salad tower... unappealing, I KNOW.

SKEWERS! Chicken and Beef because we wanted to try both.

Judging from the picture, you can see that the meat content on the skewers is extremely small. When I went to the Malaysian Festival, they were a bit more generous with the portions. We couldn't really decide on chicken or beef so we asked for a dozen of the mixed, seeing as though 6 would not be enough for our hungry stomachs. I really liked the beef skewers, but Giraffe preferred the chicken. It was a win win situation for the both of us. The bowl of dipping sauce was ample enough to drown our skewers in, but there was too much of it. They could definitely reduce the size of the bowl and consequently, have less waste. Despite these criticisms, they were DELICIOUS and you NEED to order them if you ever go to Mamak.

Sippin on some teh. 

P.S. Do you guys like the new layout? I know I am constantly changing and changing it, but I am rather content with this one. I'm in the midst of swotvac right now, my first exam being tomorrow, so when they conclude I will put more TLC into this blog. Any suggestions of where I should dine after exams as a post shitxam celebration? I finish on Nov 16th, and that night will be the best day of my life.  Until next time, 

xoxo

Mamak

Address: 366 Londsdale Street Melbourne

Elizabeth Street side of CBD

Contact: 9670 3137

Hours: Everyday 11:30 - 2:30pm, and 5:30pm - 10pm

Price Range: $$$

Malaysian Festival, 2012

Asia is the WORLD'S LARGEST CONTINENT, yet I have only been grateful enough to visit Vietnam on several occasions, and a stopover at Taipei on our trip to America. There are so many things in this world that I am yet to discover, to see, to breathe, to eat... I can only dream and suffer from wanderlust. Today my dream came true at the Malaysian Festival, held at the Queen Victoria Market. Thank you C and N for letting me know of the event, or else I would have spent my Sunday at home, doing nothing. 

The festival consisted of two long rows of back to back FOOD AND BEVERAGES, it was Asian heaven for me. There was the popular Korean potato stick stand, a coconut and lemonade stand, a Chilli Padi stand and various other small businesses. The satay skewers stand had the longest line throughout the day, with people waiting for hoursssssss to see what the fuss was about. I drove into the city (silly me), and it was horrendous trying to find parking at QVM. It was worth the travel, because I had such a marvellous time. The weather was hot like a sunrise, and it felt as though my face was about to burn off. Everyone was in such a pleasant mood, a sight I was happy to see. This was my first time at a Malaysian Festival, and it only made me want to visit the beautiful country even more.

Welcome to Festival Malaysia:

^ Amazing artists. 

They sang "Someone Like You" by Adele with a reggae spin to it. Eargasm!

^ The satay skewer owners/workers working hard. 

Chris and Nhat were waiting in this line for what seemed like hours. This was the first of our eating adventures of the day, and it was well worth the wait. The poor girl who took our order at 2pm said she had been working since 9am and hadn't been on her break or gotten a chance to even eat! Hope the day was worth it for her :)

$10 for a set of 10 halal satay skewers. 

It came with a semi-chili dipping sauce, cucumber and rice cakes

Beef > Chicken

^ loco for coconuts. $6 each.

If you took it back to the place where we bought them, the owners would chop the top off so you can eat the coconut inside :) summer is coming!!!

^ BABY OCTOPUS, three skewers for $15 

There were five octopi? Octopus? (Is there a plural for Octopus?) on a stick, but I only managed to eat three. I usually love seafood, but they prepared it in a way that was too strong for me. The carrots were a good way to reduce the smell and taste. It's pretty obviously that I love seafood! There was even a MUSSEL VAN that had the roof that was the shape of a MUSSEL. It was a pretty big bowl for $10. I had some last night at my sister's house, so I didn't really want to eat it. Another stall had squid or octopus fish balls for $5 a stick, but considering I had so much food in my stomach already, I had to pass. If the festival went into the night time, I would have eaten it for dinner for sure!!! Unfortunately it was 9am-4pm, today only :(

^ KOREAN POTATO STICKS - $5 each

We ordered a chicken salt, plain salt and pepper stick. I could feel my arteries clogging up with every bite I took. It's pretty much a potato, thinly sliced, fried with seasoning salt on top. It's very popular with the tourists at the Suzuki Night Market.

Potato sticks and TEA IN A BAG.

YES. IN. A. BAG.

Teh Peng (iced milk tea in a bag) $3.50 each

ICE KACANG was pretty much a bowl of ice with three syrups on it for $5 each

I didn't get the kacang but a lot of people seemed to order it.

^ So many OH&S breaches with this stand (Chilli Padi) but it had an authentic street hawker food feel to it. The lady poured our tea from a plastic box to a bag and I felt like I was in Vietnam all over again. In VN they sell sugar cane drinks in a big bags for less than a dollar. God bless the Asians. I wish I was an event planner. My first major action would be to organise a permanent night market for entrepreneurs in the food / fashion / design / music department.
Melbourne can be so boring sometimes, I do not know how we were voted the most liveable city...

^ Three milk tea bags and three bags of PANDAN CHIFFON CAKE

^ Pandan Chiffon Cake we bought as they were closing up.

It was $2 down to $1 so we bought two, and they guy gave me one for freeeeeeee :)

thank you kind stranger.

^ Last but not least, dessert. THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR DESSERT.

Dutch pancakes, Poffertjes. $9 with jam and ice-cream.

The tram stop is always at Vic Market every weekend. It was just a bonus that it was at the Malaysian Festival because we were running around looking for dessert that didn't consist of jelly or jelly cake or jelly drink... We were about to order two plates for the three of us, but luckily we didn't because we could barely finish this one!

 ^ Great turn out. Great company. Great weather. Great food.