Every night from 10.00pm, a huge crowd of hungry, nasi
kandar-craving people start gathering in front of an old, unassuming
shop right next to Masjid Kapitan Keling.
All these people are lining up for Nasi Kandar Beratur!
Their target? Nasi Kandar Beratur, which has been pulling in the crowds with its delicious take on this popular Penang dish since 1943.
Nasi Kandar Beratur - successfully making Malaysians queue up since 1943
As its name suggests, there is almost always a queue at the stall. Our
visit there at 10.30pm on a weekday was no different - the long line
drew a lot of curious looks; some people in passing cars even took
photos. If you want to skip the queue, either come half an hour before
the shop opens, or come at midnight when the queue is considerably
shorter.
We ended up waiting for an hour, but we felt the queue
moved up pretty quickly. The stall thankfully also has a sizeable number
of chairs and tables, so we easily found an empty table to sit down and
enjoy our grub after our long wait.
Nasi Kandar Beratur has an
extensive selection of dishes, ranging from fried chicken, beef kurma to
squid curry. Each piece of chicken is RM5 while the fish is RM3.50 per
piece. Our first choice was ayam ros, and was it ever a good choice! The
gravy was savoury and had a rich balance of sweetness, saltiness, and
sourness. Within minutes, we devoured the chicken until all that was
left were bones.
An ayam ros a day keeps you happy the whole day
The kurma daging (beef kurma, RM3) was really soft and fork tender, and
its flavourful kurma gravy was a match made in food heaven. But that
bliss was cut short when we were let down by the fried fish (RM3.50). It
was really oily, like it was soaked in oil for too long.
The fish was incredibly oily, so just stick to the chickens
The fried chicken was not great as well. I felt it was deep-fried for a
wee bit too long and the meat turned out too hard and chewy.
Their fried chicken was a bit tough to chew on
However, the best dish of the night went to the common-looking and
unassuming telur dadar (omelette, RM1)! The great combination of
saltiness and robust flavours was unexpectedly delicious, and it
deserved to win the most delicious title, beating out the variety of
chicken and fish dishes.
The surprise winner for the best dish of the night - the humble omelette!
Afterwards, down your mountain of nasi kandar with refreshing iced cold
drinks like iced Milo (RM2), teh ais (RM1.50), and teh O ais (RM1.50).
All
in all, the omelette and beef kurma was worth the long wait and I would
not mind queueing up to eat them again, but everything else were rather
common, and lacked the ‘oomph’. If you’re headed to the stall, bear in
mind that the same stall has two different managements: the Nasi Kandar
Beratur starts at 10.00pm until early morning, while another team
operates the stall during the day. We’ve never tried the daytime
version, so do let us know how it fares if you do.
Recommended dishes: omelette, beef kurma
Give it a skip: fried egg and fried chicken
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