Zion Road is now better known for Great World City and Zouk
Discotheque, but the Nasi Padang here could well be the next thing that will make it
famous! This joint, situated on the non-Zouk side of Great World City in a row of
shophouses right next to the Zion Road hawker centre (which incidentally is supposed to
host a good char kway teow stall though I haven't yet checked it out).
This is probably one of the cleanest Nasi Padang places I've seen, everything is new
and renovated, and tables are CLEAN, NON-GREASY, chairs are NEW, and NOBODY PAID ME A CENT
TO SAY THIS! That's a BIG plus!
Next, the food. We jumped right into ordering, and got the classic dishes
(according to Yee Sze) of Nasi Padang : The fried chicken, beef
rendang and fried fish. Other stuff we checked out were the fried potatoes, sotong,
fried eggs, achar, restrooms and the framed newspaper cuttings on the walls.
Ashamedly, we had forgotten to look at the signs which said "Self Service"
and sat down while they politely reminded us of that as they brought our food. Maybe
it's because they were free, but I wouldn't advise it when they're coping with a lunch
crowd. We had great things to say about the rendang, the chicken was a little dry
for my liking but the sotong was very tasty and the sambal chili was hot, spicy and great
tasting!
Within minutes of our arriving early at about 11:30, the place started packing in the
crowd. Most people at neighbouring tables (I inherited this bad habit of checking
out what other people are eating from my dad...) had the chicken and I started wondering
if my piece of chicken was exceptionally dry. The others all disagreed with me and
thought the chicken was pretty good.
Only about halfway through the meal, we realized we had ordered too much! That's
a little surprising for four guys! So after stuffing ourselves silly, we stumbled
out of the place. The bill had come up to almost $25 and we were all a little
unhappy with the pricing, but what price palatal satisfaction?
- Yuen Ho
