Nasi Kandar Beratur - Penang

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.

Their target? Nasi Kandar Beratur, which has been pulling in the crowds with its delicious take on this popular Penang dish 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Source: HungryGoWhere