today is going to be a super exciting video and to film it we're back in Panmure we filmed
4 videos here a massive series because there is so much good food on this one
street and today we are showing a super special restaurant
we are so pumped to share Nasi Kandar Pulau Pinang a restaurant serving one of malaysia's most
popular meals, nasi kandar and this is the only place in new zealand that you can experience it
Chef Joe Singam was a car salesman who was made redundant so he and his
wife Alex decided to set up a night market stall to share nasi kandar with kiwi palates
it's since turned into a restaurant and people have gone nuts for their food
at Nasi Kandar Pulau Pinang what our main goal is
is to give you the same experience as in malaysia
so we try to be as close as possible to to malaysia like yea
so no changing much and to the taste and stuff like that but we also use a lot of new zealand produce with our food
nasi kandar can be found all over malaysia it originated in penang and was popularised
by tamil muslim traders it is a plate of pure deliciousness and this is the only place in new
zealand that you can get it
uh what nasi kandar is is pretty much a a plate of rice
with three or four different uh curries on it and yeah you can choose how much meat you want on it
seafood you want on it's all in one plate
so yeah it's just a messy plate of goodness pretty much
Chef Joe and Alex want their diners to experience true malaysian cuisine so while nasi kandar is their
signature dish on the menu they also have a whole host of other malaysian classics so
you'll recognise nasi lemak, ayam goreng or fried chicken which is bubbling away in this
fry pan right next to me all sorts of delicious foods and what i love about
this place is that everything is made in-house all the spice pastes the spice mixes all made
in-house fresh
uh this is makes our ultimate goat curry you gotta try it yeah
ultimate goat curry woo hoo
we cook it for four hours pretty much yeah
so a load of like spices
actually everyone has something they like here you know there's something for everyone
there's someone for everyone yeah this goat like i showed you you know it was a whole goat one day
goat on the bone?
yes goat on the bone because bone tastes much much better
yep that's where all the the flavour is yeah
we also have uh our satay so we use like the real exact way how satay is made we use
proper charcoal and you know cook it like with the proper spices
satay over charcoal it doesn't get any better than that it smells so good look at that wow
so as traditional in malaysia satay's cooked over charcoal
hard to find satay cooked over charcoal here in new zealand but this is the place wow
how many dishes do we have on the go Chef Joe?
uh we got about five six seven eight about nine dishes
because nasi kandar is all about you know pigging out pretty much yeah
the smells in this kitchen are insane every dish looks so vibrant what's neat is that these recipes are inspired by
Chef Joe and Alex's family recipes they collaborate together put together these flavours
oh man
yeah i was a salesman at holden then i got made redundant and yeah
so then we used to go to the night markets a lot and try the food over there and we thought like hey you know what if we have
if we try nasi kandar over here it might actually work
and yeah it was a very sudden decision like we didn't think of it like too much and when we agreed upon
hey i think this is a good idea which took like an hour i think we just set in motion and in two weeks
we opened in the night markets
and then once we started the night markets
it went quite well a lot of people like you know knew us and then the journalists came
and whatnot and then covered the story and then we had a line and yeah it was you know really good
and it was catching up and then we thought that you know find a place where it's much easier you
can cook there serve customers so then we found this place, this restaurant in Panmure and
it was pretty hard because you know we had very little uh capital
very little very very little
so whatever that we had from the night markets you just rolled it and rolled it and
yeah it was mission impossible i don't even know how we pulled it off
to tell you the truth yeah
this is our speciality everyone loves it it's beef brisket cooked in so many spices
and yeah it's it's amazing
it looks incredible so this is the start of the nasi kandar feast
the base of it is this pile of rice and then you have a bunch of side dishes and curries
that go with it
no one actually makes this food in new zealand
and that's actually what i love to eat you know so i thought you know why not
so that is and when i started cooking malaysian food i could see the passion like we have a different sort of passion
like we work like what 70 hours a week and it's still okay with us you know what i mean
so yeah so cooking malaysian food is
it's really good yeah
it's what makes you happy?
it's what makes us happy yeah
oh my goodness look at this feast so we've got the nasi kandar the rice which is the basis of
this meal and then all of the side dishes we've got grilled fish, satay, nasi lemak
chicken rendang, beef rendang goat curry there's some aubergine there's sambal squid there's fried
chicken, there's prawns we are in for a treat
wow look at this spread of food just a crazy amount of colour and vibrancy in it all
everything this restaurant does they do right so it's all homemade stuff it's all full of you know little things
like these fried curry leaves just give it that little crunch that pop of flavour
and just look at it
satay how you should start every good meal
that chicken satay being cooked over the charcoal is the sort of thing that draws us
to this restaurant it's special you know that's that's not a normal thing to to be done here
in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and the fact that's done properly is done like you're in malaysia and
the taste is like you're in malaysia what a spread of food
this is the base of nasi kandar the rice but it's not just rice
there's coconut sambal, cabbage thoran, dal, eggplant there's an egg sambal some okra on the top of the rice
a tonne of gravy and then you've got all of these sides that accompany your rice
i'm gonna go dive right into this goat curry get a bit of that
holy moly that is good packed with flavour so much texture the goat super tender
loads of flavour the gravies are just a riot of deliciousness this is such great food Thomas
and I have traveled around malaysia for about a year filming we've eaten a lot of nasi kandar and
this nasi kandar is right up the top of the list for me i just love it it is beautiful
fried chicken is my thing and this fried chicken is epic crispy crunchy succulent i am so
happy right now
the food is sensational but the story is awesome
you've got two people excited and enthusiastic about bringing traditional malaysian flavours to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
i mean this is the only place in new zealand that you can eat nasi kandar and that's pretty crazy in itself
from a tiny market stall to a restaurant serving this kind of food this is special you have got to get here
you have got to eat this food we really hope you enjoyed this one
thank you for watching plenty more content like this to come get here eat this nasi kandar
that's what this restaurant is about it's like a family and we're opening up the place for people to come in
and you can see it's a bit cozy and yeah it's all about shouting at each other hey bro how are ya