NEAR THE FAR end of Tomas Morato Avenue in Quezon City, a new restaurant has been quietly luring diners these past seven months with its authentic Asian cuisine. This is Nasi Lemak, a small cozy restaurant just across the big McDonald’s outlet with French fries on its roof.
There’s a queue at lunch and dinner on weekends, and during weekdays at peak hours, the restaurant gets almost full too. And it’s all due to word of mouth, as satisfied customers rave about the tasty dishes, mostly Singaporean, at reasonable prices.
Restaurant consultant H.K. Tan, a Singaporean, says they are very particular about the quality of the food they serve, to the point of being paranoid. “We import ingredients to be assured of consistent quality,” he says. They also don’t scrimp on the ingredients to be used in the dishes so as to give customers the real deal.
But it’s a true blue Filipina, Cora Lelina, who owns the business with her family. Cora worked in Singapore for 20 years as personal assistant to a paper industry executive. In the course of her work, she would travel to many countries with her boss, exposing her to a lot of cuisine.
Since she was based in Singapore, Cora developed a taste for Asian food, and can cook it well. In the end, when her boss passed away last year, Cora decided to come back home to the Philippines. “I have been abroad for half of my life. I went back here to try life here,” she says. And since she has long planned to have a business, Cora invested in the food business in the Philippines upon the advice of her longtime friend, H.K. Tan.
Tan has been coming to the Philippines for business for the past 10 to 15 years. He noted that there are many Spanish and Italian restaurants here already. As for Chinese restaurants, most of them use vetsin which isn’t really healthy. This is why he advised Cora to go for Singaporean food, and offer other Asian dishes as well, without MSG of course.
Popular items on the menu includes Kueh Pai Ti, a sort of fried lumpia with lettuce, turnip, carrots, and prawn on top to be popped in whole in the mouth.
There’s Hainanese Chicken, a favorite in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong; the lightly spicy Malaysian Sambal Fish, which is crispy outside and tender inside; Japanese Tofu Sautéed with Prawns; Singapore Laksa, a noodle dish with spicy coconut gravy which you can have with either prawns or chicken; and Stir-Fried Kang Kong with Blachan, among others. Of course, there’s Nasi Lemak, a dish like our binalot, which is rice cooked with pandan and coconut cream. The Onde Onde dessert is like our pichi pichi but with a filling consisting of palm tree nectar.
“We didn’t expect this kind of success,” Tan says. It’s Cora’s first business venture. But they’re handling it well, putting a premium on customer service. Tan takes the time to train the chefs and educate customers on the dishes and how best to eat them. They also offer delivery service. And there’s free wifi too. This early, they’re already looking at opening branches in other locations.
(All photos courtesy of Nasi Lemak)
April 26th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I’m a filipino based in Brunei. My family and I have been accustomed to eating Indian, Malay & Chinese cuisine…nasi lemak, beef rendang, curry.
During my first few years in Bunei (been living here for more than 15 yrs now), my friends and I were planning to put up a “Chicken Rice” restaurant in the Philippines. But we were not sure then whether it will click. We should have proceeded with our plans….hehehe
congratulations Cora! Can we apply for a franchise of your Nasi Lemak ?
April 24th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
kakaiba talaga sa lahat ng natikman ko healthy wala kasing vetsin, yan hinahanap ko!!di ako magsasawa bumalik sa nasi lemak!!!subukan nyo ng malaman nyo nagsasabi ako ng totoo!!!pinakamasarap walang katulad!!!
April 24th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Hey Cleo, I am Singaporean, I find your nick picking, hmmmm.. not so valid.
(from Taguig,sigh!)
Using your line argument, if I start up an indian based cuisine. in Manila and market it as Singaporean cuisine, would I be wrong?
Due to the multi racial nature of the country the Singaporean cuisine, is a combination of the different races cuisine,
as such the nasi lemak of Malaysia & Indonesia would differ from the Singapore style…
And lemak is to me coconut milk.
In the meanwhile, I am really looking forward to making this trip to this Singaporean Rest.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 am
I am a Malaysian, my friend and I visited the restaurant last night (4/21/08) and we ask for more sambal/blachan and added chillis in the stir fried Kang Kong, and this is the first time I tasted Kang Kong Blachan so good in the Phils. Thanks to Nasi Lemak staff who are so eager to please their customers.
We ate Kueh Pai Ti (Appetiser), Malaysian Chicken Curry, Nasi Goreng, and Kueh Talam for dessert. They were real good.
Will certainly ask all my Malaysian friends to come here and support the restaurant. I have been to many so called Malaysian/Singaporean restaurants in Metro Manila and this is the most authentic Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant in Metro manila.
They know what they need to cook, there is someone in the restaurant who knows how to cook real authentic food and knows the tastes well.
Rating 8.5+ out of 10.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
some bloggers are so rude. cleo just gave her opinion, it was really informative. she seems to know what she was talking about. but there are those who lambasted her at once. i learned something very important from my mom - ‘if you’ve got nothing nice to say , dont say it at all!’ this is the spirit of it - to learn from one another. we are talking here of cuisine , i think , food will be sweeter and tastier if we could have a pleasant exchange of words.