I recently stumbled upon an article about Ah Miao’s Kitchen, a home-based nasi lemak business, and decided to give it a shot. $1 mini nasi lemak isn’t typical in Singapore, and the photos in the article and on their Facebook page looked delicious. Interestingly, their page was only launched on July 16, 2021, and I was pleased to support this small business near my hood.
The Malaysian-style nasi lemak is served with coconut rice, a slice of hard-boiled egg, Ikan Bilis, and a choice of sambal shrimps, sambal sotong or sambal Ikan Bilis.
When I tried placing my order via WhatsApp late at night, I initially didn’t get a response and decided to give them a call to place my order. They were accommodating and allowed us to put our order three days before collection. Collection of the nasi lemak was at the driveway of Block 527A Pasir Ris Street 51, and although we ordered five packets of each of the choices, they were sadly unable to provide us with the sambal sotong version. We ended up collecting ten packets of sambal shrimp nasi lemak and five packets of sambal Ikan Bilis nasi lemak.
Each packet is palm-sized and is pretty packed with coconut rice and a decent portion of ingredients (by decent, I mean decent for the price). When we called to ask, we were told that an average adult portion is around three packets of nasi lemak.
The coconut rice was cooked using short-grain rice and was very fragrant. The coconut smell was stronger than the taste on the rice (still lovely, though!). The sambal shrimp was good – there was a good number of small shrimps, with one bigger shrimp there (bottom left image) The taste of the sambal was not too spicy and had a rich, strong flavour. I’d prefer it they gave slightly more sambal to go with the rice, though! The Ikan Bilis was also good, and the contrast of taste of the sambal and Ikan Bilis complemented the coconut rice well (bottom right image).
Mini nasi lemak is such a novel idea because it allows us to try many different flavours at a low cost. It makes an excellent treat for a party (when the COVID-restrictions are eased). I believe in supporting small businesses, and if you stay nearby, why not support Ah Miao’s Kitchen! The food’s good and their service is good too! You may want to check their Facebook page out on the ordering process, as it seems that they are pretty much booked out now.
Verdict
Value: 4/5; Taste: 4/5
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