Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

Nasi Lemak; one of the most versatile dishes in Malaysia where you can have this for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even supper and it feels so right. Can we name this our National Dish already?

Pardon the awkward sounding title, like something out of those viral websites with continuous feeds of mind-blowingly catchy headlines but in return providing you with a rather blah story. If you have been on the social media circle long enough, you must know what I am talking about.

It might even scream corny/tacky … or worse, spam-my.

Yeah, the reason that I had to strip off this white brief of mine (and no, I am not on some private beach playing games) and wave them high up in the air is mainly owing to the deluge of spam comments flooding every single post of mine.

I must have been pretty complacent lately (or the past year maybe), but the spam comments run in the thousands. Really. So much for the anti-spam plugin. So here I am, apologizing to anyone whom had left your comments on the posts but got no replies from the lazy Motormouth.

I must have been too engrossed in deleting spam comments. Or just plain lethargic from the 6+ years of writing on Motormouth From Ipoh.

Det Station @ Ampang is one of those neighbourhood favourites that have since gone big with a branch in Ampang Avenue now; but yet still falls under the radar of nasi lemak hunters.

Ever since I moved from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur 4 years back, the frequency in updating this blog has dwindled significantly, at least by my standard. Most friends and readers are still contented with 1 – 2 posts per week, but if you have been growing with this blog since 2008, you must have noticed the jarring difference in the frequency of posts. Or even the depth of the contents.

Last month I made another jump from Malaysia to Singapore, where I am based for at least a year.

With more time to hunt for food, less time spent on the roads and significantly less distractions when staying alone, I expected my passion to eat and write to pick up. The energy was high upon arriving and staying right smack in the middle of the city.

But yet, things don’t always happen as planned.

They are famous for their Ayam Goreng Berempah; the Fried Chicken Marinated with spices

Inevitably, work takes precedence over this complementary passion of mine. My ever-faithful D7000 stays in its bag tucked in one corner, while I slowly reduced my commitment to write for third parties, and tragically … on this favourite space of mine on the Internet.

Maybe it’s time for a pulse check.

I hope that in weeks or months to come, I will have the energy and inspiration to revitalize this blog. But first, I need to start from somewhere. Maintaining a blog with minimally two posts per week sounds like a walk in the park but go ask any bloggers whom have been writing for at least 3 years and above, and you will be treated to many stories. Of how Facebook, Tumblr and Instragram are gradually capturing the interest of readers over conventional blog posts and unless that someone is a full time blogger, splitting the share of time between work, family, life and blogging can be a very destructive affair.

Ikan Caru Sumbat – Stuffed with the goodness of the sambal with caramelized onions, this fish was a winner

And so, back to the story of the day.

The one week hiatus happened because of a two day field training at Shangri-La Singapore (the lunch buffet was excellent, by the way), then followed by a working weekend in Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur before making a dash back to Singapore. No break in between, which must have caught me off guard and affecting this ageing body of mine.

So here I am, writing an understandably brief review of my nasi lemak experience at Det Station in Ampang, Selangor.

You know I love tasty and sinful food packed with a punch in terms of flavours. And so proud to admit of my evergreen obsession with nasi lemak since my first taste of nasi lemak bungkus from a Malay stall operating in Pasir Puteh market.

A little out of the way if you are unfamiliar with this side of Ampang, but find your way towards Hospital Ampang and you should be able to reach Det Station; which is a short drive away.

Now I read about Det Station from various Top Nasi Lemak lists on the web. Come to think about it, lately there seems to be this craze over ranking such as Top 10 Must Eat xxx, 5 Best xxx in Kuala Lumpur, etc etc …. Cheap yet effective way to earn traffic.

Now Det Station serves only a handful of items on their menu. Nasi Lemak being their star attraction; can be served either plain (RM1.50), with Fried Egg (RM2.50), with a piece of their famed Ayam Goreng (RM5.00) or even the most premium of them all; Nasi Lemak Ayam Kampung (RM6.00). Naturally, you can’t survive on nasi lemak alone, so they dabble in Char Kuey Teow and also sloppy Burger, warung-style.

The nasi lemak was fragrant; evident from the use of ginger and spices, and steamed to a right consistency – neither too soft and mushy or hard. The sambal came in a generous pool of appetizing dark red paste loaded with the sweetness of onions and was relatively mild so that it’s safe to introduce this to the kids, I guess.

The fried chicken was crispy, and the spice-laden batter was really outstanding. Too bad that the meat within was rather dry and bland. Maybe we chose the wrong cut; chicken breast that we were not able to fully savour the greatness that belies the fried chicken.

The stuffed ‘ikan caru’ (torpedo scad) with sambal and even more onions (RM4.00 for the fish) reminded me of Grandma’s signature dish; whereby she used to pound her own chili paste with her ancient pestle and mortar method, and fried the fish to a crisp. Not a bad choice here.

At the end of the meal, we felt satisfied knowing that between the  two of us, we spent less than RM15.00 on the food and drinks, got satiated from the fragrant coconut milk-cooked rice, and now I found an alternative to the perpetually-packed Village Park.

Have you got a die-die-must-try Nasi Lemak place to share?

DET STATION RESTAURANT (Halal)
No 19, Jalan Avenue 3,
Ampang Avenue, 68000 Ampang, Selangor.
They are opened all day, from breakfast until really late; about 3 am.
GPS : 3.134492, 101.770229