After church last Sunday, my family and big gang of church members went to a new mamak for lunch. It is a higher end of mamak with proper air-conditioning and nice cosy environment. It started at other areas but recently, they open one nearby us. Yay! Let's try!

Q Bistro Taman Melati

Location: 75, jalan taman, 4, Taman, Melati Utama, 53100 Kuala Lumpur.

Food

The restaurant is famous for their 'nasi kandar' and fragrant briyani rice. 'Nasi kandar' simply means rice with variety of choices of dishes which you can choose by yourself and the specialty is, the rice will be topped with variety of curry sauces too.

Nasi (Malay language) = Rice*

Nasi Kandar

Most of us were queuing up for their 'nasi kandar' or briyani. How to resist when you saw such an array of yummy delicious. They had all sort of seafood, meat and vegetables — chicken curry, chicken rendang, beef rendang, goat rendang, fish egg, squid eggs and even beef stomach!!! And I especially amazed at how the many lamb shanks arranged beautifully in the big pot of oil rice. Wow! But I knew lamb shank usually very expensive, so I should not take that.

I noticed the rice portion was big, since I wasn't so hungry, I asked my husband to share his with me, since he was cutting down carbs. I told him I wanted one beef rendang and one salted egg, that's all.

He took beef rendang, salted egg and beef stomach! His rice was mouth-wateringly flooded with curry sauces. He chose briyani rice instead of white rice, and I totally love the briyani rice, so infused with Indian spices and herbs. Yummy!

Indomie goreng and naan

My eldest boy didn't feel very hungry too and not option for curry and rice, so he ordered for himself Indomie goreng with egg, simple means fried instant noodle! Lol. My youngest son ordered a cheese naan, his go-to food at mamak. Nothing special about the noodle and naan, in fact other mamak would have better ones in terms of taste.

Drinks

We ordered a hot ginger 'teh tarik', hot pulled milk tea, which was surprisingly smooth and good. Not too overly sweet till it covered the tea taste. Love it. However, my brother who ordered ice tea-coffee milk said the drink sucks.

Ambience

It has nice ambience, of course, that's what we paid for. Air-conditioning, so properly ventilated, cooling and a nice place to hang out with friends and family.

Will I come back again next round? Yes, because they still have many other food which I want to try, like their fried noodle series and fried rice series.

The total bill costed more for this mamak than other regular mamaks, so it is not a mamak I will often visit since this year, I want to have some savings for rainy days. Or just some savings, you know for future extra expenditure. Anyway, we had great time eating together, chitchatting with church members. In the end, parents-in-law said they would settle our bill. Oh wow! Thank you, Mum and Dad.