Claypot Chicken Rice in DJ (2)

I would've posted this up a lot sooner but my internet was down over the last few days. Somehow, I survived the immensely traumatising ordeal. Seriously, 5 days without the internet is no laughing matter.

Anyway, this is the second of the two Claypot Chicken Rice stores in DJ that I mentioned. This place used to share a coffee shop, also in DJ, with some other stalls but gradually became too popular (always a good sign) and thus moved out to become its own store.



And my friends, this one is really good. It's open for lunch and dinner with the exception of Wednesdays (no idea why). It's a little pricier than the previous place, but it's completely worth it. Well, with a couple of caveats.



Firstly, this place is packed. Really packed around dinner time, i.e. you have to stand and wait for a table. Therefore, it's not difficult to see that you have to wait a really long time for the food. This is what turns a lot of people off.

Let's suppose you decide to wait since, like I said, it's completely worth it. But then you think, "Hmmm, I've been waiting a long time. Maybe I should ask the lady." Well, that's a terrible idea. The boss, Irene, has a temper as long as the attention span of an ADD kid. 'The customer is always right' be damned. She will tell you off and tell you to be patient. She will yell at you and tell you to wait. She will not-so-politely tell you that if you're tired of waiting, you can leave.

How does one get around this, one might ask. Well, there are three things. Firstly, wait for it, but that's not really optimal. Secondly, you could come really early, but I understand that you have to make your contributions to society. Thirdly, give her a call, and order in advance. Call her (number in the picture) about half an hour to forty-five minutes before you intend to eat and it's all good. You will escape the wrath of Irene.

When my family goes, we usually order 2 large, 1 small (for the 4 of us) with Extra Chicken. A large one is like this:-



Whatever it is, they don't stinge on the chicken, unlike the other place. The chicken is always tender and is optimally complemented by the cap. Brilliant stuff.



Avoiding the caveats I mentioned earlier, this is a fantastic place for dinner. 9/10 on my scale. I promise you, you will feel fulfilled after this meal.

Claypot Chicken Rice in DJ (1)

As far as I know, there are 2 Claypot Chicken Rice shops in DJ which are pretty reputable. Of course, loving Claypot Chicken Rice as much as I do, I went to both of them.

The first of these two places is Busy Corner. It's pretty popular during lunch and dinner time. It's located along the same row of shops as Blitz and ProXTreme, at the shoplots right behind KDU, by the PETRONAS.



As you can see, the price is fairly inexpensive. RM12 for a Large bowl (fit for 2 people) is decent. Of course, I didn't try the Black Pepper Steak and the Prawns one, so I can't tell if the meal is worth the extra cost.



It really irks me when there's still some semblance of vegetables after I distinctly told them, "NO VEGETABLES." I find it a bit difficult to believe that they don't consider onions and chung as vegetables. Nevertheless, it still looked fairly enticing. But, of course, the hottest girl in the room has a wart on her butt, or so I've heard before.



They're not very generous with the chicken. The chicken-to-rice ratio is pretty low. Between my buddy, Heng Lean, and myself, there were maybe just 3 (rather small) pieces of chicken to be eaten with the rice. The rice in itself is just okay. The gravy isn't great.



Another view that seriously demonstrates the low chicken-to-rice ratio. On a positive note though, the service is pretty quick. We got our bowl within something like 5 minutes of ordering. But, be warned. We wanted to order 2 small or something like that only for the person to tell us that they didn't prepare smalls, just larges. I probably made up the words 'smalls' and 'larges' but whatever.

Don't get me wrong, it's an overall decent (read: average) place to get a quick meal. It's like a slightly-better-than-an-average-McDonald's-meal meal. Emphasis on slightly. For the sake of clarification, when I mean an average McDonald's meal, I mean something like the McChicken set or the Chicken McNuggets set. Something generic like that.

For a quick meal (i.e. While waiting for friends to play computer games), it's a fair pick. But, it's not somewhere you want to be going regularly or if you're looking for a tasty meal. As such, it gets a 6/10.

Pak Cik Nasi Lemak

There's this sports theory that goes by the name of the Martian Premise. It was coined by Bob Ryan, a sportswriter for the Boston Globe. Basically, it says, if the destruction of Earth could only be prevented by a 48 minute basketball game versus an all-Martian team, what team would you send?

Borrowing from that idea, I'm switching it around here. If Martians invaded this planet and the only way they wouldn't destroy the Earth (after stealing our unobtanium) was to enjoy a truly Malaysian dish which ranked a 10 on the scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is sheer ambrosia, what would you feed them?

Well, my answer is this:-



Nasi Lemak. Not just any nasi lemak, the Pak Cik Nasi Lemak by the mosque and roundabout in Uptown. He's open every morning from 7.15 to like 9.30 (that's when he's sold everything, probably even sooner on weekends). His wife is in charge of another 'branch' in Damansara Jaya, behind KDU, opposite the PETRONAS station.



So why do I like this place? Well, I have been coming to this place for nasi lemak ever since I grew teeth. The Pak Cik has always invited me to his open house for Hari Raya. But my obvious bias aside, the sotong for this place is out-of-this-world (which is why it's perfect for the Martians). While both the badan and the janggut are both great, I personally prefer the janggut. The gravy for the sotong is immense. I'd say it's good enough to replace the standard sambal that people have with nasi lemak.

It's a little bit expensive for stall-based nasi lemak, but then again I always tambah nasi and tambah sotong, which costs me RM5 total. So, if you don't want extra stuff, it's probably about average, RM3-ish. If there's going to be a weakness, I'd say his Chicken isn't that great, just about average, but hey, you don't watch the Cleveland Cavaliers to see Jamario Moon, you go to see Lebron James. Yes, I just compared the best basketball player today to squid. So, yes, for nasi lemak sotong, it's actually a great price given the awesomeness of the food.





Seriously, after this meal, I'm 100% sure the Martians would be happy and would call off the invasion. The downside of this is that they might abduct the Pak Cik to feed the Martian population though. Which makes me wonder if I really should introduce them to this. I mean, would I risk the destruction of Earth or be forced to see the Pak Cik and his nasi lemak go? I'd probably choose not to destroy the Earth, but I had to think about it.

All aside though, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is Bittergourd (I've never had it, but I heard it's unbelievably nasty), 5 is the average McDonald's meal, and 10 is sweet nectar of the Gods, this is a 10.