When I heard that Mamak was finally coming to Brisbane, I knew I had to try it out on the first week of opening. There was no way the hype would die down at all with time, so we may as well get in early whilst we could because from my experience with their Sydney and Melbourne stores, there will always be a line.
We arrived at 11.15AM, 15 minutes before opening time to find that although there wasn't a line, there was a significant crowd of people waiting outside for the opening. The lack of a line caused considerable chaos when they did open though, with people rushing to go in.
Menus were available via the app and you could pay via the app or get 10% discount ordering at the counter and paying cash. Unfortunately we didn't come prepared so just settled with ordering via the app. The menu wasn't super extensive, with only a hand full of mains and rice dishes and roti to choose from but what was most disappointing was the fact that half the menu (not exaggerating) was already sold out even though we were one of the first tables to be served. We had our hearts set on some delicious satay and fried chicken, sadly these wishes went unfulfilled.
Our drinks came out fairly quickly, my companion had a Teh Ais. It was chilled with ice and she mentioned that it reminded her of Hong Kong style milk tea which we haven't had in ages. I ordered the Cham, which is half tea half coffee. I had it less sweet but even then it was still quite sweet. The tea was strong and wasn't overpowered by the coffee, which I really enjoyed. Given how expensive things are recently, the drinks are reasonably priced.
Although our order shouldn't have been missed seeing as we ordered online, and we had received our drinks but they did in fact lose our order. It got to a point where all the tables around us were finishing our meals before we chased up our order and they realised they had missed it. It was over half an hour after ordering before our meal came. Initially we wanted to order the Nasi Lemak with some fried chicken, but this was sold out. We ended up ordering it with a side of curry chicken instead. The coconut rice was accompanied by sambal, peanuts, crispy anchovies, cucumber and hard boiled egg. The rice was fragrant and delicious. Without the extra curry chicken it would really have been insufficient toppings to accompany the rice but it was pretty good with the chicken. The peanuts were really crunchy but my favourite would have to be the salty crispy anchovies. The chicken was also tender, moist and flavoursome without being too spicy.
Initially we had wanted some satay to accompany a roti dish, but there was no satay so we just opted for a Roti planta which is a buttery roti. It was a lot flakier than the usual and we liked how stretchy it was. It came with curry and chickpea curry for dipping, both were also spicy and flavoursome. This would have been adequate as a snack but definitely not enough for a whole meal on its own, especially with a distinct lack of protein.
So the system had actually let us put down a serve of fried chicken but they had run out so we pivoted and ordered a Roti kaya for dessert. It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was also buttery and flakey but not as dense as the Roti Planta. The ice cream wasn't all that creamy but that worked well with the roti. Overall it was also enough for a snack, perhaps afternoon tea at a later date.
Overall I found that the dishes we had were executed well although the value could have been better. The experience could really have been better though in terms of missing our order and having half the menu unavailable. I'm in no rush to return but might come back at a later date when it's hopefully been smoothed out.
Taste: 8/10
Value: 4/10
Service: 6/10
Environment: 8/10
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