Warongs, more commonly spelt as warungs, are small family owned stores in Indonesia and Malaysia. A warung that sells food typically sells a variety of local food such as nasi goreng (fried rice) and mee goreng (fried noodles). Befitting the name, Warong, located in the Rundle Place shopping centre food court at Rundle Mall, serves a variety of Malaysian and Indonesian street food.
As it can be expected, Warong serves Nasi Lemak, a popular dish from Malaysia in which rice cooked with coconut milk is served with your choice of fried chicken or beef/chicken/fish curry, roasted peanuts, cucumber slices, half a boiled egg, prawn crackers, chilli paste and fried ikan billis (Malaysian name for dried anchovies). The fried chicken is a bit fiddly to eat, but it had crispy golden brown skin that contrasted wonderfully with the perfectly cooked meat. The coconut rice that is central to this dish's appeal also had the right extent of coconut flavour.
Nasi Lemak with Fried Chicken
Warong has recently started to introduce a few new dishes, one of them being Iga Penyet, an Indonesian dish of flattened beef ribs with sambal paste. Preparation of this dish involves boiling the ribs with herbs and spices until they are tender. The ribs are then pan fried and finally flattened softly to separate the meat from the bones. Sambal is a sauce that consists of chilli, shrimp paste, fish sauce, vinegar, shallot, sugar, lime juice and rice vinegar. The beef was cooked just right and the spicy sambal paste gave it a nice punch. The plain rice served with it helped to balance out the spiciness of the beef ribs.
Iga Penyet
Much like
Mamak Corner at Adelaide and
Mamak at Sydney, Warong also serves a combo consisting of Roti Canai with a curry of your choice and a soft drink. The Roti Canai was crispy and flakey and the beef curry I chose to accompany it had tender chunks of beef in a curry that had the right amount of spiciness. We also ordered vegetable fritters that were fried golden brown, with the batter going nicely with the vegetables in it.
Roti Canai
Vegetable Fritters
