PUBLISHED October 4th, 2021 05:30 am | UPDATED October 7th, 2021 10:09 am
Having gone through different leases of life, Chef Shen Tan‘s twice steamed nasi lemak is a bit of a legend in Singapore’s food scene. It all started at Maxwell Food Centre in 2008 when the self-taught cook opened Madam Tan’s Nasi Lemak before serving it alongside other innovative, modern Singaporean dishes at Wok&Barrel, then Ujong @ Raffles.
While it has made an appearance now and then in foodie collabs, Chef Shen’s signature dish, alongside its signature sambals, return with a vengeance with OG Lemak at Newton Food Centre. Named after her foodie cat, a handsome ginger boy called OG Dinks, this stall is created and manned together with the team at Wolf Burgers, and has been three years in the making.
There are four nasi lemak sets here, starting from S$7.90 for the OG Lemak plate. Featuring well-battered crispy chicken imbued with a subtle sweetness that reminds us of har cheong kai, it comes with fried egg, anchovies, and of course, the famous 11-ingredient twice-steamed rice that takes over 4 hours to cook.
The fluffy grains are first steamed with onions, ginger, lemongrass and pandan leaves, then soaked in coconut milk, water, salt and fenugreek before being steamed again. The result is fragrant, non-greasy rice with layers in every bite, without the coconut over-dominating. As with the Beef Rendang ($9.90) set, we get two types of chilli: sweet sambal tumis, and spicy sambal belacan. Each enhances the dining experience differently, and we highly recommend mixing the two to your liking for extra bursts of flavour.
While the stall isn’t Halal-certified, it’s worth noting that Chef Shen has removed the use of pork and lard in the cooking. This effort to reach out to a wider audience is evident as well in the Vegan (S$9.90) set. Though each component – except the rice – has been replaced, it’s still very much nasi lemak as we know it with sambal tau kwa, grilled eggplant, tempeh chips, and sambal goreng.
Speaking of sambal, we hope that Chef Shen will one day bring back the coffee sambal she created during her pop-up at Revolution Coffee. Made with coffee grounds, the slight bitterness lends a lovely contrast to the nasi lemak.
OG Lemak will also be launching more sides in time to come (perhaps, after they stop selling out so early in the afternoon). Though we haven’t tried the Fried Chicken Skin with Chicken Fat Sambal (S$9.90), it sounds glorious enough for us to make a trip back soon.
OG Lemak is located at #01-16, Newton Food Centre, 500 Clemenceau Avenue, Singapore 229495. Open daily 11.30am-8pm or till sold out.
Top image: OG Lemak Set, courtesy of Sylvester Fedor