The cozy interior evokes a sense of nostalgia. — Photos: ART CHEN/The Star
Food at Makan Time reminds one of grandma’s cooking.
Cafe owner Daniel Chong is a hands-on kind of guy. He grows his own herbs and edibles, as well as harvests bananas from his own garden at least once a month.
His casual eatery, Makan Time, located at a corner shophouse in Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya, exudes a kampung vibe, with lush greenery around the outdoor seating area. He even built a brick oven in front of his restaurant just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I remember rushing my order for firebricks and materials to arrive before the lockdown,” Chong recalls. “The pandemic gave me time that I normally didn’t have, to build my own brick oven. I used it to bake my own bread and buns besides roasting meat. I even made lemang in it.”
The interior evokes nostalgia with its old-school kopitiam setting where you can enjoy Nyonya kuih from a kuih cart, as well as toast with kaya (coconut-egg jam). From the start, Chong had intended to bring Ipoh flavours to Makan Time which opened in 2014.
“The focus was on my mum’s Siamese laksa, Ipoh beef hor fun (rice noodles), coffee and roti goyang. But over the years, we also became more aware of the dishes that were in demand, such as nasi kerabu, mee siam and our chicken chop series, and added them to our regular menu. Using halal ingredients was part of our plan, so that we can serve Muslim customers,” he says.
Chong, 45, hails from Ipoh where his parents run a Nyonya restaurant called Yum Yum since 1991. Before that, the family had a home catering business.
“I started helping out in the kitchen at the age of five. I peeled onions and made otak otak and Nyonya acar with my mum.”
The eatery has a kiln that Chong built himself.
His interest in cooking grew and he went to culinary school at the then Taylor’s College in Petaling Jaya. After that, he worked at Lafite in Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur as chef de partie, in charge of starters, soup and bread.
“I learnt how to manage my time, and when assigned as an entremetier (a vegetable chef), I used my imagination to order the vegetables and decide what to do with them.”
After a year, he left for Perth in Australia to help his aunt set up her Asian-Malaysian restaurant. He came back after three months to help his mother at her restaurant in Ipoh.
He was in Ipoh for five years, working part-time while tending to a nursery of orchids which he started.
“I would make trips to Subang and Shah Alam for my business, and exported orchids to Singapore and Brunei,” he says, adding that he used to attend exhibitions in Thailand where orchids were a blooming business.“Nowadays, I’m more interested in growing edibles, be it for cooking or health. I also get to use the herbs in my daily special dishes. I like to encourage others to grow them by giving away free seedlings. It is therapeutic and I gain joy and satisfaction from it.”
The herbs come in useful, for instance, in the Khao Jam (nasi ulam masak or cooked ulam in rice with keropok and chicken) which he first had a taste of at his friend’s house in Kota Baru, Kelantan.
Chong is always on the lookout for new and unusual dishes to serve his diners, such as Danbauk Briyani or Burmese Briyani which he discovered through a friend who travels a lot.
“He tasted this briyani in Mandalay (in Myanmar). I asked him to describe it and I cooked it. It’s like Indian briyani with mutton or chicken, with dhal curry, sambal, mango pickle with sour plum, and mint.”
Chong is hands-on at his cafe.
This has since obtained the stamp of approval from his Myanmarese friends.
“My chef journey is always open to new opportunities, especially learning a new food culture and its ingredients,” he says.
He has even served bunny chow, an Indian South African dish which has a hollowed-out bread that has been grilled, then filled with curry. Vietnamese Banh Mi has been a special on the menu too, and sometimes, satay which he makes himself.
We drove a long way to Makan Time, chiefly to have the sublime cendol. According to Chong, he can only manage – at most – 90 bowls a day.
“We don’t serve it some days due to the unavailability of fresh santan (coconut milk) which we buy from a specific stall, or pandan leaves.”
The popular Ipoh Kai See Hor Fun (shredded chicken rice noodles) is available only once a week and the soup base is boiled for more than eight hours. Chong was kind enough to let me try some when I arrived late one Saturday afternoon just before closing time.
Makan Time has a large following who check every Sunday evening for the weekly specials.
“Most customers are appreciative of what we’ve been doing all this time. They like that we cook most things from scratch and don’t use MSG. We often hear comments that our food reminds them of their childhood, or of their grandma’s cooking,” says Chong, who runs the café with his wife Terri.
In the future, he wants to engage more in producing and selling his own sauces. He hopes to have an easier time when he doesn’t have to be so hands-on serving customers in his later years.
