The Asian way of Eating

Nasi Padang River Valley (The Original)
54 Zion Road
Tel: 6734-3383
(closed on public holidays)



你吃了饭吗? (ni chi le fan ma?)
Translated : Have you eaten your rice?

In Asia of the world where rice is a symbol of life and culture, rice is synonymous for food. The importance of rice is reflected in the language, where the Chinese and most Asians greet each other by enquiring if they have eaten. A survey of a variety of dishes across Asia would indicated that this is probably the most common way of Asian eating – a steamy bowl of rice with a myriad of colourful and bold flavoured aromatic curries, spicy chilli dishes meats, sweet barbequed meats and salty soy sauce based dishes. In Thailand, dress your rice with some jade emerald green curry in Thailand or in Singapore, a fish head curry but if you are in Western Sumatra, Indonesia, the word is Padang.

Padang, the capital of Western Sumatra, Indonesia, has made a name for its cuisine. Padang food is generally spiced with chillies and coconut milk, making “Nasi”, the natural base ingredient of the meal. This original Nasi Padang stall along Zion Road is the real McCoy, with the original stall owners hailing from Western Sumatra. The recipes have been passed down through the generations and are now safely guarded in a safe. Good news for all Nasi Padang lovers!

Whether you are here by yourself or with a party of 10, the row of dishes will leave you a little undecided on what to try. Try all 30+ dishes if you can manage or eat here for a week until you have decided what all your favourite dishes are. We came as a party of 4 and order nearly 1/3 of the dishes, which covered a sizable amount of space on our table and attracted greedy glances from the table next to us. Most dishes (except for the rock hard fried chicken offal) from the feast that lay before us were “lemaky” good, the only complain I have is that, the food needs to be served at a hotter temperature; I’m not a fan of tepid food. The wonderful padang feast set us back $36 for 4.