Restoran Beriani Gam Prima @ Tanjung Malim, Perak

Restoran Beriani Gam Prima has been around for about five years now. I visited them once when they newly opened the place and that was sometime in the year 2010 and the food was quite okay, though not the best that I have tried. After five years, I am visiting this restaurant again. Beriani Gam, as we all know, is a Johorean dish that originated from the town of Muar. It is one of those fusion dishes that is a cross between the Indian Briyani and Malay style of cooking. As a result, it is definitely very different to the other varieties of Briyani and this includes the Indian, Arabic, Pakistani and even the Sri Lankan type.

The Restaurant Along Jalan Setia Utama

The Restaurant Along Jalan Setia Utama

A Nicely Designed Restaurant

The last time that I was here, it was for lunch but today I am here for dinner. The dinner crowd was nothing much and I believe that as far as the food goes, it was very much the left overs of what had been prepared earlier today. I know for a fact that cooking is done only once a day here. The place was very quiet, in fact the only form of noise was coming from the TV set and there were more waiters....perhaps family members than customers. 

The Drinks Station

Teh O @ RM 1.00

Once I took my place, a lady whom I believe is the boss, came up to me to take my orders. I then ordered the above Teh O. She asked me if there was anything that I would like to eat and I mentioned that I wanted more time as I would like to see the dishes before placing my orders. She understood, informed one of her brother's to prepare the Tea and went off to have her bath. How I know this is because she openly mentioned it to the rest of her family members and yes....I was eavesdropping. Their Teh O was nothing great though quite cheap in terms of pricing. In fact I was quite surprised with the run down quality of the drink, bearing in mind that the Malay's were generally quite fussy with their Teh O. I would only rate this at 5.5/10 . Just above average it was. 

A Variety Of Beriani Available

Prices Of The Dishes

The way the dishes were aligned and displayed, clearly shows that their lunch hour business should be decent. From what I checked, only Mutton and Chicken were available.  Generally, they would have Chicken Beriani, Beef Beriani....both being priced at RM 8.00, Mutton Gam Beriani and Mutton Kuzi Beriani...both being priced at RM 10.00 and Ayam Kampung Beriani which is priced at RM 11.00 . Well, the Beef was sold out but all the rest were still available and this did not seem like a good sign. Even the colours of the items looked a little run down when compared to the first trip here. As looks may deceive, I still decided to proceed with my order and ordered a Mutton Gam Briyani. 

Beriani Gam Kambing (Mutton) @ RM 10.00

Beriani Gam Kambing (Mutton) @ RM 10.00

It was just a matter of minutes and the dish was served at my table. The plate was huge and the portions were huge too but the dish did not look appetising at all. Okay, I will get into the details on each the items below. 

Beriani Rice

The Beriani Rice was just so so only. If you look at some of those old blogs and compare the colour of the rice with this one, then you would be able to understand what I am trying to convey. This was just a namesake Beriani Rice. It neither looked like it nor did it taste anywhere close to it. It was also quite dry and not up to my liking. Nevertheless, the portion was huge and would be good for a very hungry eater. I would rate their Beriani Rice at 5/10. Just edible!

Tapioca Chips and Cucumber Acar

There was also a lavish portion of Tapioca Chips along with some Cucumber Acar that was served on the sides. The Tapioca Chips were good, fresh and tasted delicious. I would rate these chips at 9/10 . The Cucumber Acar however was quite mediocre. It lacked Vinegar and would have been much better if a little more Vinegar was added to the preparation. The cucumber and carrots used were fresh and that was the only plus point with this, otherwise nothing great or good. I would rate this at 5/10 .

Mutton

They provided a huge chunk of mutton with the bone, just the way that it should be. The taste however was not up to my expectations. The gravy was nice (not good) but it did not seep into the meat at all thus making the meat tasting rather bland. I am going to go with only 5/10 for this as that merely is my assessment for a dish that just passes the edible stage. Compared to what I had tried a couple of years back, this was a huge embarrassment. They were nowhere close to what they were.

Dalca

This was the biggest joke. Does that in any way look like Dalca to anyone? Seriously, I thought it was a soup as I was drinking it in that manner until I stared at the name of the dish written on the wall, exactly where the pot was. Taste wise, it was nothing like Dalca but if one said that it was a soup of some kind, then I would say that it tasted nice because it tasted and looked just like some Chicken Soup. Since it is officially called 'Dalca', I would rate this based on Dalca's standards and therefore, this only manages to get 2/10 . I have to make a mental note to post this photo on Facebook and introduce this as the new 'Dalca' . Gosh, come on guys, every dish has certain standards and if you can't get it to look or taste like it, then it just fails to be called whatever it was intended to be called in the first place. I guess that's not rocket science right. 

Anyway, I forced myself to eat however much I could and just left the rest despite Mutton being my favourite meat. Probably the worst Mutton that I have tried. The greatest disappointment for me is simply because this restaurant used to be able to churn out some good Beriani Gam's in the yesteryear's  and I am simply wondering what happened to that. It was like complete opposites in taste. A huge disappointment for me tonight. The prices have remained the same over the years and I am now wondering, if that is the reason why the ingredients are being cut off and stripping the taste off this dish. If this goes on, then I can clearly see where this restaurant is heading to. In fact, I am not alone. I also read some Foursquare comments on this restaurant post my meal and we all had the same opinion with not a single soul with differing views. I do hope that the management takes some drastic action to rectify this and save the restaurant. Just my two cents!

Address: No. 16, Jalan Setia Utama, Taman Setia Utama, 

                35900 Tanjung Malim, Perak, Malaysia.

Opening Hours: 1030 - 2200 Daily

Telephone: +605 458 4871 / +605 458 4876 / +6019 330 8799