Air Asia Premium Lounge on notice: Chef Wan is disgusted with your sambal

There are fewer ways to insult the integrity of a Malaysian than to hit us where it really hurts: Right in the nasi lemak. Sub-par rice? Ouch. Offensively shriveled ikan bilis? Stop. Sambal sweeter than an iced lemon tea? Enough already.

One particularly watery iteration of the beloved sambal that accompanies our country’s national dish was unappealing enough to catch the attention of Coconuts KL’s favorite local celebrity chef, Chef Wan, and he’s demanding that the parties responsible step up their game immediately.

 

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A Chef friend of mine flew to Bangkok semlm for his vacation and sent me this sambal Tumis for the Nasi Lemak at the Air Asia Premium Lounge. He said ” I am so disgusted by this CW”. I replied..” Me too..If i were the head Chef there i would have kick the cook ass up there for good and never to enter my kitchen ever again. Ini lah yg selalu nya tukang2 masak yg tak ada hati berkerja, pemalas nak belajar menyediakan sambal tumis dgn baik dan betul dan akhirnya u get alot of unhappy customers and complain to any business out there. Indeed is disgusting. Jika ikut hati saya yg sakit dan garang jika tak kena hari nya trust me that cook might need to wear this sambal aja on him. Perhaps dah kena siram atas kepala itu baru mereka boleh belajar dan membuka biji mata itu sedikit. This kind of quality of Sambal is indeed an insult to any chef profession pun. Jika buat sambal mcm ni my late dad used to say didalam TUDM dah habis askar2 lambung kan tukang masak itu kedalam kawah dan di rebusnya hidup2! Please la to all young chefs out there jika nak masuk bidang ini do us a favour by having abit of dedication and passion. This kind of sambal quality is also an insult to our Malay cusine and heritage of our Nasi Lemak pun. U would only project the wrong image to the whole world of our Malaysian cusine by giving the guests this piece of shit not to mention hati passengers yg sakit. Di mana kah letak otak2 tukang masak yg boleh produced such bad quality sambal ini? In the first place even the Manager in charge at the premium lounge tu buta ke biji mata tak noticed semua ini and still served them? He need to be shot dead too!😂😂😂 Dulu MAS dgn Nasi Lemak Telanjang mereka pandai pulak Air Asia gelak kan mereka! Now 2 x 5 ! Habis la lepas ni viral lagi. Saya juga kena maki. Padahal kita cuba menperbetul kan mereka. Ini makanan Warisan dik pls go and learn to perfect them. U guys are National Carrier to this country. We need a good Image for Malaysia! I will sent Tony F a message after this! They need to get their act together! Nasi Lemak Air Asia tu pun sedap sambal dia dlm inflight tu! Ini kan at Premium lounge! Not acceptable at all!

A post shared by chef wan (@_chefwan58) on Dec 28, 2018 at 3:20pm PST

In an Instagram post more unfiltered than a rainy season storm drain, Wan shows video of the soupy sambal sent to him by a friend flying to Bangkok. Flying out of KLIA2, the food-crimes victim made a pit stop at the Air Asia Premium Lounge, and sent a short video to Wan, who immediately posted the clip to social media along with a lengthy rant. Just how we like it.

“A chef friend of mine flew to Bangkok semalam (yesterday) for his vacation and sent me this sambal tumis for the nasi lemak at the Air Asia Premium Lounge.

“He said ‘I am so disgusted by this CW’.

“I replied: “Me too…” If I were the head chef there, I would have kicked the cook’s ass up there for good and never to enter my kitchen ever again.”

Chef Wan may mince onions, but he is never one to mince his words, taking to social media to comment on issues ranging from his daughter’s acrimonious divorce, to questionably shaped dinner plating.

Adding that he hoped young chefs had more pride than to put out such poor quality dishes, he rightly brought up that nasi lemak is Malaysia’s national dish, and deserves a better treatment than the one currently on offer for travelers at KLIA2.

He concluded: “You guys are national carrier to this country [Editor’s Note: Not quite CW — that’s MAS, but that doesn’t make the sambal any less bad that it appears to be]. We need a good image for Malaysia!” He then wrote that he was taking the matter seriously, and would raise his concerns with AirAsia Group chief executive officer, Tony Fernandes.

Malaysia, we deserve better: It’s 2019, it’s time to love ourselves better.