Brahim’s Rendang Sauce – Part 2

 

Remember my rant about the Brahim’s sauce here? Well, I was so mad I shot off an email to them complaining about the way the rendang tasted. Yea, yea, thats me. I love writing emails/letters to the press or whatever if I’m not happy about something.

 

I didn’t quite expect to get a response from them, but I got an email from them today! Here’s what they wrote:

 

Thank you for your comment on our products especially on Brahim’s Rendang Sauce in particular. We do appreciate constructive comments from our customers and we use it as a quality tool for improvement on our products. However, this is the very first time that someone commented that our Rendang tasted like curry and even a bit like Kuah Kacang.

For your information, upon receiving your email, my QA team and I immediately conducted a sensory evaluation for all the Rendang Sauce produced since Jan 2007 because we do not have the actual batch code of the product that you purchased. We are able to conduct this test as samples from every batch are kept in line with the global food standard that we practiced in our facilities and all complaints and comments are treated accordingly to ensure any NCRs are positively identified and corrective action/s are taken immediately.

We however could not positively determine any deviation from our standard or control sample. Having said that, we believe you have followed the cooking instruction provided in getting the product to be as it should be. After allowing it to thicken, it should look and taste like Rendang with the presence of flavour of lemongrass, galangal and kerisik.

I do hope that you will find the explanation satisfactory.

Wow, if they indeed did what they did, which was to do an immediate taste test, then kudos to them for taking my feedback seriously. This is what more organizations should be doing; paying more attention to customer feedback.

 

While I still cannot deny that the rendang did not taste like rendang should, I give two thumbs up to the folks at Brahim’s for their response towards my complaint.

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Kuah Rendang Brahim (Brahim’s Rendang Sauce)

 

I thought it would be a good idea to finally use one of those precious pre-mix sauces that I brought from Malaysia. Seeing how cold it is today, I thought a little spice can provide a little kind warmth.

 

Now I’ve always heard people wax lyrical about Brahim’s pre-mix sauces, so I bought that particular brand from Tesco back home. It wasn’t cheap, probably the most expensive one around, but oh, what the heck. If you’re gonna be living for months on end without Malaysian food, might as well go with the good stuff eh? How wrong I was.

 

Brahim’s rendang sauce turned out to be such a disappointment 😦 I know that I can’t be expecting the same kickass rendang my mom whips up (heck, even I make awesome rendang), but this, this was such a letdown! It tastes like curry, maybe a little semblance to fish(!!!!) curry even, but nothing like rendang! Bah, I’m so disappointed. Tipu betul!

 

If I had wanted curry, I would have whipped one up from scratch. Rendang is NOT curry. I repeat. They are two DIFFERENT things altogether. I think what’s lacking from Brahim’s rendang sauce is probably the serai (lemongrass) and lengkuas (galangal).

 

I have another rendang pack left, this one is a different brand called SingLong. This had better be more like REAL rendang! GRRRRRRR!!!!

 

Brahim's Tak Sedap Rendang Sauce

 

See, I was so excited to cook that I forgot to take a picture of the packet before using it. See how I cut the whole thing open to scrape every drop of precious sauce in there. >______<

 

You people at Brahim’s!!! I want my money back!!

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