The secret? The spices.

Every dish at Hameediyah Restaurant is carefully seasoned with a selection of hand-picked spices from countries as far as Turkey, Pakistan, India and Spain.

The restaurant, which turns 114 this year, has never used commercially marketed spices.

Instead, these grade A spices are pounded with pestle and mortar in precise proportions which ensures the taste remains the same.

Ahamad Seeni Pakir Abdul Sukkor, 65, said the mix of spices for the beef rendang, biryani, murtabak, chicken curry, kapitan chicken and dhal curry has remained unchanged for the last 100 years.

“Our customers often tell us that the taste has never changed, from the time they were kids until they had kids.

“Every level of spice and salt is measured properly to ensure consistency,” he said when met at his restaurant.

Hameediyah went down in the Malaysia Book of Records today as the country’s oldest nasi kandar restaurant.

These days, customers flock to the restaurant, waiting patiently in line even when the queue reaches the road outside.

But it has its roots in humble beginnings, when Seeni’s family sold nasi kandar the old-fashioned way in two containers balanced on a pole under a tree in a field across from the restaurant.

“The food was then spread across the field, and people would come by the hundreds, including British soldiers,” Seeni reminisced.

Seeni is from the seventh generation of this nasi kandar dynasty.

He said everything began when a spice trader named Mohamed Thamby Rawther came to Penang from Tamil Nadu in the early 1900s. He and his family rented a shop at Campbell Street to sell their spices. After that, they began selling food door-to-door on the pole from which the name “kandar” is derived.

When business improved, they bought the present-day shop where they have been operating since 1907. The name Hameediyah is a combination of their Indian ancestors’ names.

In 2014, the restaurant underwent major renovation to pay homage to its 19th-century roots, retaining the iconic yellow-green colour scheme and doing away with the grease and unwanted odours through the installation of air-conditioning and industrial-grade kitchen fans.

Servers throng the outlet dressed in bright yellow T-shirts, sarongs and jeans. Although the serving counter is now panelled, the old-world wall tiles and original facade remain, as does a century-old table on the ground floor.

The upper floor meanwhile is filled with wooden furniture and the iconic dumbwaiter has been made more visible with the addition of a glass panel.

Three doors away is an extension of the restaurant, used to accommodate larger crowds.

Hameediyah’s claim to fame is rightly its nasi kandar. But other signature dishes include its mutton mysore, mutton kurma, beef curry, kapitan chicken and fish roe.

As for its legendary murtabak, Hameediyah sells an average of 15,000 pieces a year.