PappaRich is a chain that delivers

In Japan last year we frequented a local sushi bar, cheap as chips, a place that we loved not for the conveyor belt delivery but for the beautiful independence that you have at these places. We ordered via a touch screen at the table, we served ourselves tea from the hot water station at the table, adding powdered green tea from the cannister, and we used a bell to call for help when we got confused. Being studiously served can be irritating – especially the kind of service that constantly refills your glass, but that's another topic. Suffice to say sometimes you just want to be left to your own private and dysfunctional selves at dinner.

And joy! PappaRich offers something of this lovely isolation. You fill out your own menu card, identifying dishes from the long, photo-filled menu by number, then you use the button to call for someone to collect your order. When you push the button your number flashes on a screen, like in an aeroplane, kind of. And the bill arrives back within about a minute of the order being taken – it's tucked into the holder on our table so when we're done we can just grab the bill and head for the exit to pay. Very efficient.

Meantime, our food also starts arriving, and it comes fast and in no special order. We have way, way over-ordered. We are no strangers to over-ordering in unfamiliar places, anxious not to miss a good dish, but this time we have over-ordered by at least threefold. Strange that no-one warned us, but then even though PappaRich is friendly with very willing service, there's not a great deal of interaction.

We're in charge of this meal and if we want to order like we're six people in an American diner that seems to be our business. It turns out each dish at PappaRich is really your entire meal. It's not a place you want to order a range of small things to taste. Just one a person is fine.

Roti canai, that excellent Malaysian invention, comes in plain and other versions, including stuffed with onion and egg ($8.90). It's a good mop, this bread, for the sauces that accompany it. In the plain version ($7.90), there are three little sauces of vegetarian sambal which is uncompromisingly chilli hot, a thin curry sauce and dhal. It's kept simple and we kind of like it like this, but you can add meat to the curry sauce to beef it up a bit.

Mixed satay ($25.90), a dozen sticks, half beef and half chicken, are the best we've had in Canberra's Asian restaurants, beautifully tender, plenty of lemongrass and a great satay sauce.

There doesn't look to be any drinks on the menu other than a big list of crazy Malaysian-style drinks in mugs, from versions of iced and jellied coffee, one made with longan and honey, to drinks made with iced green teas, iced coconut, or iced black sesame, and versions of milky tea.

We'd like to experiment with this part of the menu, but the drinks are big and filling so with uncharacteristic restraint, we stick with iced barley with grass jelly, and iced red bean. Both we like, especially the barley which is refreshing and tastes like barley with sweet milky water and ice; and the red bean drink is delicious like a smoothie.

Perhaps our favourite dish tonight is a chilli pan mee ($15.90), a dish of wide noodles, topped with loads of crunchy, slippery, pungent stuff that you mix in – an egg, minced chicken, slippery mushrooms, spinach, crunchy anchovies and loads of very hot chilli sambal. We're very fond of this type of balanced one-bowl eating, that combines colours and textures, crunch and slipperiness.

We also like the chicken congee with steamed chicken ($14.50). This is ridiculously large, a big bowl of very white and simply-flavoured congee with a plate of steamed, aromatic chicken alongside, plus cucumber and coriander. Congee is such a comforting, warming dish. This version is not the intense, sticky, pungent congee beloved of the food world, but a blousy, simple dish. We take most of it home, along with most of the rest of the dishes, filling a pile of takeaway containers brought to our table.

PappaRich is a pleasant, simple space, with brick walls and tiled floors. It's always busy but not chaotic. It has occupied this space for some years now on the ground floor of the Canberra Centre – the Dendy quarter – and because it has large windows to the street it's unmissable to passers-by. We've known of its existence but never ventured in until this visit. Turns out we've missed something good. No wonder there's often a queue. 

PappaRich might be an international chain, but it's a chain that delivers – good food, great prices, a friendly set-up and good staff.