Gastromania Feast @ Far East Square: Garuda Padang Cuisine

This post is part of the Gastromania Feast @ Far East Square organised by Omy.Sg that quite a few bloggers and I indulged in a food marathon on 9 July 2011.

You can read more about Gastromania Feast @ Far East Square at http://blog.omy.sg/let-the-feast-begin  Visit the site too if you want to win youself a $50 voucher.

Gastromania Feast @ Far East Square Stop 3: 
Garuda Padang Cuisine




I have never stepped into Garuda Padang Cuisine!

I usually go to the Padang Cuisine that I am more familiar with. I might be back soon! Just because I want to try out all their deliciously looking dishes here!



The array of dishes on the bain-marie counter. I want to try them all! I noticed all their items were priced accordingly, so you know exactly how much you will pay for your meal!




For the stop here at Garuda, we were to try their "Ayam Goreng Garuda" (Fried Chicken with Blue Ginger Floss).

The above shows a double portion. You can get them as set meals at $7 with sayur lodeh, a side dish and rice or roti prata. Check out the offers at their restaurant.



We were quite thankful we only had tasting portions. We need to pace ourselves as we have many places to visit!



The piece of Ayam Goreng Garuda I had. It has a turmeric and galangal (blue ginger) base. We asked how long is the marination, and we were told at least 5 hours. It takes around 15 minutes to fry it, but if you are there during lunch or dinner peak hour, don't worry. They know when the crowds come.

I like the blue ginger floss, as we did not have it with rice that day, it was a tad salty. The chicken was nice too. It's hard to resist a piece of nicely fried, golden brown chicken!

Nasi Padang is the cuisine of the Minangkabau ethnic group. I remember studying in school long ago that the Minangkabau people are a matrilineal society. That means the land and houses are inherited through the female lineage.

Here's a trivia for you.
Did you know that the first President of Singapore Yusof Bin Ishak and also the composer of the Singapore National Anthem, Majulah Singapura were both of Minangkabau descent?


Garuda Padang Cuisine
7-8 Amoy Street
#01-01 Far East Square
Singapore 049949

Tel: 6536 4111
Web: www.garudapadang.com


Gastromania Feast @ Far East Square: Stop 1, Stop 2, Stop 3, Stop 4, Stop 5, Stop 6, Stop 7, Stop 8

M. Hasan Railway Station Canteen @ KTM Tanjong Pagar Railway Station

If you are on the Singapore MRT, you will always hear, "Your attention please, eating and drinking are not allowed in the stations and trains".

But on the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB)'s Singapore (Tanjong Pagar / Keppel Road) Station of the Railway network, you can eat on the station! More precisely, you can eat on the train platform itself!



This was taken about 1 week ago. Momo and I brought our parents to have a last visit and last meal at the railway station before the place closes down on 30 June 2011.

Wondering what to eat here?
Here's what we had.  We had 3 different kinds of 'goreng' (fried in Malay) food.

Kuey Teow Goreng

Our first goreng dish: Kuey Teow Goreng.

Malay style fried kuey teow. It was a tad oily, but it sure was delicious.
I like how they always have a splat of tomato sauce and a slice of cucumber over it.

Tauhu Goreng

The second goreng dish: Tauhu Goreng. (Fried Tofu).

This is the more Malay style, where pieces of tofu is deep fried and topped with scalded bean sprouts and julienne cucumber.  It's topped with a generous amount of peanuty sauce. The sauce here is not bad. Not the best around, but it's good.




The third goreng dish: Pisang Goreng (Banana fritters)

The pisang goreng here is very popular! Every now and then, a tray of freshly fried pisang will be brought out and you can see, people grabbing some onto their plates in the most polite way.

You know what I mean right - the meaning of polite? Smiling at each other, even without speaking, using hand signals conveying the message, 'you go first', the next person reciprocate by another, 'no lah, you go first'. Until someone finally relents and starts to grab some. You then see the person stacking like 15 pieces of pisang and you in your heart screaming, leave some for me!



The pisang pieces were huge! It's looked like pieces of fried chicken right?
Perfectly riped pisang deep fried and the outer layer of batter that stays crispy and crunchy. I tell you, you got to try this!

Only 60 cents per piece and it's huge.

Halal Yong Tau Foo

If you think all the 'goreng' stuff's too unhealthy, then go for the healthier, soupy stuff.
Momo got us some yong tau foo. She said it's not too bad.

Chapati

Another very popular stall is the Chapati Stall.
These two ladies or 'kakak' (elder sister) / 'makcik' (auntie), depending on how old you are, address them correctly and they will serve you with a huge smile.

They were making the chapati non stop, every piece was hand rolled and pressed on the heated pan to cook. Hard work! Certainly not the thawed frozen crap that you get in some food court.

I called them 'kakak' (to score some brownie points first) and asked if I could take a photo of them in Malay. She said sure, but wait, Kakak said she needed to adjust her apron and tudong first, then went to to flip the chapati. I wanted to laugh, but kept quiet.

In my not so good Malay, I asked where will they move after June 30? They said, they are taking a rest, they will go back to Kelantan to visit family and then decide later.




The usual order that most people ask for. Either 2, 3 or 4 pieces of chapati and the bowl of standard 'dip'.




I ordered 4 pieces of it, (each piece is 60 cents) because we ordered so many other things to eat.
These chapatis were really nice especially when it's hot right off the pan!

Something so simple made from wheatflour, water, salt and oil can taste so good!
I think I like it because there's no yeast in it!



The usual or default 'dip' / 'gravy' / 'sauce' that comes with it. It's made from minced meat with chunks of potato and curry powder. It's very tasty and I think they go very well with rice too!




I saw some sotong and ordered it as well. The father in law seemed to like this a lot.
He was especially delighted with the sotong roe that's stuffed inside the sotong. Something similar or familiar to his peranakan food.

Air Bandung

After the 'goreng goreng' food, the rest settled with hot 'teh' (tea) or 'kopi' (coffee) to help purge out the oil in the system, but I opted for the cool way. I had the air bandung. OK, it's way too sweet for my liking, but the colour's nice for photography?


Hurry down to the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station if you want to try out the food there.
The station will be handed back to Singapore from the Malaysian authorities. The last train in and out of Singapore will be on 30 June.


M Hasan Railway Station Canteen
KTMB Tanjong Pagar Railway Station
30 Keppel Road
Singapore 089059

West Co'z Cafe @ West Coast Plaza

We heard that there is a very popular halal 'zhi char' at West Coast Plaza. My colleagues wanted to try it out, so the 6 of us went there a few weeks ago.

When we got there, true to the hearsay, the place was really packed! You might need to wait a while for seats. We just happened to be there at the right time, because a big group left and the 6 of us took over the table. (allocated by the service staff)



We did not know what was the 'must have' here. We flipped through the menu and finally decided on the set menu for 4-6 person that cost $68.80. It seemed like a good choice. It allowed us to choose a dish from 5 different categories and drinks were included.

* Claypot Golden Chicken *

From the meat category, we picked the Claypot Golden Chicken. It is a bit like 'san bei chicken'. Anything that has a crispy outer skin with slightly sweetish and salty sauce taste good.

* Curry Fish Head *

From the fish category, we picked the Curry Fish Head. We picked this because we noticed almost every table ordered it!

The fish was very very spicy! The sauce is nice, spicy and makes you sniff when you eat it. It also had the ability to made a few of us crave it that we nearly soaked up every drop of curry!

There is something different or lacking about it. It's not that was not nice, it was quite good. We concluded that we are bias because we are more more used to the Indian Fish Head curry.

* Sambal Kangkong *

From the vegetable category, we picked the sambal kangkong, which was excellent. A tad salty like most Malay dishes. We wished the portion is bigger though.

* Oats Sotong *

For the seafood category, we picked the Oats Sotong. The reason we picked sotong over prawns was probably everyone was lazy to peel prawns!

It was quite fragrant and spicy. You can see bits of the fiery cili padi in it. Few colleagues were seen nibbling the fried oats until it was almost empty!

* Oyster Omelette *

There was a 'main category' in the menu which had 'Hotplate Beancurd', Salad You Tiao, Mango Salad and 'Oyster Omelette'. We wondered why it was called main.

We picked the oyster omelette which was something totally different from what we expected. We thought it will be something like the Chinese style oyster omellete. But it was totally different. It is more like scrambled eggs with oyster with lots of chilli!

You might just grow to like this!

* Rice oh rice *

The rice was pretty decent rice too. You might need more of it if you intend to pour the curry from the fish head over it.

The drinks that most of us had was lime juice.

One of the places that you can go with your Muslim colleagues.


West Co'z Cafe
154 West Coast Road
#02-23 West Coast Plaza
Singapore 127371

Tel: 67791303

Swensen @ Suntec City

Met Momo for lunch today. We were wondering what to eat and was walking around and we noticed that the Swensen's One for One offer is back again.

I am not sure if the offer is back at all branches, but it is for the Suntec City branch.
Probably because of F1 we reckon. Check with them if you want to come for this offer. The offer ends 27 Sep as stated on their promo board.

I am eating 'healthier' now. I had the Grilled Chicken Salad. I think it's quite nice. I like the greens!



I am just going to copy the description from their menu. ;-)

Their description: Crisp lettuce, cabbage and carrots with crunchy almonds and grilled chicken with pickled mayonnaise dressing.



Momo and I shared another salad. Prawn and Fruit salad.
Their description: Crisp lettuce with prawns and chunky tropical fruits with mango yogurt dressing.
The chunky fruit they served us was Nangka (Jackfruit). Very unique!



Momo is now the carnivor. This is her Mega Mushroom Burger.
Their description: Sautéed mushrooms atop juicy beef patty, with gherkins, melted cheese and pepper sauce. Served with U.S. fries and coleslaw.

I tried some of it. Not too bad. The beef patty has this very old fashion taste. Not sure how to describe it. It's not the big M or BK burger taste. :-) The mushroom makes it rather nice.



If you happen to be around this area, and want to look for not too bad a deal. It looks like we are not the only people attracted to it. We noticed the tables around us, whenever they were seated, they immediately ask the servers how the deals goes.

Everything on the menu is valid for the one for one, except ice cream and drinks. We heard it so many times today!

I just realised something!! Why did we order 3 things? We should have ordered 4 items! The fourth item would be free right? Oh silly billy us. 

Swensen's @ Suntec City
3 Temasek Boulevard
#B1-060
Singapore 038983

Tel: 6339 5139

Sarena Nasi Padang @ Holland Drive

The other day, we all went to Big D's. One colleague who saw the long queue at the stall beside it. He then peeped at what the 'lauk lauk' at the Nasi Padang stall. He decided he got to eat from this stall.



When his food came, it smell so good.
It looks very delicious too right? This one one side of what he ordered. Curry Chicken and Sambal Terung (Brinjal)



We were tempted. We might come back here one day to try it ourselves. ;-)



Sarena Nasi Padang
Block 46 Holland Drive
Ground Floor Coffee Shop
Singapore 270046

Javanese Malay Food @ Clementi West St 2

A colleague said let's go to Clementi to eat some Malay Food yesterday. We were wondering where he would drive us. Oh... it was to Clementi West St 2.

He said the Javanese Malay stall that we used to go to (at Blk 727, same block as the 7-Eleven), he knows where it has moved to, after a long search.

It's now at Blk 722. They did not move too far away.



Our 'driver' drove us here so that he could eat his mee rebus. It does look very good. Thick gravy, portion's good too. Hmm.. next time I shall try it.



For me, I had the soto bee hoon. Compared to the soto I had (posted few days ago), the soup was better at the 'other' stall, but this one had quite a lot of ayam hiris (chicken stripes) and more bee hoon too. I was glad that they had quite a bit of bean sprouts too.

The spicy paste (the dark stuff in the middle) when you mix it into the soup, the whole soup changes. It gets really really spicy and the salt in it just brings out the flavour of the soup. I liked it.



Oh, this stall also has the lontong goreng. It's like chinese 'chai tow kueh'. Instead of carrot cake, it's ketupat for this dish. It's like mee goreng with mee, but ketupat pieces.

It's not too bad. But personally, I prefer my garlic infused black chai tow kueh. It has more uumpph. Maybe if they added lots of garlic to it... Hmmmm. LOL...



Previously (like 1 year ago or so) we used to eat their mix rice. The rice's good. But today was not a rice day for us. Next time.... ;-)


Stall 2, Okaki Coffee Shop
722 Clementi West Street 2
#01-150
Singapore 120722

Seafood Pasta @ Bagus Food Court, IMM

Things that kids nowadays like to eat. This is what my P6 cousin recommend I eat. She ordered this for her lunch today and said I should try it too, and so I did.



For $5, this is not too bad lah for food court pasta. The sauce is decent, a bit sweetish side though, the seafood consists of 2 prawns, few sotong rings and imitation crab meat. Hey, the pasta is al dente too. LOL..

Nasi Singapura - House of Lontong @ Adam Rd Food Centre

Do you suddenly feel like having food from certain stalls that you seem to have forgotten they exist? Colleagues and I did. We suddenly remembered that we have not been to Adam Road Food Centre for a very long time.

It seems 'automatic' that our legs just brings us to this stall. We used to like this stall a lot.



I think 3 of us had the "Ayam Merah" with some veg sides. The sauce seems to have changed a bit. The cost definitely has gone up by a dollar too.

While the rest were queueing for food, I was sitting down 'choping' seats. So when they got back, it was already 10 over people later who had bought food. The 2 other persons who had the ayam merah first thought that the chicken was dry. Ya we could see it. But for mine, which was the 2nd batch, it was moist and juicy.

We were wondering... Why ah? Are they not consistent anymore?



Pukki had the 'Ayam Kari'. Still quite ok he says.



Another colleague, 'old cat' had the fish. Old cat usually chooses the healthier food amongst us, and when he looks at the more delicious calorie laden / sinful food, he wants to exchange with us. LOL But his lunch does look good too.



Hope your week has been a productive one.

Nasi Singapura House of Lontong @ Adam Road Food Centre

It has been a long time since colleagues and I went to Adam Road to have lunch. It's funny, when we decide to go there, everyone will say, I want to order the Ayam Merah. But when we reach there, only 1 person end up ordering it.

Does that happen to you too? Everyone decide want to eat something, but when we are there, everyone suddenly change their minds and eat something else.

Anyway, this is the store go to. You queue up for food, get the food, the lady at the stall will tell you how much it is, but you don't pay her. You pay to this most of the time grouchy lady sitting on the eating table right in front of the stall.



The Ayam Merah, I guess this photo might have been better taken from the other angle. haha..



I ended up having Assam Fish instead.



Another colleague who is eyeing other food after this, ordered only sides and no mains! Unless you consider egg a main dish. haha..



We also had Sup Kambing from another stall. Yummmm.
Have a good weekend!

Nasi Putih Ayam Penyet @ ABC Market

Today colleagues and I wanted to eat swedish meatballs, but Ikea was so packed, so we detoured to ABC market, hoping to eat Fatty Cheong. But... it was not opened!


So, 2 of us ended up eating Malay food, while the rest ate other things.

Not sure which one is good, we saw this stall had a bit of queue. Haha... So we ordered from here.



I had Ayam Penyet. I enjoyed looking at the lady hitting the chicken with this steel hammer, then dipping it inside the oil to deep fry it. Taste ok lah. So so.. chilli is not pedas.



Another colleague ordered the Nasi Ambeng. Ok, how do you pronounce that? "Arm" & "Beng" that sounds with Ah Beng right? Wrong! We were corrected. It is "Arm" & "Berng".

Nasi Goreng @ Red Ginger, IMM

Saturday's lunch is a chop chop / snap snap lunch at IMM before I run some errants.

We like to grab some Fried Rice or Nasi Goreng at this place called Red Ginger on the ground floor of IMM. We usually have either Nasi Goreng Istimewa or Nasi Goreng Pattaya. Pattaya version has the rice wrapped up in a pouch made of eggs.



This is our lunch. Fried Rice with one chicken wing. Hmm it seems after the recent renovation the prices have gone up.

Thaksin Beef Noodles @ Seah Im

If you want Halal Beef Noodles, this is a good place to try. Their soup base is very good, and it also says no MSG.

I usually eat at the one in Clementi Central, but 2 colleagues ate this instead. This is the original stall.









You should try it! I usually order medium size.