New Branch Nasi Ayam Penyet Testing@Novena Square 2

Demona: It was time for Dogma to depart back to Kayel, via our favourite First Coach at Novena Square. Looking at the time (530pm), both of us decided to just stuff more food into our tummies, with the excuse of "Let's have an early dinner! No more supper!" (Yeah right..)

We walked and walked and walked around this cozy lil' mall sniffing out for food.. and gosh, we stumbled upon a new Ayam Penyet Ria branch! Almost invisible in plain sight, hidden within the gigantic electrical store.

Woo hoo! There's no more need to head all the way into the hustle and bustle of Orchard area for some good olde' flattened chicken rice.

Demona: Whoopsie. I forgot to mention that our lunch was only 2 hours earlier. *burps out loud* We weren't entirely hungry.. just.. GREEDY. Besides itching for some yummy nasi ayam penyet, the patrons seated on the table next to ours, busily scooping up some delicious warm peanut sauce with these sinful, crunchy, flavourful Indon chips definitely caught our TGWG eyes, ... and TGWG tummy juices.

Kiasu-ness made us greedily ordered one plate too. Which was .. hellllllll alotta' chips, with hellllll alotta vegetables and helllllll lotta peanut sauce. Gosh. This meal itself, was already enough for two.

The chips did bring a little disappointment to us. I think that they were prepared for quite some time ago, and had poor storage conditions. Some were a little soft, and soggy. Bargh. Thankfully, peanut sauce came in to save the poor chips' day.


Demona: Here comes.. our crunchy-on-the-outside-but-tender-on-the-inside AYAM PENYETIE! Sure, the chicken was marinated with spices a little too spicy for Dogma's sweatbuds to handle.. not to mention its kungfu pow wow kick ass sambal of theirs, but mmmmmmmmm....... it's sweaty-wipey-good!

The chicken portion did seem a little smaller this time. (Economic downturn, chicken size shrink?), but taste wise was pretty much the same as the one in Lucky Plaza.

The huge mistake that we did this time was ordering the gado gado along with the nasi penyet. These ain't things which you could down easily after a full fledge lunch 2 hours before. We both had to unbutton our pants and rub our bellies filled with ayam penyet and potato chips swimming around inside.

Dogma went on the bus at 630 pm, and I headed back home. We went separate ways, but we both zonked out soon afterwards. It is the similar after-nasi-kandar effect that struck us.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Nasi Ayam Penyet@Sanur Restaurant, Far East Plaza

One of the things that could make Demona YAY YAY YAY when she goes to Orchard is the opportunity to have some good old Nasi Ayam Penyet in Far East Plaza. I think this is the closest Singapore comes to compare with KL's Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng.. Demona has got the whole Indonesian Contigent in Singapore to thank for this blissful dish during her horrid time here.

The chicken was fried till crispy and filled with crumbs. Anything fried is a fatal attraction to Demona. Coupled with ultra spicy belacan. Instant heaven for her.


Next we ordered the fried pomfret in sweet indonesian sauce. Again, it was fried till crispy and the accompanying sauce was deadly spicy. We love it and we cleaned it to the bone. Ngarm ngarm ngarm.

Fossil Fish in the making.


Next to round up the meal is a oily stir fried eggplant dish. It was so so and slighly on the sweeter side...

Overall, the meal at Sanur Restaurant was a great relieve for sambal belacan lacking days in Singapore. Demona will miss this place.

Sari Indo@Upper Thomson Road

Anything spicy would have snatched Demona's soul. While passing by Upper Thomson Road scourging for food, we saw this little Indon Nasi Padang stall very much alike to Warung M Nasir@ Killiney Road. We decided to give it a try and Demona choosed a few dishes for the nite.

Dish 1: Beef Rendang: The defacto bench mark for any nasi padang stall. Eventhou the beef was tender, the spices were packed with some oomph, however, it is lacking in something in the "surprise" department. Probably the dish could use more of some chopped up lemon grass, close pepper or something different. A good effort but not exciting one.

The second dish is again, is a killer combo to snatch Demona's soul: Spiced up Fried Brinjal. This dish is pretty tasty albeit on a slightly oily side. The brinjal was well fried and mixed iwth some indo sambal spices. However, it could be better by giving the brinjal some extra wok hei like the Cafe Teduh@Bali Island.
This dish was a let down. Just typical fried beans. Nothing much to shout about.

Overall, Sari Indo at Upper Thomson road (Just pass the Shell station and very near to the Barnsburry/Nam Kee Chicken Rice/Miss Clarity) was a so so stall. Not bad but nothing impresive about them.

Ayam Penyet Ria@Lucky Plaza

Demona: Today was going to be our "Yey! Shop for free day!" (Although we are limited to only 100 bucks). By some bizarre windfall / durian runtuh, I managed to win first prize for some work assessment... and yeah, the prize was 10 pieces of SGD 10 Takashimaya vouchers. Woohoo! Right time to win something for this poor girl in an expensive city!

While making our way to Takashimaya, we strolled past Lucky Plaza. Almost crossing over the road to the next building, this big banner with a picture of a HUGE rooster caught our attention. "AYAM PENYET! CUBA CUBA!" Oh no..... our dormant tummies suddenly awaken! Vouchers and shopping aside... feed ourselves first!

Demona: The flakes from the fried chicken was .... ooh lalala! Sinful no doubt, but how could you resist these golden brown crunchy lil' buggers? The sambal given was also extremely spicy.. fuh, even for a chilli gobbler like myself.. i salute you, spicy sambal.


Demona: Mr. Chicken, you are the winner dish in this nasi lemak meal. Although the fried chicken really highlighted the whole part of the meal, Village Park's rendition still wins the race to me.

Demona: Total damage was SGD 8 with an ice coffee. The coffee was horrible. Overly sweet, and watery. Total zap off!




Demona: Off we go! Continuing on with our journey to free voucher land. If only I had 10 million pieces of these. *Big sigh*


Demona: The clothes in Takashimaya were really crazy expensive even after discount! Maybe I'm still having the concept of converting to RM that's why. What to do, poor girl in expensive city. The 10 pieces sure came in handy. We decided to splurge not on clothes, not on shoes, not on household accessories.... but........... *yawns* what else other than .... FOOODDDDD again?

We bought some chips, cheese, perrier water and sushis for dinner using the vouchers, and came out of Cold Storage, sat by the Taka fountain with the rest of the world and munch our way down this simple dinner.

Romantic!

Rasa Sedap@Joo Chiat Road

Demona: What more to look forward for than a mind and soul calming church session coupled with a kick ass slurpilicious makan stall in front of it! Tummy 'calming' too! Both of us had the same thought in our minds. Another trip to Rasa Sedap for dinner before attending praise and worship. And yes....same dishes in mind too. We could not contain ourselves from salivating just imagining ourselves chewing the tender juicy rendang beef chunks!



Demona: Dogma jumped straight into this! I'm surprised that he had never tried this before. Hmmmmmmm... strange... the fried prawn keropok is quite common among the malay stalls who sell banana fritters and chinese stalls who sell yao char kuey, ham chim peng. Anyway, deep fried food that are displayed on the rack are actually a big NO NO. More often than not, they are soaked with oil, soften, and cold already. This prawn keropok did not prove otherwise either. It was cold, soggy and oily. Urghs. Big tip: Best buy deep fried food when the person is actually frying them there itself!

Demona: I never forgot you... sweet spicy powerpack lil' bugger!

Demona: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....................... the chef did not cook beef rendang that day! He cooked chicken rendang instead. Which wasn't bad at all, the meat was juicy and tender, but somehow rather... it lacked that extra 10% to give it a 100% Ooooh lah lah! It could be psychological, or truly due to taste: but we both agreed that the beef rendang was the winner in this tortoise and hare race.

Demona: I decided to choose all different dishes this time, to try out their other varietals. Instead of taking the tempe (which, still looked as delicious as ever on the rack), I choose some long beans with anchovies and garlic stir fried dish. Quite enjoyable, I would say because you could get some salty flavours with nice gritty crunchy bites. Ngarm, ngarm, ngarm, ngarm!


Demona: I've always enjoyed this dish. Cooked by all styles: Indian, Chinese, Malay. The cabbages and tofu fully soaking up all the curry juices, making them all juicy and soft. Once you bit them, they just disintegrate easily, releasing the curry!

Verdict: The portion again, was HUGE! We were more convinced this time that the generous portion of dishes given was due to the fact that there were only few customers around and Dogma had been very friendly to one of their waiters, who seemed to be a fairly important person there. The total bill including a teh ais, SGD 6.10. I would say it was a worthy deal! ~SGD 3 per pax. We will definitely be back..... for beef rendang! Aiyoyoyoyoyo!

Rasa Sedap Foods Pte Ltd @Joo Chiat Rd

Demona: AYAM PENYETTTTTT! AYAM PENYETTTTTTT! Too bad when we arrived, "flat chicken" was already sold out. According to Dogma, the stall is near Rasa Sedap.




Demona: The shop was empty when we were standing outside of it. Since there wasn't any luck on getting hold of a flat chicken, and we were already here, we thought we'd brush aside the fact that the shop was empty and gave their food a try.



Demona: I took some "tempe" (fermented soybeans) with long beans.. and they tasted, OMG... amazing!: the beans were spicy, crunchy, coupled with soft, fully absorbed gravy sauce locked inside the squarish tempe.



Demona: Dogma and I are T-rexes, and beef rendang has always been prone for landing on our makan plates, and this pitstop did not differ much either. The beef rendang was...... oooh lah lah! The meat was very, very tender and juicy! coated with rich, thick, rendang gravy. These T-rexes were fighting for them meat chunks!



Demona: *drummmm rolllllssssss* the winner of the best chilli was ...de one on the top! The sambal nasi lemak chilli was *smooches!* You could eat just like that. Dogma thought the Demona Chilli Gobbler action was showing too much!

Verdict: Total damage cost was SGD 4.90, plus a SGD 1.10 teh ais. The portion was HUGEEEEEE. It was just nice for two to share. I'm guessing that the waiter was kind to gave us a lil' extra on the portion size since there weren't many customers around and if the food were not fully sold by closing time, it'd be gone to waste anyway. Apparently, Rasa Sedap has 6 branches all around Singapore, but Joo Chiat's branch, somehow rather not attracting many customers but other branches are doing very well. Do give Rasa Sedap a try! The rendang is making me salivate again... Oooooooh!

Starbucks Kuta

It's getting a bit hot in the afternoon in Kuta and we stop by at Starbucks Bali, situated right beside the HardRock Cafe:
You know, Kuta Beach literally looks like an Aussie Beach with tons of Austrialians and Aussie shops/goods/foods. Barring the passing local hawkers and street peddlers + chaotic motorbike, this place could really pass off as an Aussie beach front.

Caramel Jave Chip Frappucino without Whipped Cream: 49K RP ~ 7.50sgd: Taste the same as what you get at other starbucks outlet around the globe, thick thick coffee frap with choco chip bits and caramel on top... Nice drink in the scorching hot beach! ( btw, 49K Rupiah could easily feed 3-4 adults at a local warung shop.)

Sari Bhuana Babi Guleng 2@Kuta

After our first meal of Babi Guling in Sanur, we were not totally satisfied yet and long for a better babi guling stall with more kick...One of the cab driver recommended us the Sari Bhuana Stall in Kuta while driving us back to our hotel. Our mind is set and we went down again to Kuta to try this Babi Guling on our last day in Bali just before our flight.

A lil bit about the stall: The stall is just a tiny little stall by the road side in between some hardware shop. There are some small wooden hut/pondok behind the stall, right beside the hardware stall storage area for diners to dine in. It's quite an unique experience dining within the compound of some storage area while enjoying excellent babi guling.
The head: This beautifully charred head of 6 months old babi guling greeted us upon entering this small little stall by the road side. The head looks crispy, clean and fresh compared to other stalls. The body: Another view of the babi guling. From this angle it looks like a decapitated doggie/hyena head. yew.....


The liver: We did not order this as eating extremely black liver is not exactly my cup of tea.
The meat: Babi Kicap: This is very good! The meat was well marinated in soya sauce (kicap) and some spices before being grilled and stirred fried till dry and crispy. It's a tad oily with tons of oil dripping but hey, the taste of this babi kicap is very similar to our Char Siew but 4times better!

The sausages: Meat + intestines + what not wrapped in some pork intestines. Pretty tasty, but a tad fatty. You could taste chunks of pork fats in the sausages.
Coke: Our only fizzy drink for the entire trip.. great after an long walk under the scorching sun


Sari Bhuana @Jl Raya Tuban 85XX, Kuta, Bali

Kuta Dinner by the beach

The last nite at Bali and what better place to have except by the beautiful Kuta Beach.
We were done with swimming around the beach front of Discovery Mall and proceeded to check out the various restaurant there.
Hmm most were priced at 80-100k rupiah per pax kinda of dinner aimed at tourist until we chanced upon the restaurant beside Discovery Mall.

The view of the restaurant is so beautiful. We just sit down by the beach, facing the sunset and sipping cheap Bintang beer. True Bliss.

Chicken Parmigianna 35k RP: Demona seemed to have a fondness of Parmigianna. I still remember vividly in Melbourne where we decided to have our only proper meal for the whole tripin an italian restaurant. In the end somehow we ended ordering 2 Parmigianna - Chicken for me and Pork for her. It's kinda dissapointing when the food arrived as both tasted the same. Anyway, back to this Chicken Parmigianna in Bali, it tasted so so, but you could hardly fault it in front of this scenic tranquility.

Beef Burger@32K RP: This is good. Nicely grilled burger patties and hot hot fries...MMMMM!! Fabulous!

I love BALI!

Warung Warung@ Kuta

While walking along the street in Kuta, we chanced upon this little restaurant near the beach. It was the only restaurant for a good 500 metres stretch that sells Local food instead of international cuisine aimed at home sick tourists. Thanks to Demona for spotting this cheap and good joint!

One thing i like about Bali is that most of the decoration of the Local restaurant are very Bali-nee, unique, clean and classy while maintaining at a good price point ( around 30-50k Rupiah per pax= 5-8sgd)Nasi Campur@27K Rupiah, 3.80SGD): We shared this big plate of nasi campur with bali fish cake, sambal eggplant, typical bali stired fried beansprout and beef rendang. The rendang and eggplant was oh-so-yummy and pack with some powerful stingy spice that rivals Warong M Nasir's at Killiney road Singapore. Did we mentioned the prawncrackers are FOC and this dish cost half the price of M Nasir's?


Sambals: Assorted sambal for Demona's perusal. These lil red stuff does rock! Spicy yet savoury, Demona wipe this bowl clean and still craving for more!
Fried BeeHoon@20K Rupiah =3SGD: This is quite a let down. The beehoon is a tad dry and tasteless. Pooi!
Fresh Mango Juice@10k Rupiah= 1.50sgd: I'm not sure why but the fresh fruit juice in Bali are always dirt cheap and taste damn good. They do really use 100% fresh fruit and blend on the spot for this glass of mango juice. Thick, tangy fresh mango juice, ( no sugar and water added!) OOO LALALA,, Demona is so fixed on this that she ordered fruit juice for every meal in Bali while i sip on my Bali Coffee and Bintang beer.
This is a pretty innovative way for keeping track of what you'd ordered. For every dish that was delivered to you, the waiter will put these little green card on your table indicating the price of the food you'd received. once you are done, just pass this cards to the cashier and he will Picit picit picit and add them all up. Cute!

Location: by kuta galeria simpang siur mall.
it has bright green wall with old black and white pictures. the ceiling is full of white lampions and empty birdcages.

Assorted Indonesia Snacks

Some brief write ups on the snacks that we enjoyed in Bali.Demona swear by the goodiness of Mcdonald's McFlurry: Whenever she felt down, sad, uneasy etc, just pop by a McD stall and grab a McFlurry and you are certain that the sun will shine again. This is the chocolate Mcflurry that we had. Besides this, we also have a Mcflurry Warna Warni (literally means Colourful McFlurry). It is actually Mcflurry with MnM's chocolate. Each cup cost less than 1 dollar sgd, albeit at a smaller cup. A great enjoyment eating by the beach in the sunny afternoon.

Local Lay's Chips, Nori Seaweed Flavour: This 180grams pack cost about RP9,000 which is about 1.50 sgd while the imported Lay's chip cost about RP60,000. One might wonder is there a huge difference between Indon made Lay's chips and a US made Lay's Chip.To be frank, there is indeed some really minor difference in terms of taste. ( the Indon chips aint as light and crispy as the original lays and lean more towards the quality of Twisties Chitos, Calbee etc. And the indon version is only availble in Salmon flavour, seaweed flavour or spicy bbq flavour which is not available internationaly). However, at 1.50sgd per pop, this is dirt cheap and worth every penny of it! Demona and I sapu at least 9 packs to be brought home to Singapore.
Chitato Chips, Beef BBQ@RP6,000: Again, another dirt cheap local chips costing less than a dollar sgd. Taste wise, coudl not comment much except some spices, bbq flavour and typical saltish note. Not exciting but did the job of quenching our thirst for chips. Cheap!

Qtela Cassava Chips: I'm not sure what Cassave is but this is pretty yummy. The chips is much more starchier/solid compared to potato chips and in a way, it makes u feel healthier and it tasted less salty. We have one more pack in our cupboard now waiting for further test during our next movie marathon!

Babi Guleng@ Sanur

Normally when Demona and I went for a tour, we would have planned months ahead and researched on the MUST DO /MUST EAT places. However, for this Bali trip, neither of us did much fact finding and basically everything was impromptu, played by ear , judged by eye and verified by local's input.
The manager at our nice nice Diwangkara Resort suggested us to try this Babi Guleng shop at Sanur, near Jalan Hang Tuah.

The kitchen is VERY VERY dark and messy, with 7 little piglets (alive) living by the kitchen awaiting their turns to be BBQ. (More pictures on that later after Demona is back in SGP)
The stove: Wood Fire store. Classic!The Kitchen: Messy, watery and dark. Signs of great food to come!The Pit: Where 6 months old suckling pig is being grilled to perfectionThe Victims: Situated right beside the pit, the victims watch in horror as they witness their siblings being burnt in the pit. Anyway, the pig wasnt that stinky and it amazed me how they could rear this bunch of suckling pig in between 2 houses.

We bought a pack of mixed Babi Guleng rice consisting of Satay Ayam, pickled vegetables, fried pork lards, sausages, fried chicken and peanuts for RP35,000 and devoured it by the beach.

Let's just have a quick peek at the Nasi Babi Guling.

Glistening Porky Skin: This is crispy and I'd sapu this up!
Pork cubes from the spicy soup + Porky Skin.
Fried Pork Lard: Not for the faint hearted, the pork lard is fried till ultra crispy and it taste like a pork Keropok. Good to dip in the spicy soup!

THis is our first Babi Guleng and it was pretty interesting but not exciting. However, we chanced upon a better Babi Guleng stall in Kuta the next day. We will post it soon!

PS: this is what we found on the internet on this babi guleng stall:
BABI GULING GIANYAR on the By-Pass near the SPLASH BAKERY (opposite Mcdonalds, near Jln Danau Tramblingan) between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. This very simple restaurant serves the most delicious "Babi Guling" (roasted suckling pig, a famous specialty of the town of Gianyar) for 4,500 Rupiah per portion. Around 7:00 p.m. they are usually sold out!


Eh, how come Demona and I paid 35,000 RP? probably for the extra half chicken that Demona ordered and for being a tourist

The boss: Busy preparing our pack of babi guling