waroeng penyet

I guess Tuesday is my family's unofficial family day, huh?

Considering that it's my bro's off day for every week (I know, it's a pretty odd day, rite?), my family will eat out every now and then.

Trooped down to Waroeng Penyet at Marine Parade. This place has gotten to be my family's favourite haunt.

I don't know why, we always end up cash-strapped whenever we dine in there. I would like to suggest that the proprietor install the NETS machine there, seriously.

The food there ain't exactly cheap, despite the casual setting (if you compare to hawker prices, that is) but it's still affordable. Definition of expensive would have been Garuda Restaurant.

So, with the order of so many things it's no surprise if I find the need to search for a nearby ATM- and the one across the road had been removed! darn.

FYI, I don't keep much cash with me, so as to curb unnecessary spending. Uhuh, I have to resort to such measures. Something like how 7-Eleven has less than $30 after midnight? Yes, something liddat. Pfft.

Anyway, back to the food.

the spread

We made a double order of the chicken satay, sup buntut (ox-tail soup) & ikan bakar (grilled tilapia fish) since they're our family favourites.

Then there's the famed Ayam Penyet for my bro and Gado-Gado for my dad.

Chicken sate/satay

Maybe this is unlike the typical satay that we can get from local hawkers around.

The meat here wasn't as heavily marinated with nicely scented ketumbar-jintan-serai and other what nots. Simply marinated and given dabs of soy sauce when grilling.

And served with peanut sauce with a much thinner consistency than that of our local ones. Maybe due to the finely ground peanuts. Reminds me a lot of sambal pecel. My mum said it reminded her of homemade peanut butter.

Then drizzled with more soy sauce and fried shallots before serving. Typical satay that one gets, back in Indonesia.

Now about that sauce, my bro insisted that they used the same one for the Gado-Gado. I'm not too sure about that, though....

Ayam penyet

Marinated chicken, deep fried and smashed (for some reason). Served with sambal belacan and cucumber + cabbage and fried tofu + tempe on the side.

Check out all that crispy bits! See that chili in the background? Menacing! I like!

But hey, has the size of the chicken piece gotten smaller, somewhat?

Ikan bakar

My parents and myself absolutely love this. My bro only love it when I help to fish out (pun intended) the crispy parts for him.

And the best part about ordering 2 of these? Each of my parents got the fish head for themselves. Oh, you don't know how much they love fish heads!

As I've mentioned previously, there's no sign of that 'muddy' scent usually present in freshwater fish, here. And I like the fact that tilapias have large, visible bones that I can easily see and thus, avoid.

Funnily enough, despite the fact that the fish is heavily infused with the typical Indonesian thick and sweet soy sauce, we were served with more kicap (soy sauce) with cut chili padi as a condiment.

Sup buntut

Pretty disappointing with their portions now. Especially the oxtail themselves. I remember my parents and I, we used to come here and order 1 bowl of this each.

The soup is good but the main reason had been the generous portion of 2 or 3 WHOLE pieces of oxtail in each bowl.

Here however, the oxtail have been noticeably cut into smaller pieces. And they tossed in more of the regular beef pieces instead.

It really cheese me off whenever my favourite eating haunts start to dwindle in their quality, be it in terms of cooking, portion or service.

When they first open, there'll be the usual teething problems. I usually give it a month or so before checking a place out. Then we hope that they keep it that way, all the way.

And we wonder why eateries come and go....