my OPS friend bought 4pax lunch at gayatri today on 19.12.2016. ^^

restaurant is located at race course road.

today monday, school holidays, traffic was smooth along dunearn road. i saw an empty lot next to banana leaf, parked & walked further down & was at gayatri at 1pm.

we took a look at the food display & ordered our food.

lime juice S$3 a bit expensive, quite good, so ok.

for me, pepper prawns was the best dish for lunch.

large prawns, very fresh, plump & bouncy, good serving size & excellent sauce. all for S$18.

the madras chicken was not bad.

again sauce tasty & aromatic with the herbs.

cannot tell if masala chicken or butter chicken maybe better. anyway this was amply ok.

we ordered 2 garlic naans (S$7.50). we only finished one.

i had wanted chicken with sauce instead of chicken tikka the server suggested so could go with the naan. anyway still felt not enough sauce & asked server for some butter chicken gravy or dhal.

he came with the big plate of dhal. not the best for naan but i thought it would be complimentary. he charged us S$7. might as well order a large dish of butter chicken or squid at S$11???

we ordered the S$17 fish head curry promo.

it was whole head, not 1/2, but a small head.

this was actually a very good indian fish head curry.

miles better than banana leaf apollo we had on 4.11.2016, but that was a bad example as it was really poor – the curry was very sour, and not sweet & tasty enough!

fish head was very fresh & fish meat tender. the curry i had to go back to getting use to, but after a while, i quite liked it. thought it was very good too…

overall though, i think i am out of indian fish head curry these days. seldom take it but now not so attracted as before c/w say-

1. hup choon’s good nonya fish head curry
2. forture’s the best thai style fish head curry,
3. or for that matter, my own excellent nonya fish head curry.

the mutton dum briyani at S$11 was a good value dish.

rice were separate, single grain, very nicely done.

there was a huge serving of mutton, like maybe 8 large pieces.

mutton was tasty & tender, but still a bit robust & some gamey taste, no comparison with my friend’s wife’s homecooked super tender, super tasty rogan josh.

i had better briyani at other places, notably chat masala. still it was a great dish & all of us liked it.

had a really good lunch & fun time together with my old pals from primary school thanks to my friend!

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an indian friend i showed to thought the bill was expensive, but then the individual prices were not ex really, except for S$3 lime juice, $7.50 naan (which were also not outrageous) & the S$7 dhal (which for me was outrageous)..

my friend who paid for lunch had a S$50 groupon, so i guess lunch was about S$80nett, which was pretty ok for the food.

after lunch we walked over to old town white coffee at city square mall.

my recollection based on a coffee i took like 10 yrs ago at the big splash was that it was undrinkable!

but there was no original cendol today as they said the ice machine broke down, so i took the kopi-c gosong.

it was very good actually!

strong & much more flavourful (& foamy) than the toastbox kind.

a friend had the soya milk cendol for his fix.

he thought it was ok.

a bit more ex than toastbox i guess, but i would prefer this.

i enjoyed the coffee time together!

we got up the escalator to the serangoon road junction, still some distance walk back to race course road.

c.h.e.f andy

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Gayatri Restaurant