Ananda Bhavan Restaurant Revisited

We wanted to go to some tze char place near Novena, but then it was renovating and hence closed. So we ended up eating Indian vegeterian food at Ananda Bhavan Restaurant.

I really like the sauce with the bright orange colour in the North Indian Set ($6 something). It's just like butter chicken sauce, just that it has cottage cheese in place of chicken. Wonder what it's called? (It's called paneer butter masala, thanks Marky!)

There's also a whole lots of dips/sauces including yoghurt, some strange tasting (to me) stewed cabbage, some dhal (?) based curry which was pretty spicy, my favourite cottage cheese, and a vegetable curry.

The set comes with 2 naans and a whole bowl of rice (which has mushrooms and other spices) and a chaapati(?). There's even a desesrt (see the little brown ball at the 7o'clock position) which is some flour ball drenched in syrup.

I know my knowledge of Indian food is pretty bad.

I also had the Paper Masala Thosai ($3.50) which is filled with potatoes cooked in a yellow sauce. My favourite dip was white grated coconut based one, since the others were too spicy.

The spicy version of my thosai, the Mysore Masala Thosai ($4.50), which is essentially the same thing as the Paper Masala Thosa, just that it's really very spicy (I couldn't finish it the last time). Kulfi ($3.70)

My must-eat dessert whenever I have Indian food. It's extremely sweet, and has lots of Indian spices inside - spotted some cardamon and some leaf. Not too sure what they are though.

The Kulfi isn't called Kulfi in the menu, but it's under the non-descript name of 'ice cream'.

Like the last time, the cashiers were really patient with us taking a long time to decide and answering our many of questions (like is this dish spicy?). Saw quite a few tourists dining here during lunch - perhaps it's written up on some Lonely planet guide or Timeout or something?

Ananda Bhavan Restaurant

95 Syed Alwi Road
Tel 62979522

Opposite Mustafa, along the side road

Ananda Bhavan Restaurant

Although I dislike Chinese vegeterian food to the core cos of all their mock meats and fried beehoon, I quite like vegeterian cusine. Especially if it's Indian cos they whip up such nice dishes that make you forget you're eating vegeterian. Ananda Bhavan is a 100% vegeterian restaurant, and inside the restaurant, one whole side of the wall is dedicated to information on why being vegeterian is better than being an omnivore. I've walked past this place quite a few times, when my family was crazy about the 24hr shopping at Mustafa Centre. It's an airconditioned restaurant, and looks a bit like a fast food chain - you have to order at a counter, and collect your food from another counter.

I had the Paper Mysoore Masala Thosai ($4.50), which I ordered wrongly - I actually told the lady at the counter that I didn't want anything spicy. Dunno how I ended up with the extremely spicy thosai. I like the condiments that they gave too, my favourite being the whitish one, which is some non-spicy coconut thing. The thosai is really huge, and is spilling over the tray. It's filled with potatoes cooked with lots of spice. The mysoore masala thosai also comes in a a non-spicy version, which is essentially the same thing without the spicey sauce.
Thairul Vadi (sp? not too sure about the name either) which was what the lady at the counter recommended when I told her my dish was too hot so I was ordering another. I think it's $3.50 if I'm not wrong. Or it might have been $2.80? I can't find my receipt :/ Anyway, the yoghurt was thick and cooling, and there were little bits of grated ginger and carrots, including some herbs. Though I didn't quite like the texture of the cold vadi (there's a deep fried version which looked extremely tempting, but the lady told me it's spicy). My Iced Masala Tea ($2.80), which I couldn't really taste since my tongue was on fire :( But I'll definitely want to come back and eat the Kashimiri naan (sp?) and cottage cheese vegetable dish that Julie has been raving about!

Apart from my wrong order, the lady at the counter was extremely helpful (especially since we were pointing madly and asking what was this and that and being slow in ordering). Best of all, the place is cool, clean and brightly lit. And the prices are extremely reasonable - I'll definitely drop by again to try more vegeterian food :)

Plus, there's this almond drink thing that I want to try - it's yellow and thick and looks really interesting - too bad I wasn't feeling that adventerous that day.

Ananda Bhavan Restaurant
95 Syed Alwi Road

Tel 62979522
Opposite Mustafa, along the side road

Gurkha Palace Restaurant

After the very nice lunch experience I had with my cg, I decided to bring my another group of friends to try Gurkha Palace Restaurant. Unfortunately, the night we went the airconditioning was spoilt (I seem to be very unlucky with the airconditioning - I just went to Frensh and the airconditioning was spoilt too!). It was really very stuffy and pretty unberable inside the restaurant, especially since it was really crowded that night owing to big group of diners (about 15 of them?). Lamb Kebab - which was slightly dry but tasty cos of the marinade. I think this costs either $8 or $12.From Top: Butter Chicken, Mushroom, Fish in Coconut Sauce

The Butter chicken was the hot favourite - and was finished really quick, and the naan was used to mop up any remnants of the delicious sauce. The sauce was creamy, tangy and didn't dissappoint - and best of all it came with an incredibly reasonable price tag (can't rem the exact price but it's less than or $10).

The Mushroom vegetable dish was pretty spicy but was chokeful of mushrooms, and like all Indian food, packed with an explosion of spices.

The Fish with coconut sauce was the slowest to be finished up, perhaps because the fish pieces were very chunky and tough. The sauce was thick and flavourful, but the butterchicken sauce beat it hands down in terms of taste and flavour.

Like most Indian foods, the curries and sauces were really heavy, and most people were stuffed with just one naan each.Okay, so I was raving about the delicious homemade icecream I had here previously, and managed to persuade about 3 other people to have this absolutely delicious ice cream. But when it came, it completely didn't look anything like the delicious molten condense-milk with grounded nuts topping I had. Instead, it was huge rectangular chunks of ice cream topped on commercial chocolate ice cream (tastes like the normal magnolia/marigold kind you get in NTUC). Such a dissppointment.

The ice cream is called Himali Ice cream and costs $3.50 per portion.

The service was pretty slow that day - probably becuase the kitchen was overtaxed by that huge group of people and the aircon was SPOILT. They didn't have portable fan either. Other than these hitchups, I managed to use my NETS (and my 15% discount) unlike the other time... The food here's really good for the price and I will be sure to bring more people back.

Michellelim Stars:

Gurkha Palace Restaurant

Any place with such a unique name deserves special mention on my blog:D Thanks to my hungry friends who like exploring new areas...

Ghurka Palace Restaurant serves Nepalese and Northern Indian food. I've never tried Nepalese food before so we ended up trying 3 Nepalese dishes between the 4 of us.

Best of all, it's CHEAP! Quite cheap for restaurant standard and great food. The naan - butter or plain - costs only $1.50! I might not be very enlightened in this area but $1.50 for naan in a restaurant is pretty cheap - I've only very recently found out that I've been getting ripped off for naans and curries at all those Indian restaurants.

The saddest thing is that I don't have the receipt (and it's cos someone LOST it! D:<) so I have no idea what the dishes are called cos they're all called some exotic thing! Rarh! But, I will try in my best ability to describe the delicious Nepalese dishes (even though my food vocab is rather limited).

Top left: Nepalese chicken curry (unknown name) which tastes like butter chicken - it's tangy, slightly creamy and bursting with flavour. For about $7.50, it's a good sized portion and the chicken morsels are tender and juicy. There's also ample gravy to mop up with the naans.

Top Middle: Nepalese Vegetable Curry (about $6)
Its peas, carrots and cauliflower simmered in a thick curry sauce, which is also slightly creamy and a bit spicy. All the dishes smell very good cos of the Indian spices.

Top Left: Nepalese Spicy Mutton (can't remember the price)
Aromatic pieces of lamb cooked in a spicy oily sauce. I found it too spicy but then again, my chilli tolerance is quite low.

This is my very unique and cool ice cream - recommended by the waiter it's some home made ice cream (not sure if its Indian or Nepalese) but when I asked him if it was like Kulfi, he was like "no no no no no no no not like kulfi!". He was quite appalled that I thought it was like Kulfi, and this made me want to try it even more - sadly, the only "Indian" type of ice cream I know is kulfi.

It's a very creamy milk ice cream topped with this thick milky (a bit like condensed milk but thicker and I think there's some finely ground nuts or something inside cos it's as a coarse texture) layer and chopped almonds. It's $3.50 for a good sized portion (can share with 2 people).

The saddest thing is that the service isn't up to standard, but for the price, it's really good. I have have no inkling why the Chinese woman boss refused to give us the NETS discount - there's a 15% off if you pay by NETS (there's a huge sign outside) but then even after we specifically told the waiter that we wanted to pay by nets, the boss still credit-carded it. After that, she refused to void it and insisted that we paid by credit card @~%$>&*!!! If you don't wanna give the discount, then don't give lor!!!! Why bother even advertising just hide the sign somewhere we'll be none the wiser... This really makes me feel like hiding the restaurant name, address and tel phone number somewhere but the food's really good! :(


Ghurka Palace Restaurant

51 Chander Road

Tel: 6292 4316

Vansh

Today is the 5th time I've been to Vansh - and it's a really nice place to go to cos the ambience and food is really good! They have really nice seats with lots of cushions and also have al fresco dining along the river. Starter was something like pappadums but in shape of cigars - and with these 3 sauces. The first one was some herb yoghurt sauce, the second some very spicy sauce and the third was a sweet mango yoghurt sauce (which is my favourite).The white stuff at the back is Madras Curd Rice ($14), which we didn't like. It's rice with lassi, but it's really thick lassi. And it's really expensive too. Try the seafood briyani - it's much better.


Infront of the rice is the Fish Masala ($18)- the fish is tender and flaky, and the curry is tasty and not too rich.


On the right is the Tandoori Chicken ($16). The tandoori chicken is very moist and juicy and tastes really good. It's not like the horrible dry and hard kind that you find elsewhere. If this place wasn't so ex, I would visit it many many many more times.


This is the lamb kebab, I think it's called Malmali Sheek or Murg Angar. Im not too sure - one of them is the chicken and the other is the lamb. It's minced lamb kebab, and the lamb is really soft and yummy. ($16)
This is the Deccan Vegetable Curry ($14). It has lots of curry and coconut and is pretty spicy. It sort of reminds me of sayur lodeh. My all time favourite dish - Butter Chicken ($18). It's tender chicken cooked in a tangy tomato sauce and it goes really well with naan. I have to order butter chicken whenever I eat at any Indian restaurant :D

Garlic naan, Butter Naan and plain naan. $4 for each naan. I like the garlic naan best.

Btw, we over ordered cos the curries are relly filling - if you order, order about 1 dish per person and a naan each, or not you'll be exploding by the end of the meal.

Vansh

2 Stadium Walk #01-04

Singapore Indoor Stadium

Singapore 397891

Tel 63445344