Indo Padang Restaurant at Cathay

1 of my first buys on Groupon was 3 vouchers for SGD90 worth of meals at Indo Padang restaurant at SGD45 (SGD15 x 3 vouchers).

That was the worst buy ever. Not only did I not have the time to use the vouchers till the week before they expired, but it was an absolutely horror altogether. The ambiance was nice, the servers were friendly, the food didn't take forever coming...BUT the quality of the food! Awful doesn't even begin to describe the food.

Food from a Malay/Indonesian stall at a food court beats the food coming out of this restaurant's kitchen hands down.

I'll start with the beef rendang, the dish on the left of the picture. That was the only semi-decent dish out of everything we ordered. The dish cost almost SGD10, and the meat was tough, but not too touch to spoil the dish. No great shakes, but edible.

I wanted to order the giant prawns dish but was told they didn't have that. So I ordered the udang petai, prawns cooked with the petai vegetable. That is the dish on the right. It came with potato cubes and those were the only bits of the dish which were pretty good. The prawns were smallish, very tough and totally dry. Not the least bit of juice or sweetness. I, a noobie at cooking, have cooked sambal prawns and those were much better. Oh, and there were all of about 8 small prawns for SGD 10! What a rip off! Even with a voucher giving a 50% discount, I would not have paid SGD5 for this dish.

And sambal kangkong...how do you mess up such a simple dish! My sister and I love kangkong and we attacked the dish with great gusto, only to look at each other with wrinkled noses after taking the first bite. The gravy was overly sweet, almost to the point of being syrupy sweet. Ugh. And it was such a tiny portion for that price! Less than what you would get in a food court mixed dish stall.

Now, the fish. I intended to use 2 of the vouchers so I was looking to order SGD60 worth of food. Since the fish head curry was SGD22 and there were 2 of us, it made sense to order this dish. The fish head came in a pot with thin looking yellow gravy. Which was a put off but never mind, maybe it would be nice. My sister took 1 bite and spat it out. And I soon found out why. The fish was not fresh. Not even the curry (which was awfully thin) could mask the "Cao Seng" (rotten) taste of fish that was not fresh. We told the waitress who took it back to the kitchen. She said the fish came that day. If it did, it must have been left in the open too long. It was bad. And that was the only fish head the restaurant had that day.

So I decided to order another dish. The next most expensive fish on the menu. Only to be told it was not available. So I ordered the belachan fish. And tada,...look at the picture of the fish that came deep fried, about 8 inches long, had belachan paste dumped on its body and cost SGD 8. What a rip off! I mean, look at the size of the bowls...that should give you an idea of the size of the fish!

I also ordered tauhu goreng. And for some strange reason, despite the horrible fish, prawns and all, we were envisioning a mountain of warm toufu...but no, we were served with the above dish whcih consisted all of 6 pieces of over cooked deep fried toufu. At least the toufu was not spoilt, like the fish, but the dish had been so overcooked that the outer lawyer was hard and dry and chewy. And the inside was all shrunken. This cost SGD5...I wouldn't pay a dollar for this.

And the drinks! My sister ordered ice strawberry which cost SGD 4 and I ordered lime juice which was the same price. After one mouthful of the drink, she abandoned the glass together. Ice strawberry? It wasn't even blended ice but just water mixed with strawberry powder. My own drink was so overpoweringly sweetly sour that I could not finish it either. So that was SGD8 for you.

The Slog Reviews: ZERO/10. I've never rated a local restaurant zero before but any restaurant that serves food that is just so awful really shouldn't be in this business. The bill came to SGD62 but in effect I'd only paid SGD30 for this meal.

And it was not worth SGD30. If I hadn't already paid using Groupon vouchers, I might have sent every dish back to the kitchen after 1 bite and just walked out. And I did mention I bought 3 vouchers right? I just let the third one go to waste. I wouldn't give a voucher for Indo Padang restaurant to my worst enemy...or maybe.