Singaporean Food at Temasek Restaurant Parramatta, Sydney

Australia – Day 11 (Part 4)

I had asked Auntie to take me to eat Singaporean or Malaysian food because we don’t have very many Singaporean or Malaysian restaurants if any in San Diego. So Auntie took us to Temasek Restaurant in Parramatta, Sydney.

After driving around looking for parking, we managed to get there early enough to avoid the crowd. Auntie said this is a very popular restaurant and actually has a really long wait.

When reading the menu, everything felt extremely over priced and their seemed to be an additional fee for everything. I also remember paying very little for Singaporean food in Hawker Centers. But since I’m not in Singapore this is as close as I’ll get for now.

We ordered the Hainanese Chicken Rice: succulent tender boneless chicken served with rice, shrimp, soup, chilli and soya sauce ($14). When you think of Singaporean food, I think this would be the number one dish that would come to mind. (Is it Chilli with 2 L’s or 1? The menu shows 2 so I’ll go with 2.

I was super excited to see it served with Chilli and soya sauce because chicken is usually served with a ginger sauce at most places, this is a rare treat for me.

The chicken was cooked almost perfectly and obviously their signature dish here. The meat although is chicken breast is so smooth and flavorful. Look at how shiny the chicken is. And the best part is that it’s boneless. I still act like a kid around my family when it comes to food with bones and shells.

Note that it doesn’t come with much rice. Any additional rice is an additional $2.5o/bowl or $9/pot. You can either get chicken (flavoured) rice or coconut (flavoured) rice. But if you’re eating chicken rice, get the chicken rice please.

And since we ordered extra rice we ordered a few more dishes to go with rice. Sambal Balacan King Kong ($17.80) and Serai Pork ($19.80).

Sambal Balacan King Kong is a water spinach stir fried with a Malaysian dried shrimp paste and chilli paste. This is actually a type of vegetable found in South East Asia and has always been a good vegetable stir fried with very strong flavors.

Serai is Lemon Grass, so we ordered a Lemon Grass stir fried pork. This was also a dish that had very strong flavors. Honestly this looks like a typical pork stir fry my Mom would make at home with a slightly different flavors (so American of me to not spell “Flavours”).

Chilli Crab is a pretty famous dish in Singapore but the crab is seasonal and according to market price. We went with the Singapore Chilli with Prawn. So happy to not be dealing with the shell! The sauce is a creamy-ish spicy sauce. Although almost a little too spicy for me, it was really good. Brings me back to 1 of 2 dishes I had in Singapore that persuaded me to learn how to eat spicy food. (The other being Laksa)

Auntie has been here a few times and remembered enjoying a shrimp noodle. That was literally how she ordered it with the waiter and he was very confident in knowing what she was talking about so we went with it. We ended up getting something different BUT that was exactly what I wanted to eat, just not what Auntie wanted. So we ordered more food and got what she had in mind as well. I think Auntie wanted to return the wrong dish but when she saw my face light up, she let me eat it. Thank you Auntie. Can you guess which one I wanted and which one Auntie wanted from the pictures above?

According to the Temasek Restaurant menu, there are 2 different types of Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee. The Singapore style and the Malaysian style. We were served the Singapore and that’s honestly even harder to find here in Southern California. Which actually made me second guess the Hokkien Mee I remember eating in Singapore. Cause I had some Hokkien Mee in Boston and it did not look like this, that’s when I realized it’s been almost 10 years since I lived in Singapore.

The combination of the 2 types of noodles stir fried together with a light sauce. Together it’s kind of mushy, just the way I like it. I believe the Malaysian style uses a darker sauce and tastes a bit sweeter.

This is actually what Auntie ordered! Did you guess the fried noodle or the noodle soup? Auntie was trying to order the King Prawn Mee Soup: yellow egg noodles, rice noodles with king prawn and fish cakes in prawn flavored stock.

By the time we got this, we were full from all of the other things we had. But this broth was quite amazing! It has since inspired my mom to make prawn flavored stock at home. We’ve been eating more shrimp at home and she has been saving our shrimp shell and shrimp head to make stock.

Over all this restaurant really hit the spot for me. BUT the roti canai made me really sad. i didn’t understand why we would have to order at least 2 orders of roti and wait….and then have to order curry on the side cause it doesn’t some with curry. I was upset and sad and decided not to order it. Auntie made up for that by taking me somewhere else for roti canai the next day. Of course we had another amazing day outside of Sydney to return for more amazing food in Sydney. Keep an eye for my next post(s)…I’m trying to stay on schedule again (1 post every other day!).

Temasek Restaurant
71 George Street
Parramatta, Sydney
Temasek Restaurant Zomato