Temasek Restaurant

 “Oh hello, sorry, didn’t see you there! Don’t mind me I’m just stuffing my face full of yummy yummy Malaysian food from a surprisingly awesome restaurant called Temasek in Parramatta.”

 Last Saturday I rounded my boys up, got them dressed and we headed out for a nice family meal out on the town. I love being a part of the Malaysian Kitchen Blog Ambassador Project because it’s forced us out of our comfort zone and I’m really enjoying exploring with my family.

 There aren’t many Malaysian restaurants in our area, Parramatta is still a good fourty five minute drive from our home. I’m happy to report it was worth the trip but we almost didn’t find out because silly me didn’t make a reservation. I didn’t think I’d have to since we’d arrived at quarter to six! After promising we wouldn’t be grazing long we were seated and within minutes the restaurant was full and busy with people. Extended families, couples, young families, pensioners… everyone seemed to be there.

 I had the job of ordering for all of us and I completely and utterly over did it. I had no idea just how generous the portions were! I ordered Assam Prawn which you can see above, Beef Rendang (always a firm favourite of mine), a Chicken Laksa for Steve, two bowls of steamed white rice and a mixed entree plate.

 Aidan was so excited when the food came out that he started doing the biggest, overly dramatic belly laughs which made the whole restaurant stare at us… he was just so enthusiastic about it all. He’s currently in a rice phase so our little night out way right up his alley.

 Look at those sneaky little fingers, constantly photo-bombing my set ups. This is the mixed plate of entrees with a curry puff, two spring rolls and a prawn cutlet with dipping sauce. The curry puffs were so delicious I wanted to order two more to go. The spring rolls were meaty and crisp and the prawn cutlet, well I gave in and shared it with the baby who was dolefully eyeing it off.

 The food serves weren’t the only things that were huge, the prawns were too. Everything about the whole experience at Temasek was generous. The staff were diligent, well spoken and there were quite a few tending to a number of tables at once with no complaints from others. Even the takeaway order system was efficient.

 As I said before, we don’t go out very often as a family. When Steve comes home that’s usually my time to work and heading out for a meal cuts into very precious time, so being able to combine my work with family outings like this… well it totally rocks my socks off.

 The venue itself isn’t anything remarkable, no real discernible features or character, the food was left to do all the talking and boy it was singing show tunes in my mouth! Aidan loved stabbing things with the chop sticks and eating the rice grain by grain and Steve was as happy as a bloke could be with his Laksa.

 The Laksa packed a punch apparently, I’m still pretty miffed that he demolished it before I got a chance to try. He said he’d eat it again and that coming from an amateur food critic that’s pretty darn good. I’m looking forward to trying another restaurant in a few weeks, next time I’ll be a bit more adventurous with my choices.