Rumah Sayang at JEM - Nasi Pattaya $7.50

The Nasi Pattaya ($7.50) served at Rumah Sayang at JEM is made with core ingredients : fried rice, seafood, 70% blanched and diced fresh prawns (not butterflied not de-veined), diced (frozen) chicken breast meat, chicken ham, eggs, silver fish, long beans that are thinly sliced, a little pepper, sambal tomis (lends a bitter, sweet, spicy flavor) with special Nasi Pattaya chili paste (made with garlic, chili, ginger, dried shrimp, dried fried ikan bilis, a dash of  chili padi), tomato paste.

How it is prepared : This dish is prepared ala minute. Once the order is placed, Chef Lo fries the Thai fragrant whole grain white rice with the rempah (made up of the sambal tomis, tomato paste and the Nasi Pattaya chili paste) in 3-4 minutes, adds in all the rest of the ingredients, then wrap them with a layer of fried egg ( using fork and spoon ) to serve.

Food Tasting Notes : The fried rice has a very fragrant smell that leeks of dried shrimp, and taste sweeter because of the tomato paste that Chef Lo uses. The special sambal tomis lends a spicy mildly bitter tinge that is well balanced by the sweetness that comes from the tomato paste. This dish tastes exactly like Mum's cooking, and is very appetizing in part due to the creative use of both the sweet and spicy pastes combined in the right proportion, and fried using medium heat, to bring out the flavor of the many spices used in the chili paste, lending a uniquely spicy sweet flavor to the dish.  

Rumah Sayang is located at:  

JEM, #B1-41, 50 Jurong Gateway Road, 

Singapore (608549)

Tel : 63390938

Rumah Sayang at JEM - Nonya Curry Chicken $6

Nonya Curry Chicken : At $6 per serving this dish comes served with chicken slow cooked in rempah curry gravy made with core ingredients : chili padi, young ginger, old ginger, garlic, onion, galangal, shallots, tumeric (that gives it a bright yellow color), dried chili, fresh chili, lemongrass. 

How it is prepared : The chicken is first marinated over night. When the Nonya Curry Chicken order has been placed, the chicken is blanched in hot water for 5 minutes to remove any gamey smell, then transferred to the curry gravy to cook for another 15-20 minutes at low fire till the chicken is fully cooked, then the fire is turn off, and the chicken is served.

Food Tasting Notes : The Nonya curry chicken is actually frozen chicken drumstick that is cooked in rempah made from chili padi, young ginger, old ginger, garlic, onion, galangal, shallots, a generous dose of tumeric (that gives it a bright yellow color), dried chili, fresh chili, and tastes more spicy than the laksa because of the dash of chili padi. The gravy is thicker, and has a nutty taste because of the candle-nuts that is added in. The gravy is nicely blended and has a smooth texture. 
Though Chef Lo uses frozen chicken, the meat is slow cooked on low fire and therefore is tender & the skin is actually very tasty. This Nonya curry chicken has special ingredient : lemongrass in its recipe that gives it a lemonly flavor. 
The two main ingredients are: chicken drumstick and potatoes. The potatoes are cooked pretty tender, not too mashy, but still cooked thoroughly and soft to the bite. Chef Lo shares that he use potatoes from Indonesia. 
This dish is a comfort food for those who love thick rich mildly spicy gravy. I personally would love to drizzle the gravy all over my rice and let the rice soaked in all that flavor from the spiced laden gravy. Yummilicious! 

Rumah Sayang is located at :  
JEM, #B1-41, 50 Jurong Gateway Road, 

Singapore (608549)

Tel : 63390938

Rumah Sayang at JEM - The Ambience The Menu The Signatures The Promotion

The Ambience 

The restaurant decor theme is Peranakan style, with a series of photos depicting families in Peranakan  clothing and culture displayed on the right hand side of the wall when you first enter. The two mirrors on the left and right of the photos display are design to look like the typical Peranakan home window. 

During the colonial era in Southeast Asia, colorful geometrical ceramic tiles were popular in the British Straits Settlements of Malacca, Penang and Singapore. Here at Rumah Sayang the floor tiles are typically Peranakan style with geometrical design aligned neatly on the floor of the restaurant. Marble table tops, wooden Ozzy chairs, high ceiling with parallel wooden bars lining it (furniture and fixtures commonly found in Peranakan homes) also add a distinctive Peranakan flair to the restaurant. 

The Menu 

Some of the Nasi Padang Specialty items include : Nasi Briyani, Nasi Ayam Merah, Nasi Ikan Penyet, Crispy Ayam Penyet, Nonya Curry Chicken, Nasi Lemak. 

Rumah Sayang offers Super Value Set Meals :

Curry Fish Head Set, Toast Bread Set, Mee Rebus Set, Mee Siam Set, Lontong Set, Laksa Set.

The Signatures are popular among regular customers : 

Fried Bee Hoon, Nonya Fried Rice, Nasi Pattaya, Penang Kway Teow, Sambal Sotong, Nonya Chap Chye.

The Signatures 

The Promotion 

Rumah Sayang is located at:  

JEM, #B1-41, 50 Jurong Gateway Road, 

Singapore (608549)

Tel : 63390938

Rumah Sayang at JEM - Interview Owner Jimmy Lim Part 2

Food Preparation - The marinates made in the Central Kitchen daily are delivered to the outlet daily to ensure freshness. The food are prepared ala minute at the outlet. 

Food Ingredients & Food sources - Ingredients are mainly purchased from local suppliers, about 100% sourced locally. Seafood items are fresh, poultry frozen, the Australia and NZ beef are chilled, and are from Angliss. The meats are marinated overnight, and cooked at the outlet. 

Slogan & Mission of the Restaurant  - "Good Food Everyday"

Differentiation - The restaurant stands out from the crowd in using fresh ingredients, fresh meat and ingredients, coupled with ala minute cooking. 

Ordering - Done at Counter, no table service. Food is self serve. 

Payment - Pre-dining, diners pay cash. 

Catering Service - Not available.

Takeaway Service - Yes, and there is no minimum order required. 

Booking of venue for special events - Depends, diners do celebrate their birthdays here. 

Delivery for takeaway orders - Not available.

Promotion with banks/Credit Cards (VISA, Masrercard) - Not yet.

Promotion with online sites (e.g. Groupon) -  in the pipeline 

Loyalty Program - In the pipeline.

Target Market - Shoppers, families. 

Seating Capacity - 50 pax, no al fresco dining.

Signature Items - Nonya Laksa, Curry Fish-Head, Nasi Pattaya, Nasi Padang, Penang Kway Teow.

Halal Certified -   in the Pipeline. 

Celebrities visit - There are some local celebrities that do visit but Jimmy declines to name them.

Rumah Sayang is located at:  

JEM, #B1-41, 50 Jurong Gateway Road, 

Singapore (608549)

Tel : 63390938

Rumah Sayang at JEM - Interview Owner Jimmy Lim Part 1

Background - Rumah Sayang owner Mr Jimmy Lim was influenced by his brothers to start a family business. His brothers used to work at some of the well-known hotels in town: Cairnhill Hotel (below)

as well as Royal Hotel at Newton (below).

With a family of seven boys, together with a cousin in the F&B industry, it is no wonder that Jimmy Lim himself takes to the running of restaurants like a fish in water.

His family is no new comer in the F&B scene here in Singapore, some of whom owns Hong Kong style cafes such as Wan Chai HongKong Tea Room

- founded by Jimmy Lim's brother John Lim back in 2001, currently with 5 outlets in Singapore below,

IMM outlet

Lot 1 Outlet 

 Junction 8 outlet

 Sembawang Shopping Centre Outlet  

 White Sands outlet

there is even a family member who acted as Business Consultant for the Spageddies Italian Kitchen.

here in Singapore.  It is interesting to note that even though Jimmy is a Hainanese, his restaurants are well known for serving up delectable Nasi Padang/ Nonya/ Peranakan Cuisine that makes every foodie drool over. 

Beginnings - Twenty years ago, 35 year-old Jimmy Lim operated the IMM Staff Cafeteria located in the IMM( opened to the public). He founded Red Ginger Halal Cafe at IMM 

twelve years ago under the Sunrestaurant Group, specializing in halal Malay/Nasi Padang Cuisine. 
In 2013, JEM was looking for a restaurant specializing in halal food, and approached Jimmy to start a halal restaurant at JEM. Jimmy took up the challenge and named his restaurant Rumah Sayang. 

Positioning - Rumah Sayang is positioned as a casual dining restaurant serving Peranakan Nonya/ Nasi Padang Cuisine targeted at shoppers in JEM. This is a brand Jimmy founded, and he is keen to develop the brand further through franchising if the timing is right. 

Ownership - Before operating restaurants, Jimmy Lim used to work in Cold Storage, under the Dairy Farm Group for more than 10 years, bringing with him  a total of twenty two years' of F&B experience - which makes Jimmy and I ex-staff of Dairy Farm Group as I used to do brand management at Accord Marketing Services, DF Group. Rumah Sayang is owned by Jimmy Lim and his lovely wife Ms Lily Chan,  under Holding company Cafe Rich Asia on a 50 : 50 share. 

Expansion Plans - Since opening Rumah Sayang, Jimmy has been offered some other locations in the East Coast, Chinatown to operate new restaurant outlets. However due to staff constraints, he is holding back expansion plans for the time being. Currently, there is one Rumah Sayang outlet in Singapore, and Jimmy has plans to open four to five outlets in future when the timing is right.

Menu Planning & Expansion - Two Chefs handles Menu Planning : Chef Lia, Chef Lo. The menu change every three to six months. There is a total of more than 30 items on its menu,

  

with popular Signature dishes such as : Tahu Goreng, Achar, Laksa, Mee Siam, Fish Head Curry, all of these cooked in Nasi Padang/Indonesian /Peranakan style - which happens to be the style I most loved in part due to the many spices and herbs used that makes the food so very delectably and deliciously yummy. 

Kitchen Staff - Rumah Sayang has a total of ten kitchen staff with training by the two head chefs. Over at the Central Kitchen at IMM, six staff prepares the sauces, rempah, pastes and marinates daily. Central Kitchen at IMM delivers these sauces, rempahs, pastes and marinates to the outlets daily. The sauces do not contain preservatives nor additives.

Rumah Sayang is located at:  

JEM, #B1-41, 50 Jurong Gateway Road, 

Singapore (608549)

Tel : 63390938

GRAVITY at Plaza Singapura - make sure you see it in 3D

This past Sat, Bob &  visited Golden Village at Plaza Singapura to watch Gravity

starring Sandra Bullock (stars as Dr Ryan Stone)

and George Clooney (stars as Matt Kowalski), directed by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron. 

Dr. Ryan Stone, a Mission Specialist, is on her maiden space shuttle mission onboard the Space Shuttle Explorer.

Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski accompanies her on this mission, supposedly to be the final expedition he is commanding.

Matt Kowalski, wears a thruster pack and flies around the space shuttle to test its operation. 

During their final spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team that space debris from a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite has caused a chain reaction of destruction and that they must abort the mission. 

Shortly afterward, communications with Mission Control are lost, though Stone and Kowalski continue to transmit in hope that the ground crew can still hear them. High-speed debris strikes the Explorer and detaches Stone from the shuttle, leaving her tumbling through space.  Kowalski soon recovers Stone and the two use the thruster pack to make their way back to Explorer. They discover the shuttle has been damaged far beyond usability and the rest of the crew is dead. They use the thruster pack to make their way to the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit only about 100 km (60 mi) away.

Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and return to threaten them again. En route to the ISS, the two discuss Stone's life back home and the death of her young 4 year-old daughter in a schoolyard accident. As they approach the slightly damaged ISS, they discover the ISS crew has evacuated in one of the Soyuz modules and the parachute from the other capsule has been accidentally deployed, rendering it useless for return to Earth.

However, Kowalski suggests that the remaining Soyuz, designated TMA-14M, can still be used to travel to the nearby Chinese space station Tiangong to retrieve another module that can take them to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering power, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they fly by. At the last moment, Stone's leg becomes entangled in the Soyuz's parachute cords, but Kowalski realizes that his momentum will carry them both away; over Stone's protests, he detaches himself from the tether so that Stone might survive,

and the tension in the cords pulls her back towards the ISS. As Kowalski floats away, he radios additional instructions and encouragement to Stone. Nearly out of oxygen, Stone manages to enter the ISS via an airlock but must hastily make her way to the Soyuz to escape a fire. As she maneuvers the capsule away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers prevent Soyuz from separating from the station. She spacewalks to release the cables, succeeding just as the debris field completes its orbit and destroys the station.

Stone aligns the Soyuz with Tiangong but discovers the craft's thrusters have no fuel.

After a brief communication with a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman named Aningaaq on Earth's surface, presumably using a ham radio, Stone resigns herself to being stranded and begins decompression of the cabin in order to commit a painless suicide via hypoxia. 

As she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski appears outside and enters the capsule. Berating her for giving up, he tells her to use the Soyuz's landing rockets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong. Stone realizes that Kowalski's return was a hallucination, but gains new motivation to live. She restores the flow of oxygen and uses the landing rockets to navigate toward Tiangong. 

Unable to dock the Soyuz with the station, Stone ejects herself via explosive decompression and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to Tiangong. Space debris has knocked the Chinese station from its trajectory, and it is rapidly deorbiting. Stone enters the Shenzhou capsule just as Tiangong starts to break up on the upper edge of the atmosphere. 

As the capsule re-enters the Earth's atmosphere, Stone hears Mission Control over the radio tracking the capsule. It lands in a lake, but an electrical fire inside the capsule forces Stone to evacuate immediately. Opening the capsule hatch allows water to rapidly fill the capsule, which sinks, forcing Stone to shed her spacesuit underwater and swim ashore. She takes her first shaky steps on land, in the full gravity of Earth, where she awaits rescue.