Santai, TTDI

Bollywood Queen's friend introduced this place to her, said to be quite popular amongst the malays for lunch, tea and dinner..

We were there around 8+, was rather crowded, but not that pack yet. Santai serves individual one dish meal and ala carte dishes. I ordered Nasi Goreng Praprik Daging (praprik fried rice with beef)recommended by BQ, whilst she had mee bandung, and we shared a bowl of tomyam campur (mixed tomyam) and sotong goreng tepung (deep fried squids).

My nasi goreng praprik was quite tasty, though the fried rice don't really looked like it was fried. A bite into it though, confirms the cook did fry it, his method was light frying, with lil bit of egg and mix veg. Guess he was doing this to complement the beef and fresh veg. It does complement well, the spiciness of the sauce, the crunchiness of the veg.. but the beef was a lil bit hard..

BQ's mee bandung looks so red I thought she was having tomato soup. The base was truly tomatoes, I presumed they used pureed tomatoes (Dragon tried this dish a week later and said that it's more like ketchup and tomato soup) They added lots of red chillies and bird eyes chillies for that extra kick.Add in some prawns, meat, veg and topped with a fried egg, I could see that BQ enjoyed this dish, slurping up the noodles jovially. I tried half a spoon of it, not the type of noodles I would order, but taste wise, it was good. Those who likes tomato soup/ ketchup would like this dish.

I guess I was dreaming when BQ ordered the tomyam, I actually didn't know that she ordered a tomyam campur. Quite a large bowl for the 2 of us, it had lots of chicken, beef, prawns and squids. The chili and tomatoes serves a great balance of hot and sour at the same time. Appetising, though it did get fiery hot by the time we reached the bottom of the bowl..*wipes forehead*

The fried squids were served finally and I thought BQ ordered wrongly..Looks more like fried prawns. Instead of the crunchy batter we were expecting, we got cucur sotong (squid in flour puff) instead. Not exactly what I asked for, we tried nonetheless. And I was nicely surprise :). The cucur was light and fluffy, unlike the norm which is compact and doughy. The exterior had a slight crunch, just the right texture. Goes really well with their sweet sour chili sauce. Very small squids (and not many) though.

Worth a mention is the Jus Durian Belanda (soursop juice) which I did not take a photo as it look quite bad. This was a refreshing drink which both of us enjoyed. It was not the blended, thick juice drink, instead, we got some clear juice with soursop pulps at the base. yum..Our total bill was RM30.

What Julianne thinks?

Simple and authentic

Santai is located at 10, Persiaran Zaaba, Taman Tun Dr Ismail. At the TTDI square, the row of shop behind KFC. Simple looking shop, with wooden decor.