Surrey Hills Grocer (The Woodleigh Mall)

We’re here at Surrey Hills Grocer to try their newest collaboration menu with renowned personality and Masterchef Singapore judge, Chef Damian D’Silva! This limited time menu aims to showcase the essence of Singapore’s rich culinary heritage 🇸🇬✨
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This collaboration menu surely impressed us! 🫶🏻🤩 Beyond the superb taste, the menu truly commemorates Singapore’s heritage foods, and we felt that each dish really embodied our Peranakan culture. Chef Damian D’Silva’s dishes will be available at Surrey Hill’s Woodleigh Mall outlet until 30th April

Chef Damian's take on Nasi Lemak is not to be overlooked. Chef shared that the rice was soaked overnight and steamed dry, before adding ginger, pandan leaf, and coconut milk to be steamed again. The effort and labour to incorporate these flavours and aroma into the rice was evident. The Nasi Lemak was fluffy, light, and delightfully flavourful and lemak, much unlike the wet and oily ones we know of. We took spoonful after spoonful of the rice - it’s a nasi lemak so good you can have it with just sambal (how Chef likes to have it too), and we loved it so much that we had seconds!

This dish featured fresh prawns cooked with sambal, shrimp paste, and calamansi for a sour finish. The prawns were sweet and juicy, and elevated by that addictive sambal sauce which had us imploring Chef to divulge the secret ingredient. The sambal sauce was sweet, mildly spicy, but really aromatic - the combination of spices would almost dance across your mouth. Pairing this with a scoop of that Nasi Lemak was perfect!

This was a classic Malay delicacy consisting of chicken cooked with a fragrant paste in a luxurious coconut gravy. The marination was done to a tee! The chicken was tender and gently lemak, yet not greasy or surfeiting.

A delicious selection of cabbage, long beans, tempeh, and young jackfruit was cooked in a spiced broth and coconut milk. The jackfruit was slightly fibrous and added such a unique sweetness to the vegetables. A good Sayur Lodeh, especially one with jackfruit, is hard to come by, and this dish was a definite standout for us.

On a bed of wing beans, cherry tomatoes, and long beans, the spanish mackerel was substantial and yummy. However, it was actually the salad that surprised us all! The wing beans were fresh and finely sliced, and provided a delicious crunch to the dish. This paired very well with the acidic and mildly spicy sauce which made the otherwise unsuspecting looking vegetables so delicious.