VILLAGE CAFE
Verdict: 7/10 (Nice food, but not excellent value depending on what you order)
On 16 March 2008 (Sun.) D and I visited Village Café after quite a long time. Our last visit was in August 2007. I meant come back earlier, but I have been compelled to visit new restaurants or the places I have never been for this website (I know, it is just me).
By the way, records of our previous visits are here (1st visit, 2nd visit)
The dé has not been changed at all since our last visit. It is a very small restaurant with about 30 covers. When we entered at around 2 o'clock, there was a family of 4 or five and one Chinese guy, and while we were eating one elderly white guy came in. I am under an impression that since the enlargement of neighbouring Malaysian Delight, Village Café has become quieter, but it might well be wrong.
These tables and chairs make me remind of school canteen. They are not particularly comfortable or uncomfortable, but I would not want anything more from the restaurants of this class.
The interior has not changed since our last visit, but the menu has been re-printed. The contents, however, look the same. Some of the items were now marked with "new" sign, but these items were already there in the menu that I saw last time. The only meaningful difference is that now the hot dishes are marked with red chili signs (minimum 0 and maximum 4).
This time we had a table next to the kitchen. As I wrote previously, there is a large window open to the kitchen and we can see various roasted meat through it. I saw also some intestines below these. You might think it is an open kitchen, but it isn't, as the window is placed to high to show the kitchen to the diners. If we want to see the kitchen, we need to stand up and look into the window, which we did this time.
There were too cooks: one is a middle aged guy who seems to be the owner, and the other is young guy in his 20s. To be such a small place, there were not a few people who were working. Apart from the chefs, there is a middle-aged woman who must be the chef's wife, and a young, charming waitress, and there were a few others who were in and around the staff area. They can afford that, probably because they are family.
As I was also doing partial Lenten fasting for a week (until that day), I avoided meat and ordered prawns. This is Sambal prawns with rice (£6.50). This item has two chilies on the menu, meaning "medium hot". It spiciness was pleasant, but it also made me feel like trying 4-chili dishes.
There were 8, not very large, but plump king prawns, stir-fired with some onion and pepper. This time there was enough sauce to finish off the huge mound of rice.
D told me to choose something suitable, as he had no idea, so I picked up this Stir-fried scallops and seasonable vegetables (£7.80), which is one of the more pricy dishes in this restaurant.
It was stir-fry of scallops, vegetables and mushrooms flavoured with garlic and seasoned with salt. The scallops were warmed through, but not completely cooked as the East-Asians would like. It was reasonably good, if not something that gave me a surprise. And to my relief, D, who has some many things he does not like, ate it.
As the stir-fried did not come with rice, we ordered also one portion of white rice (£1.50). If the portion of the stir-fry was rather modest, rice came in abundance. The quality of rice was average, not particularly good.
We ordered also two cups of tea (£0.50 x 2) and the total bill came to £16.80 ({£2 service). It is true for all the Chinese diners in this area that the price gets high if we order main and rice separately. If we want a cheap meal, we should choose from the main dishes that include rice, or noodles dishes. However, the food was nice, and we were moderately satisfied.
