Historical Venue @ Warung Frangipani

30th April 2010. Written by Xin Li.

My Boss, Michael (not Sergeant Michael) and I came to this historic Gillman Village yesterday for lunch. Located at what was once the Officer Mess of Gillman Barracks and later Gillman Camp was Warung Frangipani, or Bali Seafood or Little Bali where affordable Thai, Balinese, Chinese cuisine were being served in tze char style.

The Gillman Barracks was originally a British military camp until 1971 when it was handed over to SAF and renamed Gillman Camp. It was the headquarters of the Singapore Combat Engineers and it also housed the School of Combat Engineers. For more details about this historical site, I recommended reading this blog post by Mr Lam Chun See of goodmorningyesterday.

There was a huge variety of set meals to choose from ranging from Thai Grilled Fish to Thai Hokkien Mee etc. The price ranges from $4.50- $6. They also offer platters for groups to share.

I had the Thai Pineapple Rice Set ($5.00). I was expecting just the usual Rice with pineapples and probably some chicken or pork floss but what arrived at my table was beyond my expectation. It came with some crispy Thai style tempura pieces served with a tangy, sweet and spicy sauce and the portion of rice was decent with generous chunks of prawns, squid rings and pineapple cubes mixed inside. The rice was flavourful with sweet and sour pineapple flavour and the meat floss made it extremely tantalizing.

The rice was well-cooked too without the signs of clumps or too grains there were too hard and most importantly, the rice is not just bland yellow rice with pineapples. My only complaint about the Pineapple rice was that the squid rings were too tough. Other than that I am satisfied with my meal, great-for-value and decent.

The accompanying soup wasn’t to my liking because I am not into sour soups.

My boss had the Thai Mango Grilled Fish ($4.50). The dish was like a Thai rendition of the Chinese Sweet and Sour Fish. It was very delicious. The skin was crispy and the interior was soft. The dish goes very well with the Mango salsa or relish?

The Thai Hokkien Mee Set ($4.50) which wasn’t photographed here was Michael’s order. The dish was full of flavours and fragrant. The noodles were not too moist and the accompanying chilli sauce was great. The noodles were delicious even without the chilli sauce.

Overall, Warung Frangipani is a decent place for a meal. It was very crowded in the afternoon due to the lunch crowd and we had to share table with another group. The place is quite nice if you are into the colonial style environment with historical colonial structures. It is a decent place to have a meal after a walk around HortPark or Telok Blangah Hill and affordable one too compared to the nearby KHA which charge four times as much for a Pineapple Rice.

I read on HGW about bad experiences in this tze-char style restaurant but our experience was okay. Service wise, we didn’t expect much as long as the food was served correctly and efficiently.

Address
9 Lock Road
Gillman Village

Tel: +65 6473 5101

Opening hours
Mon–Sat
11am–2.30pm, 5pm–10pm
Sun & PH
5pm–10pm