Bumbu Restaurant - Thai-Indonesian Food With Antiques at Farrer Road

Bumbu Restaurant is described as ” …an antique-theme restaurant serving quality Thai-Indonesian cuisine at affordable prices”. They have branches at Kandahar Road and Farrer Road. Both are said to be Halal certified. We had lunch at Bumbu Farrer Road recently.

Bumbu Restaurant Farrer Road

These blocks of flats sandwiched in between Farrer Road and Queens Road have a wonderful design. The car parks are on the ground floor at street level. Shops, clinics, restaurants and communal spaces are provided on level 2 where pedestrians and playing children can roam freely without fear of vehicular traffic. Bumbu Restaurant is one of the f & b places at block 4 Queens Road. West Lake, a popular Chinese restaurant is also here.

Dining Among Antique Furniture and Collectables

It was a surprise to see the amount of antique furniture on display at Bumbu restaurant. Is it a restaurant with antiques or an antique store with dining? The former, as these items are not for sale, but are lovely to look at especially while waiting for the food to arrive.

As you can see there are all kinds of old furniture packed into the restaurant. Some are simply for display, others are part of the restaurant furniture, used as shelves, chairs or screens.

Because of the need to spread out the antique furniture, the dining tables are well spaced out. Some tables are located in corners and between dividers, creating a nice balance of openness and privacy.

The interesting objects to admire at Bumbu restaurant Farrer Road include this vintage Singapore Family Planning Board ” Stop At Two” poster and beautiful glassware in the display cases.

Bumbu Restaurant Review Singapore Family Planning Board poster

Bumbu Restaurant Menu

Compared to the intricacy of the decor, the Bumbu restaurant menu is relatively straight forward. There seems to be a mix of Thai, Indonesian and Peranakan cuisine available. Here is a picture of the menu. We decided to try the crispy kang kong salad ($11.50), tofu yum seafood ($12.90), tau telur ($11.50), green chicken curry ($14.50) and Thai style chilli basil chicken ($13.50) with steamed rice ($1.50 each).

What We Ate

The appetisers stole the show at our Bumbu restaurant lunch with the deep-fried kang kong (picture below) being the best dish of the day. The vegetables were super crisp but the uniqueness of this dish were the seasoning and the various herbs and spices which it was prepared in.

Tahu telur (egg with tofu) was our other appetiser, The tofu cubes were lightly fried to produce a thin crust. The topping of egg prepared with sauces and vegetables completed the appetising dish.

Tom Yum, Curry and Basil

The main remaining dishes were not as interesting as the first two. The yom yum was not the clear tom yum soup that we are used to. This must be another style of tom yum that we are not used to. It looked more like curry to us. There were a good amount of seafood in the soup including a few large mussels. But the heaviness of seasoning overwhelmed the clean seafood taste that we were expecting.

We had two chicken dishes. The green curry chicken (picture above) and the chicken with basil are more traditional dishes from Thai restaurants. We would have liked them better if the basil’s presence was stronger in the latter. Other than that they were fine.

In addition to the interesting ornaments and antiques on display at Bumbu restaurant at Farrer Road, don’t forget to view the two aquatic pets in the aquarium. The luo han fish in particular looked superb and was extremely friendly.