Warm Up Cafe @ Serangoon

This was the last place I would have thought a Thai restaurant would be located. Little India was not exactly known for good Thai food.

A friend recommended me this ‘hidden gem’ (not so hidden anymore) at Mackenzie Road, quite close to the flagship Old Chang Kee outlet, a short walk from Little India MRT station. Warm Up Cafe is said to serve up authentic Thai cuisines, boat noodle and mookata.

Depending on the crowd during your visit, you can choose to sit either indoors or outdoors—the former is air-conditioned, cosy, and decked out in neon lights, while the latter is decorated with fairy lights in an al fresco setting. If you choose to sit outdoors during the day, we highly recommend wearing something light and comfortable, as it can get rather hot and humid. 

While waiting for the rest to come, the two early comers started with some deep fried chicken cartilage bones that have been marinaded with lemongrass, garlic and fish sauce. Very good with ice cold beer, which they didn’t have. So we did the uncle thing – add ice cubes to the beer.

What can go wrong with pork chop? This was delicious and great as an appetiser with beer too. The beer was a disappointment, but we still down half a dozen by now.

Thai green papaya salad or known locally as ส้มตำไทย (som tum) has many variations – with salted live crabs, salted eggs, live shrimps, or just as-is. This salad combines crunchy strips of unripe green papaya with fresh chiles, pungent garlic, savoury dried shrimp, roasted peanuts, long beans, and tomatoes, And if that’s not enough of flavours exploding in your mouth, add another salty ingredient, like what we did here because my friends could not risk the salted raw crabs.

When we ordered the pork crackling, we were expecting homemade ones. Never expected packaged ones that you get the snack alley in the supermarket.

The seafood mix was cooked with Thai ingredients, but I could not taste the basil unfortunately.

Many customers come for their crab omelette, although not the same style as Jay Fai but still had an aroy-creaminess, flavourful, with generous servings of sweet crab meat. You can add some of the tangy and spicy green chilli sauce for more oomph.

Thai kailan is one of my favourite vegetable from the kingdom that you can get readily in Singapore. And they simply sautéed it with oyster sauce and a lot of garlic. If you do not like garlic, this is not your dish.

Grilled using a convection griller than my sister-in-law uses for her grilled chicken, the chicken remained juicy and perfectly cooked. That the wonder of technology rather than the chef’s skills these days. If course the marinade for the chicken does matter too.

What do we love the most about Thailand? The street food! One of the favourite street food that you can enjoy here is Thailand’s beloved grilled pork jowl served umami, tender and bursting with flavours, just the way we like it!

One of the latest desserts on their menu is Thai Coconut Milk Custard. Also known as Kanom Tuay in Thai, the dessert comes in two layers: a creamy coconut layer covering a pandan-infused base. It is then served in traditional Thai fashion with small ceramic cups and wooden paddle spoons. The salty coconut cream balanced the sweet pandan notes, and its smooth, custard-like mouthfeel made it a light, satisfying dessert to round up our meal perfectly. 

There may be cheaper Thai eateries, or better tasting ones, but there’s only one and only Warm Up Cafe, which caters to night owls. I did not try their famous boat noodles, but I saw so many people ordered it. The service was sloppy, and the y only tell you something is not available after your waited for some time. Other than that the atmosphere was great, and the open air area was a great place to people watch.

Warm Up Cafe @Mackenzie Road
110 Mackenzie Road, Singapore 228708
Tel : +65 8723 2332

Visited Sep 2023

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