Zaffron Kitchen

Family friendly Indian, say what? A curry can be a spicy option for adults, let alone for our littlies. When we heard that Indian could be family friendly we were skeptical, but we were pleasantly surprised and happily proven wrong.

Enter Zaffron Kitchen, an industrial chic outfit that had our attention from the get go (come on, how many family friendly restaurants actually look chic?).

We trekked to the East Coast – a whopping 20 minutes travel time (we are totally spoiled aren’t we?) to the superfly Joo Chiat Road, meandering our way down on scooters to 135 East Coast Road, enjoying the local street scene and beautiful shophouses en route.

Bright orange Perankan style tiles and industrial black and orange interiors ticked the first box. Our junior investigative journalists immediately spotted the impressive indoor playroom – complete with cubby house and train station (tick, and tick) where the littlies disappeared for the next half hour, allowing perfectly calm and peaceful beer sipping time (one big tick).

With electronic menus on iPads, the friendly wait staff helped those less-tech-savvy to place our order electronically. We loved the kid’s menu of fish and chips and chicken wraps, both with a drink and sides (corn or fries), for just $7.50 each. Of course, one junior journalist required a side of plain rice to keep up her crazy “white-only” thing going on at meal times (don’t ask).

The main menu was also impressive. With head chef Sheikh Asabulla at the helm, the menu has a selection of North and South Indian, plus local favourites like roti prata and dosai.

We tucked into our mala tikka – a delicious smoky dish of tandoori chicken and prawns and dum chicken biryani – which is cooked beneath a thin layer of prata dough – resulting in an amazingly moist and flavorsome dish.

Of course the kids wolfed down their meals so they could return to their new friends in the playgroup – which suited us just fine (another beer, please!)

To leave, we bribed the kids with a bag of local sweets from Glory Catering located next door ($7.10 for 8 pieces) and happily we returned back with full bellies and with a new adventure to tell.