ON A hot summer night – which is just about every night here – this is the place to be.

Rasa Istimewa C2K eatery, which is set in the lush and breezy green grounds of Choa Chu Kang Park, has a dining area with a roof but no walls.

This means you can chomp on satay and barbecued seafood, chill out over fruit juice, get some fresh air and go away without any smoke in your hair. That is how breezy the place is.

And the food? It’s not bad at all.

I had my first taste of it when a friend brought me satay from the stall ($0.50 a stick for chicken, mutton or beef), leftovers from her family gathering.

The cold mutton satay was memorably aromatic – still smelling headily of smoke, turmeric and lemongrass. Both the beef and chicken were tender even though there were barely any fatty bits.

That encounter was enough to make me drag my family to the eatery to try its freshly prepared food.

Pity the mutton did not turn out as well this time – was the kitchen out of lemongrass, perhaps?

From the halal menu, we also had the fried rice, fried mee and fried bee hoon (a serving for one is $3.50 and for two is $6).

While the rice and mee were so-so, the bee hoon, which had been whirled just so in a hot wok, was excellent. The dish had all the wok hei (wok fragrance) we could ask for. It disappeared in a blur of chopstick action amid cries of “save some for me”.

The four-year-old eatery is owned by Mr Larry Toh, 51, who grew up among Malay neighbours in a Marsiling kampung. Starting a halal eatery with a kampung feel was only natural.

For now, the Choa Chu Kang Park eatery opens at night only. But a sister shop at Block 505 West Coast Drive, Rasa Istimewa 505, which was set up two years ago, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’m not sure if the air there will be as fresh though.
 
RASA ISTIMEWA C2K
Choa Chu Kang Park
Choa Chu Kang Drive
Tel: 6877-1913
Open: 5pm to 12.30am on weekdays, 4.30pm to 1am on weekends
Rating: ***

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on June 17, 2007.