Woody Family Cafe

I love exploring. It doesn’t matter if I’m traveling overseas or in my own country’s backyard. I just love uncovering new places and trying new experiences. Woody Family Cafe is a hidden gem away from the crowds and in a tiny (imho) overpopulated island country like Singapore, it is a real rare find to have a cafe pub tuck in a corner of Singapore amongst residential houses.

On top of being away from the maddening crowds, Woody Family Cafe doubles up as a pub while serving a unique cuisine of Peranakan Fusion. I seriously couldn’t wait to try out their food!

Super cozy settings for intimate dinners with family and friends! Each booth has a name to facilitate reservations of tables and we selected “Cosy Corner”!

I was there 2 weeks back on Halloween for dinner so other than their usual quirky personalized decor, they had Halloween decorations all over the place as well! All done up by the owners themselves, it shows the passion that this family-run restaurant has for their little restaurant. The ambience was really lovely.

There were so much choices in their menu I was at a loss of what to order so I asked the chef/owner, Jenny, to recommend some dishes!

For the drink, I selected ” Magical Potion” since it was a Halloween special mocktail!

Shirley ordered a special Halloween cocktail, “Devilish Pumpkin” that (like its’ name suggested) came in a real pumpkin! How cute!

Woody has lots of specially created cocktails in this restaurant pub and unique wine cooler floats among other awesome concoctions! Of course if you have your usual favorite cocktail, they can whip it up for you too!

Plenty of non-alcoholic choices as well cause it is also a family cafe!

To start off the dinner was a bowl of mushroom soup and mango salad. The soup is clear and not creamy. A chinese version of mushroom soup rather than the western ones we are used to. I love the cashews and the cereal that they incorporated in the mango salad as it gave a lot of texture!

Then came my favorite dish of the night! The fried enoki mushrooms or “Enokimush”! These disappeared in seconds and I would have ordered and wiped out a few more plates if not because there are so many more dishes to try! It is served with a spicy sambal gravy as well which lends it a more local feel.

The onion rings were huge and fresh. Made from scratch unlike the usual prepackaged and  fried versions we have at fast food joints. It comes with a home blended wasabi cream sauce that goes perfectly with the onion rings.

The chicken wings were another hot item on the table. We ordered the non-spicy (sweetie spice) but they have various levels of spiciness up to crazy proportions (similar to Sunset Grill) and you are welcomed to challenge your level of spiciness! It’s super crispy and very well done. If you visit Woody’s, don’t leave this out of your order!

For those who don’t fancy chicken wings, they also have satay that they can cater to the various degrees of spiciness!

Now for the main dishes. They have 2 types of beer battered fish and chips and we tried the Guinness Stout battered fish and chips. Jasmine is a huge fish lover and polished off most of the fish and chips that day. I’m told that the Guinness Stout battered fish and chips has a slight bitterness compared to the other version of beer battered fish and chips they have so it’s basically down to preference.

I had a bit of rice as the next few dishes are supposed to be pretty spicy!

If you don’t fancy rice, you can also opt for bread. I’m not sure if you noticed it yet but the portions here are really huge! It’s good for ordering a few dishes to share rather than individual portions.

One of the house specialties is pork knuckles. Unlike the usual fried German style or braised in dark sauce chinese style, these are a fusion of Peranakan styles. You can choose to have your pork knuckles cooked in Garam Assam like the photos above or Peranakan Curry style or Nyonya Ponteh style. Great for peranakan food lovers that want a little twist!

The other spicy dish we tried is the Devil’s Curry Chicken. It’s chicken cooked with special Woody’s curry spices, chicken hot dogs, green papaya, gourds, potatoes and carrots with no coconut milk! It’s pretty spicy so good for spice lovers! I love how it’s different from the usual chicken curry we are used to.

There were only 5 of us and the table was soooooo full! We also ordered otah which I felt was average only but it may be also because it is overshadowed by the other wonderful dishes.

I was sooooooo stuffed that day!!!! And I haven’t even come down to the desserts yet!

Only 3 of us on the table had any space left for desserts. I happen to have a secret stomach when it comes to desserts and I’m glad cause Woody’s have some really amazing ones.

Woody has a range of fruit filled sorbets, like pineapple and lemon. We tried the Coco Loco which is the coconut filled sorbet and it was yummy. Creamy and coconut milk flavoured!

The Swirly Hazy Choco is a very safe choice. Gelato vanilla ice-cream with chocolate swirls topped with caramelized hazelnuts and coco powder!

The limoncello is one of the more exceptional ones. It’s has a little alcohol but the lemon and cold ice-cream just blends beautifully ! Another must-try!

There are so many choices in this restaurant that I would take many many visits before I could try them all!

Needless to say, I’ll be back to try even more! And I’m definitely going back for the enokimush and chicken wings!!!

If you live near the Sembawang area or just want to have an experience away from the usual city crowds, this is a place to visit.

Woody Family Cafe
Sembawang Straits Estate
12 Andrews Avenue
Singapore 759930
Tel: +65 6758 1185