Ananas Cafe love doing things they own way, so much so that they do not even bother to put an apostrophe in their shop name! Following the mantra that to make a profit you just have to do things better and provide them cheaper, their business model revolves around simply providing delicious and popular meals at high traffic areas and at rock bottom prices.
Their main sellers are
- Roasted/Steamed Chicken Rice
- Nasi Lemak
- Economic Rice
Although I would always see Ananas Cafe in virtually every MRT I’ve been too, I had this habit of equating its low price with budget / bad food. As such, I was guilty of never trying Ananas cafe for the longest time! I thought for $2 the food had to be pretty bad and I guess that sums up most of your thoughts as well, especially if you haven’t tried it before. Everyone today discriminates by price, which I guess is logical because if it was good, why wouldn’t it be more expensive? And I guess that’s what makes Ananas so special. It is GOOD relatively speaking, and it isn’t expensive!
It turns out one day I was super hungry and wanted to grab something light to eat after my badminton practice. Low and behold Ananas Cafe was calling out to me “Get in mah belly!!!” right as I exited my MRT station. The chicken rice looked appealing enough and there were only 3 people in the queue and it was moving rapidly. For $2 hey why not! I guess I’ll risk looking like a “cheapo” who can only afford budget meals and for 10 minutes or so. Sadly, I am pretty sure that is the other reason why not many people have dined at Ananas, say hello to pride, kidney iPhones and iPads (but that is another story)!
The chicken rice was flavorful and the sauce that went with it well above average. Portion was a bit small but hey, what can you expect for $2! I guess you can always ask for more rice for 50 cents more. The chili sauce was spicy and above average as well and the chicken was smooth and rice was pretty good. It turned out to be a lot better than the chicken rice I’ve had at hawker centres where I normally would pay $3-4 without blinking an eye.
Bottom line: A surprising decent light meal, at extremely affordable prices. Ananas manages to make many of the overpriced $3-4 chicken rice sold at hawkers look bad. Of course this isn’t fine dining or a place you wanna take your date but if you are looking for a quick fix and by yourself its convenient and may be worth the try.
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