Tange – Very good value

Metropolitan Square, Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

I am happy to report that, just a few posts in, this blog is already beginning to serve its primary purpose of helping me discover new and interesting places to eat.

This hasn’t always been easy because Lady Fartsalot and I are very much creatures of habit. Most weekdays, we’d walk to either one of two coffee shops near our place for dinner. We’d eat more or less the same utilitarian food that, though cheap and decent, was nothing worth blogging about.

Our lack of new food discoveries was not helped by Lady Fartsalot’s shameless commitment to being lazy. Usually, even the thought of walking from one end of 1 Utama to another is enough to make her complain incessantly. So walking a little further to look for new places to eat was usually out of the question.

I won’t be surprised if this guy moves more meters/day than she does.

But, in pursuit of new material for the blog, she was finally willing to do some exploring at dinnertime.

That’s how we came across Tange. I believe the name is shortened from ‘tangerine’ and should therefore be pronounced ‘Tanj’. Can’t be sure, though.

Doesn’t matter. What matters most is, of course, the food.

They serve mainly western food, with some Asian and fusion thrown in. We’ve been there twice to date, and have had mostly set meals – one main course and a drink – that come up to just a little over RM10 each. They have good-sized portions and the quality of food is good for the prices they charge.

Straight-up olive oil and garlic is one of my favourite ways to prepare pasta. So the first time we were there, I just had to order their smoked salmon aglio olio. Nice firm pasta with a generous amount of salty smoked salmon made for a really nice plateful of comfort food for me.

I could probably eat this every day.

The kung poh pasta had good amount of kung poh chicken cooked with some al dente spaghetti. The flavour quite smoky, and didn’t taste very much like kung poh. Not bad, but not great either.

Be careful not to get any of this on your shirt.

On our second visit, I got the chicken parmigiana. The chicken was a little on the dry side and not very big; they added a fair amount of fried potatoes for volume. This is understandable since it only costs around RM10 and comes with a free drink. The greens on the side were light and crunchy and a refreshing change from the coleslaw I was expecting.

Nowhere near as good as the one from, say, Dave’s Deli… but nowhere near as expensive, either.

My favourite dish so far has been the pesto prawn pasta. The pesto was nice and flavourful and the prawns were great. I’ve complained before about how too many places overcook their prawns. Well, these were cooked just right – they were fresh and firm and translucent and still had a nice pop when you bite into them.

Interestingly, they garnished this with dill, which is more specifically suited to match with seafood compared with the one-size-fits-all parsley that most restaurants would use.

The shop itself has a nice neighbourhood eatery feel. Mismatched furniture and an exposed drinks station sort of let you know you won’t get posh prices. They made great use of mirrors to make the dining area feel light and airy and spacious.

This mezzanine area would have been great to put additional tables, but they’re using it as office space instead.

Another thing to note is that there is very little overlap between items on their set menu (the value meals) and their main menu… which I guess means that their value items aren’t just half-assed versions of their main menu items, but well-thought-out dishes specifically designed with a lower price range in mind.

But even on their main menu, prices are very budget-friendly: pretty much everything is below RM20.

They also have a breakfast menu with surprisingly low prices.

This is a really nice little neighbourhood eatery and a great find for me personally. Yes, not all the food is brilliant, but one tends to forgive a lot when taking the low prices into account.

I wouldn’t recommend making a special trip to eat here. But if you live nearby – as I do – Tange is a great place to have a casual, wallet-friendly weekday (or even weekend) meal.

Mirrors make the place look much larger than it actually is.

Snack-sized review

Great neighbourhood casual dining joint that offers decent food at good prices. Not worth a special trip, but if you live in Damansara Perdana, it’s a nice place you can eat at regularly without breaking the bank.

Stats

Hours: 10am to 10pm daily.

Price: Very good prices for the quality of food offered. About RM10 to RM20 per person.