Where: Peranakan Inn
Address: 210 East Coast Road, Singapore 428909
Operating Hours: 11am – 2.30pm, 6pm – 9.30pm
Contact No.: 64406195
In the Peranakan fever that has been heating up Singapore since Channel 8’s Little Nonya drama hit the Cannes festival, we’ve decided to dig up some real Peranakan flavour here in hometown Singapore. Yep, the French may be enjoying all the action now, but we say the goldmine of Peranakan culture’s still available here, especially at delightfully authentic Peranakan haunts like the Peranakan Inn.
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| Ayam Buah Keluak | Nonya Chap Chye |
The restaurant is decked in unpretentious coffee shop-style, but their reasonably-priced dishes pack plenty of punch. The restaurant impressed on the first dish, passing with flying colours on the quintessentially peranakan dish, the Ayam buah keluak, which is the buah keluak nut accompanied with chicken in dark assam gravy. The restaurant goes the extra mile to stuff the nut with meat and re-cook it, so the nut is not overpoweringly bitter.
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| Babi Pongteh | Iteh Tim |
Stoked with the first dish, we went on to crowd our table with a myriad of other peranakan must-have dishes, like their Nonya Chap Chye (vegetables braised to sweet perfection), Babi Pongteh or pork in fermented soya bean gravy (you could almost feel the motherly love here), Iteh Tim or duck and salted vegetable soup (the baba answer to chicken soup comfort), Ngo Hiang and beautifully spicedotah.
The accompanying little dishes of sambal were a stroke of genius, adding just the right amount of burn-in-the-tongue for authentic baba food. Each dish was served in clay pots that looked every bit as though they’d leapt off granny’s stove, and went great with white rice.
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| Ngo Hiang | Steamed Tapioca |
The meal ended with a simple dessert of soft, sweet, steamed tapioca; a comfortingly tame end to our spicy buffet spread.
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As told to Elizabeth Low
