ayam goreng fried chicken
It’s difficult to say where you can get the best Nonya food outside of the Nonya household – as everyone has a Peranakan grandmother or mother that cooks the best. Foodie friends D&S took me here on my short trip back and I love that name of the restaurant to start. It was pretty good and they had someone in the kitchen churning out buah keluah painstakingly on a daily basis – that’s enough reason to dine there.
Here’s some good Peranakan food that filled my void since I don’t think I could make this stuff as good as my mother or grandma.
sambal terung eggplant
sambal udang – Sambal prawn with petai beans. I missed this so much, tart, sweet and full
I love Petai beans, my mum used to cook them with sambal often and make fried rice. (nasi goreng petai)
Apparently they have kidney cleansing qualities as well and has the same effects that asparagus does to your pee. The photos don’t do the flavours justice apart from my lack of food photography skills.
The otak otak made with mackeral, prawns and squids are mixed in an otak paste and grilled on a kunyit (fresh turmeric) leaf was my least favourite. The chargrilled ones from Bedok market is much better. My dad always gets us extra otak otak with our nasi lemak :)
Cincalok omelette made with tiny little fermented shrimps, when I was a kid I used to think about how many little dotted pairs of crunchy shrimp eyes we were eating and how they would digest.
ayam buah keluak The black pulp of Indonesian black nuts known as Buah Keluak is difficult to photography well. We had our dish cooked with chicken and felt the love from the tedious task of digging out the nut cooking the nut pulp with spices and chicken before being stuffed back into the shell. My grandmother used to make this with pig trotters-babi buah keluak.
Peramakan is a good alternative option if you’re craving Peranakan, with no homecooked luxury and want to try something different from the better known Blue Ginger restaurant in Singapore that does high end Peranakan food with a price tag that comes with it (beautiful space and great ambience nonetheless).
Peramakan
10 Bukit Chermin Road (In the Keppel Club)
Singapore 109918
(5 minutes drive from Vivo City/ HarbourFront)
Tel: 65 63772829.
