Ollella's durian kueh dada at Takashimaya's Food Fiesta 2025

We were intrigued by this sign at Ollella's booth at Takashimaya's Food Fiesta.

A box of 2.

Nice. The shredded coconut lent texture while the durian puree added flavour.

Revisiting Quentin's

Came back to try more of the food at Quentin's.

That's the pasteis de bacalhau - deep fried salt cod & potato fritters. Nicely browned crisp shell with piping hot insides. These are like the better version of Birds Eye Fish Fingers. 😅 

Was curious about their dry laksa which turned out to be pretty similar to the Peranakan variety. This one was a bit more sweet than savoury but was otherwise, very recognizeable from the coconut and shrimp infusion in the rempah. That and those flakes of dried laksa leaves.

Dry mee siam was sweet and tangy. Seems that the ratio of the ingredients in their rempahs favours sweetness which is a little bit more than I like. There's a mellow quality in the sweet tanginess of some mee siam that I've enjoyed which I don't detect here. Between this and the laksa, I prefer the latter. 

Loved this black ink calamari dish. The broth was flavoured with the ink and garlic - thin enough to drink like soup and sufficient flavourful to be gravy for rice.

Quentin's kueh bingka was a pleasant curiosity. They appear to be a derivative of the more commonly found bingka ubi. These were less dense and in spite of the name, were more cake than kueh. Aside from the bits of tapioca one could detect, the rest of it was pretty much a butter cake. I like this.

The Blue Ginger, Great World

Blue Ginger has a branch at Great World (#01-106, 1 Kim Seng Promenade). We've been wanting to try the food here for a while but have always gotten distracted. Until this time. 😬

Munched on ngoh hiong while waiting for our food. The skins looked less brown than the ones we've at previously at Tanjong Pagar.

Not bad buah keluak fried rice they did. It was thick with buah keluak paste which imparted a lot of its flavour into the rice.

Their dry kerabu laksa was filled with flavour from dried shrimp in the creamy sauce that coated the noodles. I thought it would have been a bit better if there was just that bit more salt. Still enjoyable.

Chendol was a little disappointing. Not getting the basic fragrance from their gula melaka. Both Nonya Chendol at Whampoa Market Food Centre and Redhill Food Centre were superior renditions to this. Note to self : no more getting chendol from here.

Cherki, Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Cherki's (#01-02 Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, 1 Straits Boulevard, tel : +65 6514 8345) got this Violet Oon Satay Bar and Island Cafe vibes. Local yet atas and alcohol is a thing.

There's Guinness on tap.

Foie gras duck confit fried rice. The duck, if anyone was wondering was in shredded bits in the rice. I was wondering about the fried rice part since it just looked blue from the butterfly pea flower. To their credit, it tasted like fried rice while my brain caught up with reconciliation between my two senses. Pretty competent achar on the side there. Just wished that the foie gras was bigger.

Some seared scallops and Nonya fish maw dish. The fresh scallops had their natural sweetness and a nice flavour from the caramelization; notice that there are also dried ones in there as well. Don't know what made the miserable portions of fish maw Nonya but their quality was mediocre. One could taste the beginnings of the oil in them getting stale. 

Tried the yuzu seafood kueh pie tee. The difference from the regular ones and these were the scallops and yuzu flavour. Not bad.

Unexpectedly moreish coconut prawn linguine which I felt was the performing underdog today. Pasta was nicely done, prawns tasted good and it was all brought together by the savoury sweet coconut cream that glazed the seafood and noodles. I'd eat this again.

Ngoh hiang wasn't impressive for me. Couldn't taste the foie fat and duck pate that was listed as ingredients. Bamboo shoots are a poor substitute for water chestnuts. Also, there's five spice powder. I've always felt that good ngoh hiangs never needed them.

(O_o + 😒) Their kaya & gula melaka tiramisu was a disappointment compared to my mental imagery of a luscious moist cream cake. I had the idea that since this wasn't a run of the mill tiramisu, they'd make something out of the ordinary. Impressive even. This looked like it came from a cake factory. Couldn't taste the kaya at all and here's where I melodramatically lament (in the literal sense of course!) over the injustice done by a Peranakan restaurant to a Peranakan ingredient.

It's also pretty dry. If I hadn't ordered it as one, I wouldn't have recognized it as tiramisu. 

Rumah Bebe, East Coast Road

This shop (113 East Coast Road, te; : +65 6247 8781) looked the part of a prettied up Peranakan shophouse unit, albeit one that's a tad ostentatious. Maybe because of that, I got the feeling that it might be more style than substance with the food but we came by for some coffee and kueh anyway.

They weren't bad tasting. I prefer Bengawan Solo's kueh salat to this because I like the kaya/pandan custard layer to be less gelatinous. The rendition from Chalk Farm was also nicer so I'm really not feeling for the salat here. Ditto for the latter location on the sugee cake. Their baked curry puff though, which looked like a tiny Cornish pasty, was nice.

Coffee's not good. At all. Weak. Not aromatic. Note to self : never come back here for coffee.

Baba Chews, Katong Square

Baba Chews (#01-01 Katong Square, 86 East Coast Road, tel : +65 6723 2025) is...Peranakan. I guess. If I had to venture with my observations, there's western influences, perhaps a shade of Japanese with a tiny breath of Chinese and Thai. As rojak as this nation is. 

Was intrigued by their kopi c spare ribs. That sauce was more coffee than most Chinese cze char coffee pork ribs out there. Which was a good thing if you're wondering. But I'm not sure it's kopi c I tasted. Pretty nice sweet slaw with pineapples and I also kinda liked the crispy dough fritters (油条) they sprinkled on top.

What didn't work out for me was how the ribs were cooked. Not slide off the bone tender like well done barbecued ribs. I wished it were. Meat's lean and a little dry. Pity.

That's chicken rendang lasagne. I had in mind a Malay sort of rendang but maybe this was of a Peranakan rempah recipe. The dish didn't taste bad as whole but......we'll leave it at that.

Meatless at Babas Peranakan

Going meatless there with takeaway from Babas Peranakan. Also noticing the hae bee flavour from the long beans. I'm normally not so big on lemongrass in curry but this lemak rendition was delicious. Heftily portioned for princely sum of $3.

Old Nonya, Maxwell Food Centre

We were getting dinner from Maxwell Food Centre over the weekend. Old Nonya's (#01-04 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Steet, tel : +65 8366 9311) chicken rendang with rice looked appealing.

Nice. The rendang was nutty and lemak - not much heat but the spices in the rempah had a good balance within all the rich creaminess which was delicious with the white rice. Their tangy achar tasted like the ones my late grandmother used to make and I liked it.

Babas Peranakan, Chinatown Food Centre

I hadn't noticed this stall (#02-225 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) until the recent few years when they were written about. About the owner who's of Peranakan descent who had previously been from the hotel industry and how he's set up shop in Chinatown. Bloggery ensued. You know that's how it goes.

Anywayyys...I wouldn't have known that they were of Peranakan origins had they not been mentioned. To me, the stall looked very much like another cai png shop. The operative word in the last sentence was 'looked'. 

This is where I go into what I enjoyed. The onion omelette was tender light and had a sweetness from the onion. All the sweetness will of course be subdued if you eat them with the sambal belachan which was also good accompaniment to pretty much everything on the plate. Chap chye looked pale but had the prerequisite flavour I expected. That fried chicken thigh was exceptional. Meat was moist, no undercooked parts, tender that you could get it off the bone easily and generously flavoured with spices and salt.

Ask for their lemak curry to be drizzled on the rice.

Blue Ginger-ing @ home

Blue Ginger-ing at home from GrabFood. Their food was a little less expensive and felt a little bit more down to earth than Candlenut. But, I suppose I haven't eaten enough from the latter to make a proper comparison.

Achar. Would have benefitted with more peanuts like what I've previously mentioned. I would have liked them to be pickled for a little longer for more punch. These didn't make me want to eat as much rice as I did back then so maybe something is different here.

Pretty decent babi pongtay. The flavour was sufficient but I thought lacked a little intensity. Which in no way meant that it wasn't rich tasting in the first place. Not as pretty looking as the one from Godmama though.

Sambal udang petai - puny portions for $28. Did not represent good value for money at all. Even though the sambal was nutty, a little shrimpy and moreish on rice with those petai which they had too little of.

This kangkong lemak would really be improved by more generosity with the lemak gravy.

Candlenut

Does a one Michelin Star meal still count if it was had through home delivery and not the restaurant? I don't know. This was our first experience with Candlenut - what many locals term as contemporary/refined atas Peranakan food. It is also the only Michelin starred Peranakan food in the world. 

Been wanting to try them for a while. Between the COMO Dempsey delivery platform and GrabFood, the difference in the total price inclusive of delivery was about 4 cents. Every dish with the exception of the rice costed the same - a little over $23 if it's from GrabFood and $20 from COMO Dempsey. The latter charged more for delivery so the ended up being equally expensive. 

I was curious about their Snake River Farm kurobuta neck satay. Charcoal grilled and glazed with kecap manis. Sweet like how I expected but not getting much from the grill. Maybe these were another one of those things that didn't take to delivery well. I didn't dislike it, but I wouldn't order them again.

Chap chye was chap chye. It was okay with a nice shrimpy sweetness. Vegetables were reasonably tender. Neither the best or the worst I've had. But - it was the most expensive one I've ever eaten.

The portions for their pong tauhu soup was tiny. On hindsight, it was sufficient. The broth packed a serious load of crustacean flavour infused with garlic. Loved the coarse texture of the meatballs with chunky bits of prawn. Nice.

What I enjoyed the most from the bunch of items we ordered was their blue swimmer crab curry. The menu mentioned turmeric, galangal and kaffir lime leaf. I thought I tasted a bit of lemongrass. The curry was pleasantly fruity and creamy. Very nice.