Authentic Peranakan cuisine is hard to get and to get really good ones? Even harder.
Worry not for we have a solution! It's called “The Peranakan”. Although there are many variations of Peranakan cuisine, the cusine here is the Melaka version of Peranakan food. We would like to thank Chef Raymond for inviting us to his spectacular restaurant.
Chef Raymond here has a 30 year experience in the food industry and he's a third generation Melaka Peranakan. We were more familiar with the Penang Peranakan cuisine so we let the chef choose the dishes for us. When the dishes arrived at our table, the colours and the thickness of the gravies made our mouth water. There were already clear signs that this was good stuff.

We started with the Ayam Buah Keluak. The gravy was predominantly nutty, with a slight bitter taste. The chicken was juicy and tender. With every bite, the gravy was sinking into the flesh and that brought out it's natural sweetness and we could really savour the taste of the chicken.
The keluak which is one of the main ingredients in this dish is actually poisonous and it has to go through a long process of preparation to make it edible.
The chef told us that usually the flesh of the nut is grainy, so they had to take it out, puree it and put it back inside again. Eating the keluak was one of the strangest things, it's bitter, creamy and had a very weird taste. It's really unique and I can't find any other food to compare it with but this unique flavour through the process of cooking has seeped into the gravy making it one of the most memorable dishes of Food Vibrations.

There was also Satay Babi Sum Chan, a Peranakan satay dish made out of pork belly. It's similar to the malay satay but it does not contain peanuts or skewers.
The gravy was sweet, nutty and had a bit of spiciness but the thing that made a whole world of difference was the rich pork flavour which was in that gravy. The pork belly was really tender and the pork fats melted into our mouths within seconds. Every bite we had to close our eyes to savour it. It was really that good. Although the pork was tender, the pork belly contained very thick amounts of fats, this is only possible if this was cooked slowly over low heat for a long period of time.

After two dishes with strong flavours, we underestimated the Nasi Ulam Istimewa and we were very very wrong. For some reason, it just looked really cute to us. It was small and seemed decorated with flower like herbs but after the first bite, it was anything but cute. It was a dense dish with seven herbs and minced fried fish. The rice was flavourful by itself, but the combination of herbs and the fragrance it produced made it much more appetising. The small portions of minced fish gave it that extra punch of salty fishiness which really held all the flavours together. The textures of the herbs was something hard to resist as well. It was fresh and crunchy, the minced fish had a bite to it as well. Together it felt really fun to eat, there was this element of play in it but it doesn't end there. We tried it with their sambal belachan and we were defeated by this dish. The sambal was potent and it enhanced every single flavour. It stimulated our appetite and we finished the dish way sooner than we expected, leaving us craving for more.

Lastly we had the Kuah Lada Ikan which is a stingray dish. The gravy had little or no traces of the stingray flavour but had a strong coconut taste with spices and hints of sourness. The gravy was really thick and together with the rice, it was good by it's own. The stingray on the other hand had it's flavours locked within until you bit into it. It was fresh and the stingray flavour blends into the gravy when you chew and that was just simply delicious. The flavours of this dish were much simpler as compared to the other dishes but it was great nonetheless. It felt very homely and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Overall the food here was authentic and fresh, the portion were generous and most importantly, they were all delicious. The taste justifies the price and the only way we're going to get anything similar to what we had is to actually find a Peranakan granny to cook for us. We're definitely looking forward to out next visit to “The Peranakan”.

Address: The Peranakan, 442 Orchard Road, Orchard Hotel, Level 2, Claymore Connect, Singapore
Website: www.facebook.com/ThePeranakanSG/