Sunday, July 08, 2007

Dulukala Peranakan Restaurant @ Beauty World Centre (Upper Bukit Timah Road)

It was  a normal Saturday and the usual 4 of us were pondering where to eat. Weeyuan suggested a place that was always packed and somemore, its makansutra-endorsed!! I will like to mention that anything endorsed by tv shows lah, famous people lah, are always worth going to. Why? Becoz sometimes e food is really so bad that you can always gossip about it. Of course, reasons are plentiful as to why the food does not taste good;

1) Tastes differ from individuals (tat i agree, Van taste buds are weird, Alex's taste is anything sweet and full of MSG or just junk food).

2) The stall owners give money to the tv shows producers to feature them (this one im not too sure but hey, money is everything).

3) It is a different person cooking (this i agree; alot of time, once a stall becomes famous, they employ more ppl to cook for them)!

4) The place becomes so crowded after the show premiered that they cannot cope, hence the drop in qualiy and taste~ (same point as point 3)!

5) The person that is taking your orders dun like you (tats why i seldom offend those ppl in the food industry. Only offend them after you have eaten their food and u are at least almost sure they will not add/eliminate stuff from the food).

Anyway, back to the topic, i have only eaten Peranakan cuisine a few times and do not really count them as my favourite food. However, the food from the above mentioned restaurant really did make my taste buds yearning for more of their Rendang. And if its not for the fact that im still slightly sick on the day of the food session, i bet i can savour more and can detailed you with more of the food.

So how's their food, you wonder? Hm....... I will begin with the bad points of this place first. We ordered only the dishes with the star, which obviously mean recommended. Hm.... Just wondering if restaurants have a highly NOT RECOMMENDED dishes list. Hahah.

Keluak Curry

The Lychee Looking Stuff.

Anyway, one of their recommended dish is Keluak, a strange ayam curry dish that has some lychee looking fruit which u can dig black stuff out (sounded like nose digging). The taste was just weird; abit salty and abit like eating charcoal but the curry itself was fortunately sweet and flavourful. Hahaha.

Inside of the Omelette

Another strange dish was their Omelette Chichalok, which looked like those normal Furong Egg we see everywhere on the outside. Dissection of the egg revealed pieces of chilli, small prawns and the ingestion revealed a taste that was quite sour. We din not manage to pinpoint what it was.

Burbur Cha Cha

Their Bubur Chacha looked beautiful with its 4 different color/types of potato/yam but it was too tasteless. Most Bubur Chacha have a sweet, coconut taste that flows smoothly down your throat but this one tastes almost like water. A bit sad though because i have not eaten any Burbur Chacha that has tasted this bad.

Now the good dishes:
 Ayam Rendang

The tender Ayam Rendang with its not too spicy, and yet fragrant and flavourful curry was great for our tastes buds! The portions were disappointing though... Only 3 pieces!!! And there were 4 of us!!! Sighz..... Luckily we did not killed ourselves on how to divide it. Hahaha.

Ngoh Hiang

Their Ngoh Hiang was also worth mentioning. Though the amount of meat in this Ngoh Hiang was minimal, it won with its crispy beancurd skin and the sweet sauce that came with it. Beside that, at least it came in 8 pieces.

Chendol

Furthermore, i love their Chendol!!! Its not too sweet and just right to the taste buds! Their crushed ice was just enough to melt the moment the heated surrounding in your mouth did their work.

Chap Chye

Finally their Chap Chye, which means mixed vegetables. I found it to be quite normal. I guess its becoz im sick bah. Nothing to complain about this dish, just plain normal. Shrug.

FINAL REVIEW

We ordered a total of 5 dishes with rice, drinks and desserts that cost $46.10, which i personally think to be on the high side. The biggest disappointment we had though, was that the portions were not enought for all of us!!

However, though the presentation of most dishes was bad (everything is almost brown or yellow), the tastes were really fabulous~!

The restaurant is situated at the top of Beauty World and at first look, the ambience is really simple. Service is not bad though and i guess i will be back there again!

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