Kim Choo’s Kitchen

Kim Choo’s Kitchen – 109/111 East Coast Road

I’ve always had a soft spot for Peranakan food but the home-cooked care, painstaking preparation and meticulous attention to detail that are the essence of this cuisine also renders it difficult to fit into a viable business model. Nevertheless, this eatery tenaciously sticks to its roots and traditional feel by keeping everything relatively small-scale so that every mouthful conjures images of a wizened old grandma keeping vigil over a simmering pot. The establishment also manages a stand with a dazzling array of the famed Peranakan kuehs which I shall not cover in this post so as to give them their due attention. A substantial lunch set my table of 2 back $63.80.

The complimentary Achar was comfortingly familiar and authentic. Sweet, piquant and tangy with a touch of chilli for added zing, this pickle really whets the appetite. Delightfully moreish, the generous portion of lovely crunchy vegetables topped liberally with fragrantly toasted peanuts vanished in a flash.

Bawan Kepiting Soup ($12) is the archetypal pick-me-up when you’re nursing a cold. Don’t let looks fool you for this clear soup is actually a hearty broth of fermented beans teeming with slippery tang hoon as well as meatballs containing a complex list of ingredients including crab, minced pork, bamboo shoots, topshell and mushrooms. The amalgam of flavours was perfectly balanced and soaked into the luxuriously smooth glass noodles. However, it was the meatballs that stole the show with their delicate spice, satisfyingly meaty flavour and amazing pillow-softness with just a hint of chew. If I could have this whenever I’m ill, I’d find every excuse to catch the flu!

The subtly-flavoured gravy of the Babi Pongteh ($8) was a perfect platform for the well-marbled pork to shine in its melt-in-your-mouth glory alongside massive shitake mushroom caps and bamboo shoots. This dish is one of the less spicy offerings but a side of fiery sambal is on hand for chilli-heads like me, the heat really bringing out the richness of the meat.

Itek Siow ($12) had a truly lovely blend of spices including generous amounts of tamarind that opened up the gamey notes of the duck. The green chillies had had their heat braised to a manageable warmth that added further dimension to the already complicated mix of flavours. My only grouse was the rather bony pieces of duck; a great deal of picking yielded the barest scraps of meat which was a shame as it was so good!

Ayam Buah Keluak ($8) is easily and indisputably my favourite Peranakan dish. The thick, enigmatic sauce has the colour and viscosity of crude oil and is at once sweet, sour and bitter with a thick, heady aroma. The juicy, tender chunks of thicken thigh are thoroughly basted in the thick, syrupy blackness; taking on the complex mixture of spices beautifully. The crown jewels amidst all this splendour would have to be the buah keluak themselves, black nuts that I have not seen cooked in any other way. These nuts are actually poisonous if not done right; a hole is cracked in their thick shells, the flesh within chopped up and spooned back through the crevice before cooking. The end result simply cannot be put into words; I’d imagine that it mimics the sweetness of freshly turned loam? I know truffles are described as earthy too but these nuts are earthy in a wholly different way. I could keep waxing lyrical but still not be able to provide someone who hasn’t tried the stuff with the vaguest idea; it is a wholly unique and sublime experience.

Nonya Ngoh Hiong ($8) are excellent finger food and would be peerless bar-bites. Literally named “5 flavours”, the delicious mixture of meaty pork mince, sweet prawn and crunchy water chestnut in a crisp-fried beancurd skin is explosively flavoured with 5-spice powder. When dipped into a caramelly sweet sauce, it is nothing short of divine.