The Blue Ginger Restaurant

When it comes about discussion of Peranakan Food, I always get excited. I have been wanting to go The Blue Ginger Restaurant all these years but I just could not find an appropriate occasion to have a gathering over there. Fortunately, this round, with so many food options around, I manage to get everyone agree on the Cuisine.

Menu

Every patron is subjected to pay a sum of $2.60, a miscellenous charge which include unlimited portion of rice, sambal belachan and a portion of Achar. Though it tasted fair ordinary, it's a good to have for an appetizer as it really whet our appetite to come.

Achar

Opening our meal session will be one of Pernankan's staple, Kueh Pie Te. These lovely crisp little cups filled with braised turnips, shredded bamboo shoots, topped with half a prawn and sambal chilli. There were good but not the best I had so far. It would be good, if the cups are bigger in size and spicier.

Kueh Pie Tee - $7

Ngo Heong is also one of their specialities. With minced pork and prawns seasoned with five spice powder, they were fried to cripsy brown. Dab abit onto the sweet sauce and enjoy!

Ngo Heong - $11

Being a Singaporean, Otak Otak is no stranger to us. It is a fishcake recipe with turmeric and lime leaves with galangal, chilli, candlenuts and shrimp paste. It's springy and moist texture brought gave a very good comparison to those usual ones we had. I was not too impress with this as the taste was more towards "lemak" side and thus I  could not really have a good feel of the Otak.

Otak Otak - $4

The house's speciality was out to impress. With deboned chicken thigh meat and drumstick grilled with rich coconut milk and exotic spices. Though meat was rather tender but such Panggang dish caught me by surprise as the flavoured coconut milk had covered the grilled flavours all up.

Ayam Panggang - $13.50

Covering the tender beef cubes with rich coconut milk, lemon grass, lime leaves and ginger spice and also a dash of curry powder. Taste was rather standard and nothing impressive.

Beef Rendang - $14.80

Chap Chye came rich in prawn broth. It came with dried prawns in between bites and taste was rich. Out of most Nonya dishes, what I like best is usually their Chap Chye, however, this was not too impressive. It lacked the Wow factor and the leaves of mixed vegetables were simply too big even though they were cooked to its soften texture. On a side note black fungs, mushrooms and tang hoon were flavourful.

Chap Chye - $12

Dessert of the day was rather straight forward with soursp flesh over a heap of ice. Squeeze some lemon over it and enjoy the ice cooling dessert.

Dessert of the day - $4.50

An addition to the original Chendol with durian over it. Durian did not let out its strong smelling flavour initially but as we mixed in everything, it started to reveal a little. I was a little disappointment with its use of durian paste instead of the real flesh. (Perhaps, I'm thinking too much as this is durian season). The classic ingredients like sweetened red beans, coconut jelly with Gula Melaka and coconut cream were all in.

Durian Chendol - $5.80

Thick creamy coconut topped the fine ice with Gula Melaka pour onto it. Digging down into the ice, sago beads as well as honey sea coconut strips were revealed. A good refreshing treat after meal.

Gula Melaka - $4.50

Though they were awarded by a number of medias and with such centralised location,  it is no doubt that it caught aplenty of foreigners dining in there. If you were looking for some up-scale environment for Peranakan Cuisine, The Blue Ginger Restaurant may be a very good choice. Hits and misses, personally, having been to a number of places with Peranakan dishes, it was a slight disappointment here. In fact I was expecting better and would leave an impression that worth a return.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

The Blue Ginger Restaurant
Location: 97 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore 088518
Website