Baba Inn

Peranakan is probably one of the Chinese foods that I really enjoy, but then again it's not purely Chinese. I'll happily eat all the curries and chillied dishes, and douse my buring tastebuds with lots of water since I can't take spicy food. I love the strong tastes and fragrant aromas from all the spices, which amazingly can be tasted even though the chilli numbs my tastebuds.

We went to Baba Inn on a weekday evening, and it was empty, save a table where an elderly couple were sharing a huge claypot fish head curry. The delicious aroma from the still warm claypot warfted about the whole restaurant, and did nothing to help our growling stomachs.

The 4 of us ordered the dinner set menu for 4 ($78++), which comes with any 1 of 2 choices each of Fish (Sambal/assam/nanas white promfret or snapper curry fish head), Prawn (Sambal/Assam/Nanas Udang), Ayam Buah Keluak, Nonya Chap Chye or Long Beans Sambal, Bakwan Kepeting Soup with Crabshell, and Dessert. Ayam Buah Keluak is my one of my most favourite dishes. I really love the bitterness of the tarry innards of the buah keluak. Everytime I go to a Nonya restaurant, I will definitely order this dish. I've been told that this dish is really hard to prepare, cos the buah keluak is very 'dirty' and takes very long to clean - plus, on this cooking show, they mentioned that you require quite a bit of buah keluak to make the stuffing. This dish came with 3 buah keluak, which were stuffed (probably with pork and prawns). I had lots of fun digging out the yummy stuffing. Deliciousness!

Tiger Prawns with Nanas Udang, which were big juicy and fresh. It was a hot favourite and needless to say, the small dish of 6 prawns were wiped out in a jiffy.

Nonya Chap Chye came in a nice claypot, and had lots of black fungus, cabbage, beancurd skin (and other various ingredients) and it went very well with the rice.

Bakwan Kepeting Soup with Crabshell was clear, light and tasty. It was served in individual portions, with a crabshell stuffed with minced pork.
Sambal White Pomfret - although the sambal sauce looks firey red, it wasn't that spicy (thankfully). The thick sauce went very well with the crispy fried fish.
D:<
At least it isn't curly, like the one in my Curry from Banana Leaf. That was really gross - cos I didnt' know if it came from someone who had curly hair, or whether was it pubes.
Pulot Hitam was the dessert of the day, and it came prettily decorated in individual bowls. It was a bit too sweet for my liking, but nevertheless, it was something sweet to wash down the extremely delicious, satisfying dinner. It would have been even better if they had served a cold dessert, cos my tastebuds were pretty tingly from all that chilli.

I really liked the affordable food from Baba Inn, it's much more value for money than True Blue (which I like too! But somehow, I find the staircase of Perenakan displays very creepy - plus their decorated toilet makes me very uneasy).

Baba Inn
Frankel Estate #01-103
103 Frankel Avenue (S) 458225