Charlie's Peranakan Food (Golden Mile)

Good!

Asking any nonya or baba for a good Peranakan food recommendation is often a wild goose chase because their answer will probably be along the lines of "it's hard to beat my mother's / grandma's cooking".

Charlie's Peranakan is a stall which has been around for quite some time and has some following. Located in the basement of the Army Market, they serve an astonishingly huge and wide variety of dishes.

Having ordered a huge packet of YouFu's hokkien mee, I had to exercise considerable restraint not to over-order. Their ayam rendang was delicious and fragrant though I wished the gravy was a little bolder and stronger in flavours. I must say though that it is really hard to get Peranakan food at this standard at hawker stall prices.

Needless to say, I will be back to check out the rest of their offerings in 2 months time!

The order of Chicken Rendang, Chap Chye and Bakwan Kepiting is more than sufficient for 2 pax and the total bill only came up to $21.50. The chicken rendang comes in a thick and lemak coconut curry sauce with two huge chicken drumsticks while the bakwan kepiting soup contains huge balls of minced pork with bamboo shoot. The chap chye is a medley of vegetables that has been braised in a fermented beans sauce for hours till the connecting tissues have broken down and the vegetables turn super soft that you do not even require teeth to bite through.
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📍Charlie’s Peranakan Food
505 Beach Road, Golden Mile Food Centre, Unit B1-30, Singapore 199583

I've tried buah keluak flavour but this was the first time I confronted it head on. It's famously an acquired taste and although I can accept it, I'm not enthralled. Although there were several nuts with generous meat stuffed in, I can't get over the fact this dish only has one drumstick. Fyi the taste is very strong in the nuts.

The pork belly is covered in strong flavoured tamarind gravy. It’s juicy, tender & what we need before we go meat free this weekend. Do support this stall as it’s so rare to find a not-so-pricy Peranakan food. We paid in total $19 (2 dishes: Nangka Lemak & this dish + 2 rice). Yes, it might seem more expensive than other hawker stalls but if you get good quality with great portion like this. Why wouldn’t you?
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The ambience might be off mark with some slight disturbance (all types of push cart going between tables) while we sat there. Tips: Do takeaway if you prefer to enjoy your food & not being distracted! 👌💡 🙌 #happyweekendcheers!! 😎

It took us a bit of walk around basement of Golden Mile food Center to locate this stall. When we arrived at 2 pm, the stall has less crowd and we ordered this Nangka Lemak. The jackfruit curry is such a star! ⭐️ It is packed with flavours and the portion is good to share for 2 persons. We have no regret ordering this dish and it’s hard to decide if we prefer this dish (Peranakan cuisine) or the one we had in Indonesian restaurant.