CHEF in 86-year-old restaurant | Instant food eaten immediately Chef Gra...

The foods offered at these informal eateries range from high-end Cantonese seafood to hand-rolled pasta. But the majority showcase Singapore’s truly local, original cuisine: the food of the Peranakans—a community descended from the Chinese workers and others who came to the area centuries ago and married local Malay women.

The night I visit, Goh has prepared 12 Peranakan dishes. The meal starts with bakwan kepiting, a bowl of minced pork meatballs with blue crab meat and winter bamboo shoots served in a rich seafood broth. Then comes a parade of dishes flavored with myriad herbs and spices: a tender beef rendang redolent of coconut cream and fresh spices; steamed sea bass bathed in spiced tamarind sauce with ginger flower and Vietnamese mint; all accompanied by a bowl of bright blue rice dyed with blue pea flowers from Goh’s small garden. The first private kitchen to put the trend on the map was Lynnette’s Kitchen, which Lynnette Seah opened in 2015. Seah is an acclaimed violinist and the co-concertmaster of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and her cooking attracted a lot of press, which encouraged others to open their own establishments. Seah serves her own versions of Peranakan dishes (such as a blue pea flower rice mixed with mackerel, ginger, lemongrass, ginger flowers, and seven different herbs) and other classic Singaporean dishes, like chili crab.