Trip Research

After our consultation with ms esther, we decided to head her advice, and went to katong to do some interview with the peranakan food restaurant(KIMCHOO) and taste their food.

The owner (Raymond Wong), is very helpful and friendly and really knows alot about the peranakan food and culture. From there, we know some " we might be surprise to know"

Different places of perankan cook their food differently, it depends on their liking,
but the name of the food will be somewhat similar.

Different meaning behind the shape of some kueh

Fish, Prawn, crab.
It is the different way they move to get to get around, that makes it significance to them,
this means you can go whatever way you want and still can have your way.

The different food colouring : Natural food colourings
Indian red rose for red
pandan juice for green
Bunga Telang for blue, but they hardly use it now, as the seeds are posionous, only the older generation of the peranakans know how to only use the petals part.

Reason of them using so much coconut milk,
an influence from the malay, to make the food richer, and
for e.g onteh onteh with the Gula melaka
they use alot of coconut milk, so in any case, whtr its cold or hot, it shld still be soft and Q.
the peranakans believe that whtr cold or hot, the food shld still taste and feel the same.

Another reason of using alot of coconut milk, a taboo to use (cow) milk and meat together,
e.g, some do not use cheese and beef to make a dish, its a taboo for them.

The pounding tool like the stone motar and prestle, it cannot be separated because they feel like its a mother and child, shldnt separate them. By using the them, they also can bring out the juices and aromas, something that you cannot get when using a blender.

As for the cooking process, peranakan cuisine is prepared by slowly stir-frying the spices first followed by other slow cooking processes. This long-drawn-out, time-consuming method of cooking makes sure that all the spices fully release their flavors and aromas.

If the cooking process is shortened, what you will get is a raw taste with a strong, pungent aroma.

too long of a cooking time, is bad for certain food as it will have a bitter taste.

Personality of the peranakan also affects their way of cooking or even descibe what kind of person they are.
The food are colourful because they like colours,
two favourite colour is green and pink(red) both auspicious colour for the malay and chinese respectively.

the way they pound their spices also describe what kind of person are they.

In the kitchen, you only can watch and observe(no talking) how the nonya cook the food, in some sort, they are abit proud in their personality and its important because the peranakans believe in strict order for cooking, like which to put what first, missing a step or wrong step can cause the food to taste differently.

there were more that we talk about.... some spices, some food a pregnant lady should eat... & more.


Photo with the Mr Raymond Wong


On our way back to school,
(photographer : Qilin)

Holding on to our nonya kuehS !




The kuehs we tried

In the bus ! snapping the photos of the kueh, the kueh are mostly quite oily, and alot of coconut, not really healthy BUT NICE .

With all this new information, we continue to do our concepts&research, see what interesting facts to adpot for our concepts.