Charlie's Peranakan Food. Where Locals Go For Nyonya Cuisine in Singapore. Golden Mile Hawker Centre

Update 7 Oct 2020. Today, we enjoyed a most satisfying Nyonya meal and nice get-together at Charlie's Paranakan Food at Golden Mile Food Centre (as usual).

Charlie's stall #B1-30 is at the basement of Golden Mile Food Centre at Beach Road (not to be confused with Golden Mile Tower and Golden Mile Complex which are across the road).

This part of the busy hawker centre is relatively quiet and bright even though it is in the basement. Charlie's Peranakan Food is just two stalls away from the popular Original Vadai stall and just beside new kid on the block Wen Kang Ji wanton mee with the "aeroplane meat" char siew.

From his little stall, Charlie dishes out a wide ranging Nyonya food menu comparable to restaurants. After all, before his sabbatical and return to open this hawker stall in 2016, Charlie owned one of Singapore's most popular Nyonya restaurants.

Our feast was already in progress when I got up on a chair to snap this picture. Yeah...., those are my black socks and that is not my tummy hor... 🤭 (It's a celebrity tummy - put your guess in the comments 💭 😜 )

Loh Kai Yik 卤鸡翼 is a Cantonese dish that has established itself in Peranakan homes. Loh Kai Yik literally means "stewed chicken wings" but it is a lot more than that. It is chicken wings, pork belly, skin, intestine, cuttlefish tentacles, tau pok, kang kong greens etc stewed with fermented bean curd (known as nam yue 南乳 in Cantonese). This classic, traditional Cantonese dish is rarely found in hawker centres or even restaurants.

Charlie's rendition of Loh Kai Yik has a relatively mild savoury nam yue and sweetish flavour. The meat ingredients were all tender and well infused with the stewing liquid (nam yue) flavour.

I enjoyed Charlie's Loh Kai Yik very much, though I grew up with my grandma's version which had a more assertive nam yue flavour.

A steal at $20 a serving (2020 price). Eaten with plain white rice, this dish can easily feed three big size people deliciously.

Where's the fish? Charlie's Achar Fish is a fried black pomfret served submerged in a pool of mildly sweet spicy savoury zesty sauce. Peranakan sauces are packed with flavours as it is choked full of spices and herbs.

Babi Tulang Buah Keluak. Pork ribs stewed with a thick sauce with robust layered savouriness and served with buah keluak nuts.

The buah keluak nut pulp is dug out, blended and seasoned with condiments & spices before the paste is stuffed back into the shell. The buah keluak is then stewed with spices and pork ribs. The buah keluak contribute its savoury taste to the stew and also infuse some of the stewing liquid's spice flavours.

The buah keluak pulp is eaten by digging it out with an ice cream stick. It has a deep savoury salty and subtle sourish taste. Buah keluak is an acquired taste but once it gets to you, it can become a lifelong addiction.

Oh..., I almost forgot to mention that the pork rib meat was fall off the bone tender, juicy and well infused with savoury subtly bitter sourish stewing sauce flavour.

Nyonya Braised Beef. And, that's the thing about Nyonya food - most dishes are made for eating, not made for Instagram. (Put another way, it is a food photographer's nightmare 😅 )

Every dish has a blend of layered flavours well infused in the ingredients, in this case the tender beef meat and tendons. This dish is like stewed beef brisket but with thick, rich Nyonya style savoury sauce.

Itek Sio. Told you, Nyonya food isn't very pretty in pictures and some dishes look like one another. But, every dish has its own distinct flavours and charms the palate in a different way. This is savoury sweet stewed duck infused with soy sauce, gula Melaka, tamarind etc. flavours.

Toh Hay. Chunks of chicken stewed in a robust savoury sweet sauce of fermented krill and red rice yeast. Lovely. It is the Nyonya version of the Fuzhou red vinasse / yeast chicken 红糟鸡.

Chap Chye - mixed vegetables slow stewed in a blend of soy sauce, galangal, candlenut, and mild spices.

Nangka Lemak. Young jackfruit core stewed till soft in coconut milk and mild spices.

I have to mention Charlie's sambal chili. It has a robust umami savoury flavour and a sharp powerful spicy hot kick. Stings the tongue and lips, making everything tastes better.

All of us enjoyed our meal at Charlie's Peranakan Food. The pricing is reasonable and we get to taste real Nyonya food along with an authentic Singapore hawker centre experience.

Restaurant name: Charlie's Peranakan Food

Address: 505 Beach Rd, stall #B1-30, Singapore 199583 (Golden Mile Hawker Centre)

Tel: 8147 4832 (Amy)

Hours: 11:30am - 7:30pm

Charlie's Peranakan Food is one of my top choices at Golden Mile Food Centre 👈 click

Written by Tony Boey on 7 Oct 2020 | Updated 31 Mar 2021

Charlie's Peranakan Food is Back at Golden Mile after 8 Years!

16 Dec 2016. Went for lunch today at Charlie's Peranakan Food stall at Golden Mile Food Centre at Beach Road in Singapore. It's the best Peranakan meal that I've had for a long time.

We've good news for Charlie's Peranakan Food's legion of fans. Your favourite Peranakan restaurant (formerly at East Coast Road) has resurfaced as a food stall at the basement of Golden Mile Food Centre 🎉

Christmas came early 🎅



Charlie's Peranakan Food has re-invented itself to focus on their creations of Peranakan-Korean fusion of Peranakan classics served with Tteokbokki 떡볶이 (Korean rice cakes).



But, Charlie's die hard fans are here for his famous true blue Peranakan dishes - the ones relegated to hand written scrawls with erasable marker pen on a small piece of white board 😂



Seven of us, we ordered a smorgasbord of dishes from the white board menu. We unconsciously filtered out the Korean stuff 😂 🤷 (What is Charlie thinking? 🤔 )

My first spoonful dipped semi consciously into this Belimbing Prawns as the dish was right in front of me.

One spoonful of the sweet-tangy-spicy curry and boomz.... hey... hey... hey... no more mucking around. Charlie's Peranakan food grabbed my attention straightaway.

You see, my experience with Perakanan food in recent years even at some rather pretentious establishments in Singapore and Malaysia was there was something missing which I couldn't pin down.

Charlie's Peranakan Food is like a Peranakan food epiphany for me - the food goondu.



I was happily lapping up tablespoonfuls of this aromatic sweet mildly spicy Opor Ayam with coconut milk and candlenut etc sauce which tasted so right. (Besides Peranakan, Charlie a true cooking enthusiast, dabbles in Indonesian dishes like this Javanese classic.) 



Beef Rawan stew with chili, spices and buah keluak. I was scooping up spoonfuls of this ugly looking spicy-savoury-bitter-beefy gravy as I chatted with my eating buddies, scratching the plate till it was squeaky clean.



Nangka Lemak - tender young jackfruit core stewed in a sweet-spicy curry of coconut milk, spices and chili.



Achar Fish with sweet-sour-spicy sauce full of layers of flavour from the garlic, ginger, chili, turmeric etc.



Ayam buah keluak.

We didn't order this Peranakan classic 😂😂😂 whyyy......? I stole this picture from our neighbour's table - another group of Charlie's loyal fans. They wanted to charge me $2 for snapping this picture 😂 Jokingly of course luckily.



Gulai Fish in zesty sourish spicy sauce that wakes up our taste buds' to savour the fresh fish's natural sweetness.



Then, there was this claypot of Loh Kai Yik 南乳卤鸡翼 or stewed chicken wings - an originally Cantonese dish that found its way into some Peranakan homes in Singapore. Charlie's Peranakan Food is the only place that serves this Cantonese heritage dish commercially now (I believe).

In the claypot, besides chicken wings, there were pork belly, skin, intestines, squid, tau pok etc tenderised by stewing for hours in a full bodied broth flavoured with nam yu (fermented bean curd). Charlie's version is milder than how my grandmother made it, but it has that unique blend of flavours which I have not tasted for a very, very long time.

Charlie is passionate about Peranakan food - it's in his DNA - his mum, a Peranakan lady, is an accomplished Peranakan chef at home and in restaurants. Every day, Charlie will go to the wet market and personally hand pick the ingredients for his stall, just like mum or dad at home. Often, when he comes across something nice, a rare fruit in season or a special fish, he will have it for the stall. So, there will often be surprise dishes depending on what Charlie spotted at the market, just like at home 😃



I stayed back after everyone has left and Charlie had a breather after lunch. He rewarded my persistence with a quick primer on Peranakan food. He showed me his cache of precious spices which he meticulously labelled and kept in plastic bottles.

After chatting with Charlie, I realised why I had often felt something was missing in the Peranakan food I tasted lately. I found out that Peranakan food which uses a lot of different types of spices is rather unforgiving in terms of using the right spices. The taste profile can go off the curve if certain spices are omitted or blended together in the wrong way. So, my feeling of "something missing" could literally be due to some missing spices.



4-Star (out of 5). I have not had such a good Peranakan meal for a long time - the last time was lovingly home cooked by a family friend from Malacca. The flavours at Charlie's Peranakan Food were just perfectly balanced and what our taste memories inform us. I am sure to be back often to this little gem of a Singapore heritage food stall. 

I still have to try their Peranakan-Korean fusion of Peranakan classics served with Tteokbokki 떡볶이 (Korean rice cakes) 😃 

(Update: okay..., I tried their Korean fusion. They don't serve these anymore but I don't feel I am missing anything 😝 )

History of Peranakan food 👈 click

Restaurant name: Charlie's Peranakan Food
Address: #B1-30, Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road, Singapore
GPS: 1°18'10.8"N 103°51'51.0"E | 1.303001, 103.864179
Tel: 9789 6304 (Amy)
Hours: 11:30am to 6:30pm

 

Written by Tony Boey on 14 Jan 2016 | Updated 31 Mar 2021