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Peranakan Place’s location right on Parramatta Road, between Fishing ‘R’ Us and Rug World, seems an unlikely place for a restaurant this well-regarded. When we arrive, tables are packed with multi-generational families, as well as some smaller groups of friends and couples. Those in the know get that it’s a treat to be here. Peranakan restaurants aren’t common in Australia – in part, because Peranakan food is so labour-intensive to prepare. The authentic preparation of the rempah, a complex blend of spices that serves as the foundation for each of the cuisine’s different dishes, can involve hours of chopping and hand-grinding. But the effort shows in the flavours.
The cuisine of Peranakan culture is most commonly referred to as ‘Nonya’, which is a term of respect for Peranakan women. In English, it means something between ‘ma’am’ and ‘aunt’. Essentially, Nonya recipes combine Chinese cooking techniques with Malay spices. This fusion of cuisines was the result of generations of marriages between Malay women and Chinese merchant sailors. These sailors were often from Fujian, the mainland province west of Taiwan, which is known for its fragrant seafood braises, gently simmered with mushrooms and umami sauces. So, apart from the literal marriages, this blend of history and geography also resulted in the delicious marriage between Fujian culinary techniques and Malay flavours that is now known as Nonya cuisine.
Even if you haven’t been to a Peranakan/Nonya restaurant, you’ve probably tried the undisputed queen of noodle soups, the coconut curry laksa, which is the cuisine’s most famous dish.
Stepping inside, a waitress greets us with a broad smile and directs us to a table next to a sideboard cluttered with ornate and brightly-coloured porcelain vases and urns. There are also black-and-white photos that reflect a time when photography was often a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capture a fleeting moment in the life of a family.
After ordering, our dishes are carefully placed on the table and they look delicious. The roti is stretchy and buttery, and it’s been properly ‘clapped’ to make sure the lightly charred outsides are flaky. I start with the fish and okra curry, which is rich and smooth, with an edge of bright sourness. Somehow, the texture is creamy, even though there isn’t a drop of cream. The ling fillet is cut thick and perfectly cooked, and the okra still holds an edge of firmness to the bite.
On the side, the Peranakan pickles (Nonya spicy pickled mixed veg known as achar) have been precisely hand cut – the slices of vegetables are loudly crunchy and sour, fermented with fine strips of chilli and then combined with minced peanuts. It results in an almost satay-pickle flavour that goes well with the humming depth of the prawn bisque that is the base of the har mee soup.
We’ve also go for the Hainan chicken (we decide it will provide a familiar benchmark for the chef’s skill). The Hainan rice has just the right hint of al-dente chew, and the chicken itself is tender, glossy, and combines harmoniously with its trio of accompanying sauces: ginger, chilli and kecap manis. Yum.
Sam, the 80-year-old restaurateur, tells us he moved from Singapore to Sydney 50 years ago, but that he and his wife, Agnes, only opened the restaurant when they were in their early seventies. He says he wanted to bring Sydney an authentic Nonya restaurant because he couldn’t find the cuisine of his childhood here.
He directs us to a painting on the wall of round nuts hanging from the branch of a tree and tells us that Peranakan Place is the only restaurant in Australia that prepares this ingredient in the authentic way. He says that keluak nuts must be washed and boiled, and then packed in ash for 40 days until they can be used as the basis of one of Nonya cuisine’s most famous dishes, the ayam buah keluak, a richly dark chicken stew. This will be on my list to try next time I visit (how about next week?).
(Time Out tip: Peranakan Place is only open three days a week, Friday to Sunday, so you might want to book ahead. Some dishes, like the black pepper crab and the Teochew duck need to be ordered in advance.)
When we finish our meal and request the bill, I experience something like the opposite of bill shock. The price for our feast was surprisingly cheap.
We step out into the dark beside Parramatta Road’s snaking line of homeward-bound tail lights, and it feels like we’ve arrived back in Auburn again after a south-east Asian sea journey.
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