I wanted to have Peranakan food for my birthday and this place seemed to have consistently good reviews, hence I decided to head there for a meal with my family. It was a small restaurant situated at the top floor of Beauty World, seems to be family-owned. The whole place had a really homey and cozy feeling.



The Nonya Chap Chye was okay, I would have preferred if the vegetables were cooked longer so that they'd be softer.


I really love Sambal Petai so of course I had to order this when I saw it on their menu! The petai was cooked well, retaining the nice crunch of the bean. The sambal was also great and not too spicy.



The Assam Fish Head tasted like tomyam, which was fine by me since I like tomyam. The fish was fresh and the vegetables like tomatoes, brinjal and lady's fingers were cooked till soft and had soaked up the lovely assam gravy.



The Beef Rendang curry was really nice and fragrant and the beef was pretty tender. This was my favourite dish there.

All the dishes (except chap chye which was non-spicy) were not too spicy which was great for me. Portions were on the smaller side and there's only one size for all the dishes. Will recommend this to anyone looking for good and affordable peranakan food!

Istimewa is located near my house and almost each time I walk past, whether it's at 8am or during lunch time, there's a pretty long queue. I've had their lontong and beef rendang before, which was only ok to me, but the spices they use to cook the food is really fragrant. That's the thing I like about them.



This time, I had the chicken, brinjal and bergadil. As usual, they gave loads of rice - really really huge portion! The brinjal was nice and soft without being mushy. The bergadil was ok, overall was quite soft. The chicken was also average. The food is decent in general but I'm not sure why people would travel all the way here for their food..

I read about their chicken rice from ieatishootipost, and it was a pretty good review so I decided to try it when I was at Tiong Bahru Market.

I was there on a Sunday at about noon time, and there was a queue of about 10 people in front of me. However the queue moved pretty quickly so I really didn't have to queue for long at all .



I got myself the white chicken rice but with drumstick, hence I was prepared to pay about $1 more. Imagine my surprise when it was still the same price at $3! The rice was moist but didn't stick to each other, it was fragrant and nicely flavoured with garlic, ginger and chicken stock. The chicken was not bad, but can be smoother and more moist. Salted vegetables were also included. I also took some ginger sauce which was really terrible and watery. This spoiled the entire meal...I'd rather they didn't provide this at all.

This beef noodles is unlike any beef noodle I've tried! Definitely different from Singapore style beef noodles, Taiwan beef noodles, Thai Thaksin beef noodles and even Vietnamese Pho! 

The Hue Beef Noodle Soup features thick rice noodles with slices of beef shank and one pig's trotter (if you don't want this, let the staff know and you'll be served with more beef slices instead), and a wedge of lime and raw bean sprouts served on the side. The noodles were slightly thinner than the normal chor bee hoon/thick rice noodles you usually eat in hawker dishes. They were nice and smooth, albeit too smooth making it a little hard to eat with the chopsticks. The broth itself was light yet flavourful, and I really liked the hint of tanginess after squeezing the juice from the wedge of lime into the soup. The star of the show is of course the beef, and they were really nice and tender. My only fault about this dish was that it was served only slightly hot, which got cold really quickly Otherwise, I absolutely love this version of beef noodles and I'll definitely be coming back for more!

There were so many ramen stalls selling different types of ramen that we were spoilt for choice! Really didn't know which to choose so in the end we bought a bowl that was awarded the winner of Ramen Champion - Tonkotsu Ramen - and another bowl with the kind of pork slices that I like - God Ramen.



God Ramen $15 From Buta Ramen: The noodles in God Ramen were straight and yellow, which are relatively firm but not hard. The soup was tea-coloured and relatively clear, slightly salty. There were so many slices of pork in this bowl! The kind of pork used here is different from the cha shu normally featured in ramen. Instead, they were thin slices with lean and fatty portions in each slice - it was very much like the beef slices in Yoshinoya's beef bowl! There was also bamboo shoots and a lovely egg, which was about 3/4 boiled. The yolk was runny and the whites were still wobbly  

Tonkotsu Ramen set $16: We got ourselves the set which consisted of the ramen, agedashi tofu and grilled char siew. 


The noodles here are whiter and softer. The broth is full and creamy, which gets really jelat after a while. Sadly, there was only one piece of pork which was really soft and tender, almost melt in your mouth. The piece of pork wasn't even big so the portion was really pathetic! There was also black fungus strips in the bowl, but no egg included . 





The Agedashi Tofu consisted of 4 big pieces of fried tofu in some soya sauce concoction which wasn't too salty. This was ok, nothing special. The other side dish in the set was Char Siew pieces which were really nice due to the strong char-grilled flavour. 

Overall I think I preferred the ramen from Buta Ramen as it had way more pork and the soup wasn't jelat. However if you like broth that has a full and creamy mouthfeel, Tonkotsu Ramen is the way to go.