Ivins (Binjai Park)

Arriving at Binja park, my family walk from the bus stop to Ivin’s, which took around 5min or thereabouts. Ivins is a Peranakan/Nonya restaurant, and although it is located in Binja park off the main Bukit timah road, it was packed to the house when i arrived on a Sat evening.

The dishes Ivins offers are small in servings, but similarly they are cheaper in price. You can normal dishes for vegies, meats, and some other sides at around $4.50 to $6. For fishs, they come in $6.90 to $8, and there are also curry fish heads at $12. Because the servings are all very small, we committed the sin of ordering too many dishes, between the three of us, we ordered 7 dishes, some are good, while some are not. Mayb we are not too familiar with Peranakan food, so we ended up having some dishes which really aren’t to our liking.

Chilly Pomfret ($7.80)

The fish was rather good, it was deep fried, then spread with Ivins special-made chilli. The fish was kind of small though.

Ayam Buah Keluak ($5.90)

Signature dish of Peranakan cuisine. Chicken braised in thick spicy gravy with Buah kuluah nuts. We felt this dish was so-so only, chicken curry with the curry gravy different from our normal curry.

Sambal Kankong ($4.50)

Ahh.. All Kankong are well done when they are fried with Sambal, and when the kankong are not too over-cooked.

Duan Keledek ($4.80)

Sweet potato leaves and sweet potato slices in coconut gravy. This was our fatal mistake, we wanted to have Sweet potato leaves, but when we order this dish, we missed on out the “.. in coconut gravy” We thought the vegies was stir-fried, but in the end it came in the form of a soup? Anyway, the dish wasn’t to our taste.

Honey Pork ($4.60)

This should be the toast of the crown. By far the best dish we ordered, lean pork strips stir-fried in special honey sauce. The meat no doubt look over-burned, but it taste nice with the honey sauce absorbed into the meat.

Udang Sambal ($5)

This was a disappointment really, after we had the Chilly Pomfret, we thought Ivins chilli are good stuff, so we made this additional order for sambal prawn. The prawn is like cooked in water, then with the chilli over it only.

Babi Tauyu ($4.60)

Pork in sweet pepperish sauce. Again, this was a last-min-order. We never expected this to be our commonly known “ru-rou”.

Then mayb you will say, if you don’t know about Perankan cuisine its not the restaurant fault if you never ask right? Oh yea, we did ask the waitress, but many a times, they can’t really speak good english, and also cannot explain to us what are the dishes.

In addition, you will commit the same mistake of ordering too much dishes since the servings are small, and the dishes seem relatively cheap. Nevertheless, i believe Ivins are still a good place for Peranakan cuisine if you know your stuff well, judging from the crowd on a weekend evening. But i am not going back for now. Total bill was $43.70 for 3 person

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