Food Review: Peranakan Inn at Katong | House of Peranakan, or House of Scam?
The Place Before you start reading further, here’s the main take-away from this review – Peranakan Inn is my worst ever dining experience in Singapore. It’s not just that the food here was average at best, but the service was by a huge margin, the worst I have encountered. Peranakan Inn is part of the House of Peranakan group of restaurants, including House of Peranakan Cuisine at Frankel Avenue and House of Peranakan Petit at Tiong Bahru.
We were thinking of a Peranakan restaurant in Katong and found this old Peranakan restaurant while researching online, which has not many reviews given that it has been around since the 1980s. Located along East Coast Road right beside Chin Mee Chin, the whole restaurant is like a throwback to the 80s, with old marble tables and retro looking tiles. Perhaps I should have gotten a hint from their lack of desire to excel as a clear indication of what’s to come.
The Food The menu is a simple two page with the usual Peranakan dishes like Ayam Buah Keluak and Assam Fish Curry. The prices on the menu has two sections – Small (2-3 pax) and Medium (4-6pax). As there were three of us, I specifically told one of the staff who took our orders that ALL our orders were small and she acknowledged it. There was no order slip given to us after we placed our orders. The hot dishes all arrived at about the same time, good to note the attention to such details.
The Bakwang Kepiting (S$8.50/small) is a classic Peranakan minced pork soup dish. This was decent but I thought that I had a better rendition at the nearby Baba Chews.
The Ikan Otak Otak (S$4.50/piece with minimum two pieces) was tasty. It wasn’t spicy but was flavourful nonetheless.
The Ayam Buah Keluak (S$12.50) is a dish I always order in any Peranakan restaurant. The sauce lacked the punchy notes even though the chicken meat was tasty. There were three Buah Keluak nuts served for my order, which lacked in terms of flavour as compared to the ones I had previously. Overall, this dish was disappointing.
The Chap Chye (S$10) is probably one of the better dishes we ordered.
As for the worst dish, it has to be the Assam Fish (S$8). For the serving, the three of us didn’t even finish as the fish was very tough to even stomach. Was it even fresh?
Rants So the worst part shall be ranted here. Our bill came and I was shocked that we were charged the prices for the Medium-sized portions for all our dishes, except the Otah which we had two pieces. I clarified with the lady staff who took our orders and she claimed that Small wasn’t enough for us – although she has clearly acknowledged all my orders to be Small sized during the orders. My eyes literally rolled when I heard her reply, didn’t the menu explicitly states Small portions for 2-3 pax, or was my eyes playing tricks on me?
When this happened, the next natural escalation is to speak to the only Peranakan lady in the restaurant, who seems to be either the lady boss/supervisor/manager here. She came over to our table, and I explained the possible misunderstanding in our orders and wanted to clarify if there was anything amiss but she simply retorted “But you all finish the food?”. Did she expect us to waste the food served, or should we have known that the portion served was in fact Medium-sized? Before leaving us to foot the bill as-is, she mentioned that her staff did not understand our earlier orders, and suggested we should just pay the bill – surprised that the staff could have got all the mains selections right, and yet the sizes totally wrong.
Before I left, I wanted to take a picture of the menu (as it wasn’t available online) and managed to snap the first page, before the Peranakan lady swiftly walked over to me and knocked me away and snatched the menu. And her comment, “You already eat finish, no need to take picture!”.
Is this guilty conscience? Throughout my whole clarification with the restaurant, no one bothered explaining on the misstatement of our bill, nor were they apologetic or even display any basic form of customer service. Perhaps since there’s no service charge here, I shouldn’t expect any form of service?
To simply put, it was a scam and we left feeling cheated.
Will I Return Again? This is by far the most ridiculous experience I ever had in any restaurant in Singapore – why did I even bother visiting here?
TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 3/5
Hole in the pocket: 3/5
Ambience: 2/5
Overall Experience: 0/5
Peranakan Inn & Lounge
210 East Coast Road
Singapore 428909
Tel: +65 64406195
Opening Hours
Daily 11am-3pm, 6pm-10pm
Ranted by The Ranter & The Rantee
My experience at this peranakan outlet in Vivo city wasn’t any better too. One of the worse too.
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Didn’t know they have another branch at Vivo! Okok.
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Sorry to hear about your experience at Peranakan Inn. I went with my family before to House of Peranakan and their attitude was terrible too – as was their Assam Fish! The food was sub-par but it was the service that left us with the worst taste in our mouths when we left. We’ve not been back since and it looks like their poor attitude has extended to more than just the one restaurant.
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Sorry to hear that!
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The food was average, and we didn’t expect much of a service to begin with. It is the dishonesty of the restaurant which irks us.
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You should have refused to pay the bill. Pay only what you ordered. If they don’t like it let them call the police.
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We just wanted to have one less thing to be troubled with initially, not least till we got shoved and menu snatched away when we were leaving the restaurant. Anyway, have ranted here, nothing else we can do.
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sorry to hear about your experience. but this is an interesting read! heh.
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… Hopefully we don’t get another chance to rant. Would rather have enjoyable meals!
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It’s a horrible restaurant, avoid!
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Wow, thank you for posting. I will avoid!
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It’s one of the worst restaurant we have ever dined in Singapore.
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I was gonna try this place out… now I’m having second thoughts. 😦
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It is the worst restaurant in Singapore we have been to.
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Argh…..i should have read this earlier, think we were ‘conned’ today too…e.g .we ordered 1 piece, they gave us 2 pieces..we ordered 1 soup….they gave us 2 soup……..bill was charged extra with extra vegetable n the lady boss pretended n can still smile, worst is we ordered sambal sotong at $8, they gave us prawn at $12….when we check with the staff, before we can finish the explanation. The boss immediately from far walked over n seem to know everything, the boss explanation is unacceptable…..I agreed with the writer …this Is really a scam, we were all furious……this is the FIRST time I encountered such restaurant in Singapore…..
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So sorry to hear this! I wonder why they have to resort to such tactics.
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Half of the dishes from the card are not available. As I was asking for a simple coke, they don t have it. service is very low, they bring 1 dish, 5 minutes later the rice and 10 minutes later the dish for the second person. Very poor experience. We are disappointed !!
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Another reason not to head back?
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Thanks to all of you who posted your feedback. The last time I ate at this restaurant was in 2006 and did not have any trouble. Now I had planned to dine there during an oncoming trip. I will eat somewhere else.
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You are better off elsewhere! So many other good restaurants in Singapore.
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Food is awful. Buah keluak looked more like a gravy dish. Chap chye lacked punch and the vegetables tasted aged. Beef rendang is much like the buah keluak – it was decked in gravy. Worst dining experience touting to be Peranakan cuisine.
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Can’t imagine why they are still in business
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