Four ladies and fourteen small plates of Peranakan food. That was the final count at lunch with my three food-loving friends.

I love how Milly‘s initial concern about us having ordered too much food was put to rest by Gail’s quick-thinking comment to divide the twelve different dishes by four - “We would each order three dishes anyway”. Mathematics FTW.

My favourites from the spread would be the Belimbing Pork (its thick gravy which is high-in-acidity and thus very sour, was the perfect foil for the soft chunks of fatty pork belly), Cinchalok Bomb (recommended by Angeline, the crunchy-on-the-outside ball of beancurd was deliciously savoury and umami) as well as all four of the assorted Kerabu (Asian salad) we had chosen.

There were a few items that we found lacking, namely the Sotong Hitam, Belachan Chicken and Sambal Brinjal. When a staff came by to enquire about our meal, we shared our honest feedback. This was done in the spirit of hoping the team will want to work on improving the dishes, and not because we wanted to complain for the sake of complaining. To our surprise, when it came to payment, those items were omitted from our bill. Even though we protested and insisted on paying for them, she stood firm, explaining that since the eatery is still new and in the process of tweaking recipes, the management takes every customer’s feedback very seriously. Moreover, she pointed out, we hadn’t eaten much of those said dishes either. Wow, we were really impressed by this. One thing’s for sure, Belimbing Superstar gets a star from us for their service.