Kebaya Dining Room Review (Penang)

Kebaya Dining Room Review


Address: Seven Terraces, Stewart Lane, 10200 Georgetown, Penang Malaysia
Opening hours: 6-10pm
Website: https://www.georgetownheritage.com/kebaya-dining-room/

Dinner 4 course meal at RM 120/ SGD 40

Was in Penang recently and my wife had arranged a nice dinner to start off the trip. Peranakan fine dining was something of an oddity to me, having never had much peranakan food, i was excited about the chances of this turning out good. Suffice to say, it turned out very good indeed. 

Ordering is done in sets with each person entitled to one choice from the 4 categories, appetizers, main course, greens and desserts.

MIANG KHAM OF SALMON ROE

MIANG KHAM OF SALMON ROE 

OTAK OTAK

PORK MAN TOU

The trio of appetizers set the mood for the food to come with the Miang Kham and Otak being the stars of the starters we had. The otak was crispy, fragrant with a hint of coconut and spice. The Miang Kham which is a combination of coconuts, shrimp, cashew nuts and salmon roe was refreshing and very surprisingly complemented each very well. I'd say the weakest of the starters would be the pork bun which came across as overly salty. Some of my friends liked it though.

GRILLED SNAPPER

CRISPY NYONYA TEMPURA

ORGANIC ROAST PORK

HONG BAK LAMB

KEBAYA TAMARIND BEEF

WING BEAN KERABU

CHER CHAI

SAMBAL GORENG

From the main course and greens section, the serving sizes were extremely generous. No danger of leaving hungry here.

The standouts here for me will be the red snapper which is extremely sweet and fresh with my favorite coconut taste which made it taste like deconstructed otak. The organic roast pork is the next favorite. The fat melts in your mouth and the skin remains crispy and fragrant throughout. The lamb was a huge serving and is an acquired taste. The melt falls right off with little effort. The downside is that not everyone will like the strong lamb taste it comes with. The beef tamarind is sweet but nothing else comes to mind.

The vegetables were all nice and serviceable to help wash everything down.

PANDAN CREME BRULEE, CHOCOLATE FONDANT, GULA MELAKA MOUSSE and

PANA COTTA

Of the entire meal, we felt most let down by the desserts, which were all overly sweet and lacked character. The only dessert that was good was the pandan creme brulee which was very fragrant.

Overall, a good experience and this stands as the best peranakan meal i've had so far. Dessert was never a Peranakan mainstay so come for the mains and appetizers and you'll leave suitably satisfied and a few kilograms heavier.