The Les Amis Group started way back in 1994 when Desmond Lim (the current chairman) got together with 3 of his friends - Chong Yap Seng, chef Justin Quek and sommelier Ignatius Chan - to start what would be Singapore’s most successful stand-alone French restaurant. Fast forward a quarter of a century later, and Les Amis Group has become a multi-concept restaurant group running the gamut from its French fine dining origins to casual Asian.
The latest in its stable restaurants is Desmond Lim’s tribute to his grandmother’s Nyonya culinary heritage. Indigo Blue Kitchen offers dishes purportedly prepared using the chairman’s family heirloom recipes, though the kitchen is run by young non-Peranakan chefs.
Our lunch there consisted of:
Indigo Blue’s Nyonya Popiah - the classic Nyonya-style spring roll using rice flour wrapper, filled with stewed jicama, shrimps and crabmeat (the crabmeat was hardly discernible, though)
All the dishes were well-executed, with authentic Nyonya flavours. Relatively high prices, though, as if we are paying for the Les Amis brand-name, despite the average standard of its Nyonya cooking, and a sterile, bland dining room which looked more like a spruced-up , casual cafeteria.
Address
Indigo Blue Kitchen
1 Scotts Rd, Shaw Centre #03-09/10/11
Singapore 228208
Tel: +656235 3218
Operating hours: 12noon-3pm, 6.30pm-10pm daily
Back to Indigo Kitchen for dinner again, as we wanted to try other items in the menu.
Kueh Pie Tee, Ngoh Hiang and Otah-otah - this appetiser platter 3 of the most popular starters in Nyonya cuisine: the kueh pie tee here were very tasty and above-average, served in crisp, good quality pastry cups. The ngoh hiang was well-seasoned and had the right level of moistness. Ditto the otah-otah, which was well-spiced.
Sotong sumbat soup - this was a relatively rare soup, usually home-cooked and never available commercially in Singapore, or anywhere else for that matter. The tiny fresh squid were cleaned, then stuffed with minced pork, before being cooked in a pork broth, flavoured lightly with salted radish, and with glass noodles added in. Very good version served here.
Stir-fried luffa with prawns, served over scrambled eggs - another dish which was usually defined as “home-cooking” and hardly available outside, and done admirably well here.
Pulut with 3 types of topping: durian, kaya and inti - the dessert was a big, BIG laet-down: glutinous rice was hard and tasted rather bland (no salt. fresh coconut milk worked into the concoction when it’s being steamed), and the 3 toppings were all pretty meh. I’d avoid if coming back here.
Overall, a really good Nyonya dinner, and perhaps my favourite one in Singapore at the moment. But skip the dessert. It’s very quiet over dinner, and I suspect the current fears over COVID-19 played a big part.
Singapore itself was pretty calm on the surface, although we still faced numerous new cases each day - they are usually in the single digits. The hot spots seemed to have moved from Asia to Europe. Take care, everyone!
