ANY Peranakan restaurant with buah keluak on its menu always piques my interest.

So I threw the bait of a yummy ayam buah keluak to my regular “makan kaki” to entice her to join me for lunch at Big Baba.

I had the ayam buah keluak in February, when the restaurant had just opened in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. It is a branch of the one in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur, which has been around since 2015.

Big Baba trots out the recipes of the Wee family from Malacca.

Its ayam buah keluak met with my expectations: the chicken braised with the mangrove nuts in a spicy tamarind gravy redolent with lemongrass and ground shallots.

I could tell that the soft black nut had been dug out and seasoned before stuffing into its shell again. It was creamy and delicious, doused with the gravy.

On my first visit there, we had the pai tee. While the small pastry cases were thin and crispy, and the bangkuang filling was tasty, I did not fancy its DIY concept – putting it all together myself with the prawns, omelette strips and coriander and topping it with chilli sauce.

I also wished that the prawns had been in the bangkuang filling instead.

I liked the terung masak tempra we ordered. The eggplant has been fried first and finished in a dark sweet soy sauce with chillies, onions and lemongrass. There was a little tartness from tamarind juice.

Our palate was perked up by the steamed bendi kerabu. It was something simple but done well. The ladies’ fingers were firm and green and the sweet, sour and spicy Nyonya shrimp chilli dip, generous with sliced shallots, was so good with the vegetable.

The petai omelette stood out for the plump petai in it, its crispy edges and a small heap of pickled onions on top. It would have tasted better with a zesty sambal belacan.

Lunch sets work well if there are two or three people in your group. I was surprised to see a fairly big tenggiri fillet in the cili garam fish set.

It was well fried, with crispy skin and tender flesh, thickly covered with a fragrant Nyonya sambal and topped with pickled onions.

In the set was rice, a fried egg and cucumber and carrot pickles. It gave us a flavourful and inexpensive introduction to this cili garam fish, which you could order a la carte too.

We could not resist the Nyonya beef rendang set with the rendang being presented in a separate bowl on the plate.

The beef was so tender that it was almost like pulled beef, well infused with the ground aromatic roots, herbs and chillies slowly cooked with it.

The udang lemak nenas set is a popular one at Big Baba. The pineapple prawn curry comes in a small claypot, separate from the rice, egg and pickles on a plate.

However, I found the curry lacking as it was just sweet without a little tartness from tamarind or asam jawa.

Dessert was a wonderful sago gula Melaka. A mound of soft but firm beads of sago tinged blue with bunga telang sat on creamy santan with a salt lift, drizzled with aromatic gula Melaka.

Big Baba is pork-free. It is located at AG-02, ground floor, Block A, Happy Mansion, Jalan 17/13, Section 17, Petaling Jaya. Call 03-7931 0228. – April 1, 2023.

* Eu Hooi-Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published the cookbook Fresh Ingredients, and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.