There are many ways people can enjoy company and kinship, but none as common, enjoyable and heartwarming as sharing a meal. In fact, especially in Asian cultures, meal times are an important and integral part for a family, friends and loved ones, and is practically to go-to activity for catching up or even discussing business. Each cuisine is unique, and Daisy’s Dream Kitchen does Peranakan cuisine the best, a family tradition kept alive for generations, with good food and kinship at its core.
About Daisy’s Dream Kitchen
Daisy’s Dream Kitchen was launched in April 2011 at the Tiong Bahru market food centre, and is a family-run restaurant that serves traditional Peranakan cuisine and local delights. The cooking style and certain recipes dates back to Daisy’s grandma, and Daisy wished to pass down the recipes taught by her mother. Running a restaurant seemed to be the best way to keep the tradition alive, and as luck would have it, fate intervened with them noticing an empty store at the Tiong Bahru market one day while having breakfast. A few phone calls later, Daisy’s Dream Kitchen had its start, and officially opened its doors the following year. Currently, Roy, Daisy’s son, heads the kitchen and business.
Home-cooked Meals With Heart
Founder Daisy was a young mother of five in the 1980s, and meal times at home were always joyous, merry and abundant. Their dining table was never short of home-cooked food, bursting with flavour and prepared with plenty of heart and hard work. Needless to say, Daisy’s husband and children were her #1 fans, and they sometimes served as her inspiration for delicious dishes she has created over the years. This shared love of food brought the family closer together, and hence, Daisy wished to also share the joy of good food and the kinship it brings to other people. Infused with a carefree, kampong spirit when kids used to run barefoot and climb trees, Daisy’s Dream Kitchen embodies simplicity with heart. Daisy herself was the youngest of 12 children, and picked up her culinary skills from her mother, Madam Sim Kwee Neo. History repeats in a good way as Daisy’s own children learnt cooking from her.
Daisy’s Dream
As such, Daisy’s dream is to keep the tradition of good food and bonding alive, as well as ensuring that future generations to come will still be able to enjoy these traditional Peranakan dishes. At Daisy’s Dream Kitchen, there are a few signature dishes: Babi Buah Keluak, Black-Ink Sotong, Ngoh Hiang and Chap Chye. The Babi Buah Keluak is a must-have in Peranakan feasts, a time-consuming dish prepared with Daisy’s own secret recipe, cooked to perfection with soft-bone pork ribs. On the other hand, their Black-Ink Sotong consists of fresh baby squid skillfully cooked in a sensational tamarind gravy, a winning recipe from Daisy’s mum. Most of their customers are middle-aged Singaporeans who miss home-cooked food, namely their parents’ or grandparents’ cooking, but all are welcome in this dream kitchen.
Keeping The Spirit Of The Food Alive
Daisy’s Dream Kitchen’s priority is to keep the spirit of their food alive, and they strive to maintain the standard of their food and service the best they can. One of the ways they do this is to continue to employ cooking methods and recipes of yesteryear, taking no shortcuts. At the core of it all, they wish to serve every customer a product that they can be proud of, and this is both their motivation and challenge in equal measure. Since their launch, they have also been noticed by many influential customers. For example in 2019, they were invited to be one of the caterers at a private Chinese New Year function at the Prime Minister’s house, and they have also been featured on multiple local and international media. Some of these experiences include being on Mark Wein’s Best Meals of 2015, a National Geographic food programme “Confucius was a Foodie”, being interviewed by Celebrity Chef Christie Cushing from Canada, and having a Michelin-Star German chef taste their food in a local programme, Crave. Moving forward, they aim to keep improving their operations, and expand their business into a different segment of the F&B industry.
“With Daisy’s it’s always about the food and service. We constantly put ourselves in the customers shoes and try to deliver what we’d expect as a customer.
I always tell my kitchen team that we have to love what we are cooking and that the spirit of the food is that it has to be good enough to be served to and enjoyed by our loved ones and family.” – Daisy’s Dream Kitchen
Keep the food dream alive and enjoy Peranakan cuisine with your loved ones now at daisysdreamkitchen.oddle.me!
