GEORGE TOWN, July 13 —  If you’ve been curious about what Jawi Peranakan food tastes like, this is the best time to try out Jawi House’s Talam Peranakan — its Ramadan Special — which will be available until Hari Raya.

Talam Peranakan, which means Peranakan tray, is literally a tray full of three types of rice, salted fish and anchovies, sambal, cucumber, hard-boiled egg, raja ulam leaves and two types of kuih.

This restaurant, which will be celebrating its third anniversary this year, is well-known for its Jawi Peranakan fare especially its different types of flavourful, aromatic rice.

Jawi House's chef Nurilkarim Razha cooked local Jawi Peranakan fare at the Spotlight Penang event in Hong Kong. — Picture courtesy of George Town Festival
Jawi House's chef Nurilkarim Razha cooked local Jawi Peranakan fare at the Spotlight Penang event in Hong Kong. — Picture courtesy of George Town Festival

For the Talam Peranakan, customers get to choose from their popular best-selling lemuni rice, lentil rice, briyani rice, tomato rice and rice of the day.

The main dishes to pair with the rice are a choice of chicken rendang, beef rendang, chicken curry, lamb kurma, fish curry and beef masala.

Each set will come with two main dishes and also two glasses of iced syrup with sago.

The tray of rice comes with two mains, shown here is mutton kurma and chicken curry (right). — Picture by KE Ooi
The tray of rice comes with two mains, shown here is mutton kurma and chicken curry (right). — Picture by KE Ooi

The fragrant rice is good enough to eat with just the sambal and the crunchy salted fish and anchovies but when soaked in either chicken curry or mutton kurma, it is elevated to another level.

If you love desserts, you can even ask for additional servings of kuih by topping up RM5, about five types of kuih will be served on a separate tray.

The kuih at this restaurant is something that is hard to find elsewhere as these are traditional kuihs such as kuih pelita, buah melaka (which is also known as onde-onde), lepat pisang, kuih koci and cucur kedoi.

The tray of rice comes with two mains, shown here is mutton kurma and chicken curry (right). — Picture by KE Ooi
The tray of rice comes with two mains, shown here is mutton kurma and chicken curry (right). — Picture by KE Ooi

Chef Nurilkarim Razha said the Talam Peranakan is perfect for couples or small groups to share and try out the restaurant’s specialties all in one tray.

“We also have other daily Ramadan specials such as the nasi ulam set if they are not keen on the Talam Peranakan,” he said.

Jawi House, which opened in 2013, also won TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence 2015 because of its Jawi Peranakan cuisine.

Jawi House

85, Armenian Street

10200 George Town, Penang

Tel: 04-2613680 , 013-5155757

Time: 11am-10pm daily (except Tuesdays)