Bibi & Baba: make-up artist, hairstylist open Peranakan cuisine restaurant in Hong Kong

Tinoq Russell Goh and Dylan Chan served Peranakan food, which blends Thai, Indian, Indonesian and Malay flavours, at their Singapore private kitchen PasirpanjangBoy

Their cooking was a hit with Singapore tai-tais, and with Jia Group’s Yenn Wong, who convinced the amateur chefs to bring it to Hong Kong

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Make-up artist Tinoq Russell Goh (left) and hairstylist Dylan Chan opened a private kitchen in Singapore serving Peranakan, or Nyonya, cuisine. Yenn Wong, a Singaporean who founded Hong Kong hospitality firm Jia Group, was a fan and brought them to Hong Kong to serve their cuisine in a restaurant, Bibi & Baba. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 2:45pm, 28 Oct 2020Updated: 3:25pm, 28 Oct 2020

Yenn Wong didn’t think she would be able to unveil a new restaurant during the pandemic but, after months of delays, the Jia Group founder and her partners have finally been able to open Bibi & Baba.

The restaurant, in Ship Street, Wan Chai, on Hong Kong Island, serves Peranakan, or Nyonya, cuisine – a mix of Thai, Indian, Indonesian and Malay flavours which is not easily found in Hong Kong. Wong describes it as a family-style cuisine that is becoming harder to find in Singapore.

“For me, I don’t want to open a Singaporean restaurant. It’s not really possible to find a chef who can cook a very good chicken rice, a very good laksa, a good bak kut teh; I think it’s really impossible to find,” explains Wong, who was born in Singapore and has roots in Malaysia.

“But, of course, we grew up having experienced Nyonya food, so if we could actually bring out the Peranakan Nyonya food culture that would be very interesting – not just on the food, but also as a culture.”

Yenn Wong describes Peranakan cuisine as a family-style cuisine that is becoming harder to find in Singapore. Photo: Jonathan Wong

On the menu are items like otah, a fish paste mixed with spices, and grilled in a banana leaf; assam pedas, where a whole fish is cooked in a tangy spicy broth with ginger and laksa leaves; and beef rendang, where beef shin is braised in a dry curry that’s made of 20 ingredients including spices and herbs.