Ivins

Good food. Very tasty. Prices are very affordable. Pork rib was superb. Quantities are small and service is slow. Anyhow, for price you pay it is highly recommended. I will go again & again.

Great Peranakan restaurant, full only with locals and expats that love the Peranakan cuisine.
There were 6 of us so we sampled several dishes, all delicious and full of flavour, The price is quite low, as you would expect from an establishment such as this one, service is not that great but the place was literally stormed and waiting is quite normal apparently.
Certainly recommended if you are into new experiences or you love local Peranakan food.

Being a Peranankan myself, I have refrained from dining at Peranankan restaurants as the food is never always as good as the those whipped up by my Grandma and Mum.
I was skeptical when my partner suggested we had dinner here but… I was amazed at the quality of the food.
What we ordered:
1. Ayam Tempra — Not bad but the portion is a tad small. Chicken is succulent and tasty.
2. Bakwan Kepiting — Meatballs are soft and soup is tasty. Not enough for 6 adults unless you cut the meatballs in half and share.
3. Sayur Lodeh — My favourite dish of all. Standard was up to par.
4. Babi Pongteh — Portion is the smallest of all with about 5 big pieces of meat and we had to share. However, the gravy is delicious enough to make up for the lack in portion.
5. Udang Assam Goreng — I didn’t try this dish as I do not eat seafood but my dinner companions said it was good so I’ll take their word for it.
6. Honey Pork — Very minute pieces of fried pork in very dark sauce that looks black. Doesn’t look appealing but it fared ‘ok’ in taste.
7. Fuyong Egg — The usual egg, scrambled and fried with bean sprouts and peas. Nothing can go wrong here.
8. Sayur Lemak — Vegetables were not soft enough, coconut gravy was too diluted and the sweet potatoes gave the appearance of being too hard on first prod with a fork but was soft enough to chew.
9. Hee Piow Soup — Soup was delicious and fish balls were soft. Will order this again.
10. Nasi Kuning x 6 — Very fragrant rice!
11. Dessert: Chendol, Gula Melaka Sago — Skip the dessert if you can as there is nothing to shout about. Very small portion. Chendol was too sweet while the Gula Melaka Sago has too much ice. Wanted to order Bubur Trigur but it was sold out. Since it was sold out, it probably means that it’s good!
Nothing to complain except that the portion is small and is a good trait of theirs if you’d like to order more dishes to taste and share. Price-​wise, it cost an average of S$ 4++ per dish.
In total, we paid S$ 63 for 6 adults and 1 child and is considered quite affordable!
Will dine here again but probably at the Heartland Mall branch. If you are dining at the Bukit Timah branch, suggest to make a reservation beforehand as it gets pretty packed, especially on weekends and on public holidays.
p. s. I was too hungry and only realized that I didn’t take any pictures until the meal was over!

Not having been here in a long while, we were pleasantly surprised that the reasonable prices had not changed. The food was also good and well reflected in the long lines waiting to be seated on a weekend evening. They could certainly do with more staff though as it seemed like there were only 1 – 2 persons taking orders, serving and checking out customers all at the same time.

Our first impression of Ivins wasn’t that great as it was bustling and hectic at dinner time. With two small kids — one crying due to the noise, we could barely enjoy the food. The only thing I could recall was the greasiness of most dishes.
We also struggled with the limited parking space, so it wasn’t until half a year later that we returned.
The second time around, the food exceeded our expectations. Nasi goreng, beef rendang, sayur lodeh, another veggie soup (sayur asem?), some fish curry and stir fried veggies… they were bursting all sorts of favors, and we stuffed ourselves happily. Sure, some dishes were a bit too greasy for me, and others too spicy, but I still fell in love with Indonesian food at Ivins.
A the end, we packed some beef rendang and sayur lodeh to bring to our helper at home so she could try to recreate the dishes.
SUM: There’s a reason why this place is always crowded.

I hear this place is pretty much an institution, and when you step in, you’ll know why… you see nonya aunties eating here. And they’re dressed in their kebayas. Do you need more validation?
There’s so much to pick from, they’ve gone ahead and printed their menu on your placemat, and with the font size, you soon realise that there’s a lot of a menu to navigate through, and you’ll feel like you want to try all of it. I know, that’s a lot of ANDs.
You’ll read al the other reviews for their selections, but I suggest just one thing. Try the sambal petai with prawns. I’d never liked petai before, and I may never eat it anywhere else, but here, and with that sambal? I’ll get it every time.
It stays at three stars because I’m not sure about the price to food ratio… but others love it, so come and try it out anyway.

WOW. The food here is absolutely delicious! The caveat is that it’s like a tapas place and every dish is kinda small, so it can get expensive fast.
We tried a little bit of everything: beef rendang, fish curry, the signature chicken curry, some veggies, honey fried pork, etc. All really tasty; I’d totally come back here if it wasn’t so far out of the way of downtown Singapore. Definitely worth checking out!

I recommend coming here with a huge group of people because each individual dish is ridiculously small, but the delight comes when you’re able to get a taste of multiple items at a great price (think what happens with dim sum, the more the merrier and things doesn’t quite work as well with small groups). Now I don’t know my Peranakan food at all, so unfortunately I can’t tell you what I ate (other than the ayam fish head and mince meatball soup which were divine), but what I can tell you is that every dish was awesome. We ended up paying $ 12 per person for more than 10 dishes to share and each of us ordered our own dessert.

If you have friend’s from out of town who are slightly on a budget, Ivin’s is a great place to bring them to — everyone I’ve brought here has loved it — there are dishes to suit everyone, although options –may– be slightly limited for vegetarians (I realised this a little too late as someone in my party was vegetarian… I forgot, brought them here and we ended up ordering every single veggie dish we could find on the menu, which isn’t much… oops).
Anyway apart from that, this is what I always order at Ivin’s:
— Honey Pork (!!!)
— Ayam buah keluak
— Tahu Goreng
— Gado gado
— Beef rendang
— The fried fish promfet
— Nasi kuning
Order those dises above and you can’t go wrong.
Everything is quite cheap, below $ 10 except for the fish, which costs around $ 15. The desserts are cheap. The cold bo bo char char is damn disappointing cos they give it to you warm with a heap of ice that melts immediately, leaving you with a luke warm mess.
The homemade iced-​lemon tea is also pretty good!
Cons: Smelly and crowded so service can be quite slow

It is difficult not to like Ivins– absolutely satisfying food, great service, spacious restaurant. I’ve never been properly introduced to peranakan food until I have been to Ivins, because the low prices make it absolutely possible to order more than what I usually would.
I especially love the beef rendang– the beef is melt-​in-​your-​mouth delicious, the sauce is not too thick but packed with all the spices, and the portion is just right so you dont feel too gelat after just one dish. The egg omelette is also pretty popular especially with my two nephews, and its not hard to see why. Not only is the egg fluffy, they are also extremely generous with the ingredients (chai po etc). Another classic would be the honey pork, which consists of small thin chunks of pork carefully marinated with honey and cooked in dark sauce (even though I’ve always been puzzle why they serve it with boiled green peas because no one seems to eat them!). On days when I crave for something light, I always go for the chicken macaroni which is simply macaroni cooked in clear soup.
I also have a super sweet tooth, so I never give the desserts a miss no matter how full I am for lunch. My favourite has to be the bo bo cha cha– the yam is cooked to perfection (crumbles when eaten but firm upon serving), the starchy balls give great texture to dish, and the milk is light and creamy. Their tau suan is also especially well done, not too sweet with just the right amount of starch.
A caveat is that the place is not especially well ventilated, so for the office workers who want to avoid smelling like food for the rest of the day, it would be best to visit for dinner.

I got introduced to Ivin’s a couple of years back by my peranakan friend who has a bad habit of dismissing anything that doesn’t come from her grandmother’s wok. So when she grudgingly rated Ivin’s as the place to have decent pernakan food at extremely affordable prices, I knew I had to give it a shot.
Since then, I have returned to the restaurant many, many time and I always end up over-​ordering because I can never make up my mind about what I want. A must-​try is the ayam buah keluak — a dish that is so damn good with rice but an absolute nightmare to cook. If you don’t know why, go google the recipe. Other than that, the sambal that comes with the lady’s finger dish is extremely tasty without being overly spicy. One last dish that you should order is the sotong/​fish hitam — chopped onions along with sliced green and red chilli are lightly fried in delicious dark sauce before being slathered on seafood.
A great place for a pleasant surprise in terms of food and price. Thumbs up!

As Singaporeans we all love home-​style cooking and one such great place to find great home-​style food is at Ivins. Although predominantly Peranakan, the food is similar to what we eat at home on a daily basis. Best of all, this home style restaurant is reasonably priced hence the immense crowd as well. Local favorites include Fish Head Curry, Sweet Pork with Peas, Mince Meatball soup, Sambal Kangkong and many more. I can’t pick personal favorites here as every individual dish is wonderful so I recommend going in a group of 3 or more so you can share an array of dishes and truly experience the exciting flavours Peranakan cuisine has to offer. Despite the crowd, food does come quick which is a huge plus!

Wow where do I even start? Our family has been going to Ivins for as long as I can remember, and it’s one of the best and most affordable places for Peranakan food outside of Mum and Grandma’s kitchen.
Food: I come here solely for the pong tau hu … the broth is out of this world as are the pork-​tauhu-​prawn meatballs. Perfectly proportioned with excellent texture … gotta love it! One of my chief comfort food dishes. We also really like the ayam curry … I much prefer my curry chicken Nyonya-​style than any other style as the complexity of the spices and herbs used really come through. Love the egg fuyong as well … not really an authentic Peranakan dish … I always thought of it as more of a Cantonese dish as we always used to see it on the cold dish platter at Chinese wedding banquets. Parents love the sting ray but we all feel the babi pongteh was a bit too lean. We quite like the sambal udang as well. The honey pork was really crisp and addictive and I quite like the ayam buah keluak as well … half the fun is digging out the paste in the buah keluak, mixing with the rice and ayam and exclaiming «sedap»! Chendol and gula melaka sago could be better if they crushed the ice to a finer texture.
Ambience: Simple family friendly bustling atmosphere.
Service: Efficient and no frills.
Very good food especially for the prices and the amount of work one would have to put in if cooking even one of those dishes at home. I highly recommend it! Might be a bit hard to find parking so either go early or very late.