Verandah @ Rael's Star Vista - Peranakan restaurant with whimsical walls.

Verandah @ Rael’s Star Vista is the second outlet of a Peranakan restaurant that has an attractive and whimsical interior. Their first outlet at 111 Somerset at Orchard Road had opened in 2022 to good reviews. Having a new outlet at Buona Vista is wonderful news as it adds to the food variety at this small shopping mall near Biopolis.

New Peranakan restaurant at Star Vista

Adding to the existing mix of restaurants featuring Korean, Japanese, Chinese. Western and Local food at Star Vista, Verandah @ Rael’s Star Vista provides us with a new reason to visit. According to its website, it offers : “… unique tastes of different cultures melded together to create the rich flavours of Peranakan and Indonesian cuisine. Immerse in the sophisticated flavours of our closely-guarded heirloom recipes with every bite. “. We had a good experience during our visit to their first Orchard Road outlet and so it was time to explore the second one.

The Star Vista outlet has both indoor and outdoor dining areas. In the current Singapore heatwave, the outdoor tables were not popular. But like others who were there, we had no choice as the tables indoors were all taken or reserved. There is a large private dining space indoors which makes it suitable for office groups from the Biopolis / Fusionopolis buildings nearby. The interior still has the whimsical wall coverings and cotton cloud lamps. But the playfulness is more subdued here. We like the Orchard outlet better from a decor point of view.

Verandah @ Rael’s Star Vista Menu

At lunch time there is a set menu that is priced at $22.90++. With a choice of type of rice, vegetables and main course with a drink and satay added, it is a convenient option if dining alone or in a small group.

Verandah @ Rael's Star Vista set lunch menu

The a la carte menu has the usual Peranakan favourites. We decided on these dishes for lunch: chicken satay ($9.80), Nyonya chap chye ($13.90), Tau You Bak ($19.90) and plain steamed rice ($2 each)..

Our Peranakan Food Lunch at Star Vista

The satay was as good as we remembered them to be, except that they seemed smaller (by comparison to pictures of our earlier visit). Other than that we were still quite happy with the chicken satay which had been prepared such that the outer surface had a crisp texture. The meat had been well seasoned such that we did not really have to dip into the sauce.

We think the best dish of the day was the Nyonya chap chye. Which was a pleasant surprise as we thought the one we had at Orchard was so-so. This one had improved by leaps and bounds, both in terms of quantity and quality.

Our meat dish was tau you bak – basically pork cooked in soy sauce. The sauce was nice with a good balance of sweet and savoury. But the meat was rather hard. The honey pork we tried previously was better.

This is a group photo of our dishes. A simple Peranakan lunch on a hot day at Star Vista. Other than the shortage of aircon-ed tables, the lunch was enjoyable. Service was attentive and friendly.