Orang Laut SG, the community group that has sold Southern Islander food mostly through weekend deliveries since 2020, opens its first walk-in cafe on Friday, 23 October, CNA Lifestyle reported. Called Terumbu, it runs at Chef X, #03-103/104 Clarke Quay Central, until 26 December.
Terumbu is Malay for coral reefs. The pop-up is the 15th residency at Chef X, Far East Organization’s space for home-based and private-dining cooks to run a commercial restaurant for a fixed stint, with a professional kitchen, a dining room for up to 24 and mentoring from chef Isaac Tan of Commonwealth Concepts.
Two savoury dishes and island kueh
The menu is short. The Pulau Bowl is S$15.90 and puts three seafood dishes over jasmine rice with vegetables: asam pedas ikan karang (coral reef fish in a sour, spicy gravy), sotong hitam (squid cooked in its own ink) and sambal udang (stir-fried prawns in sambal).
The sotong hitam uses green-eyed squid, known as sotong nos, which is traditionally caught by line. The family picks it for the amount of ink it carries.
The second dish is bubur lambuk tenggiri, a Spanish mackerel porridge cooked with lemongrass, coconut milk and black pepper. It is S$11.90 with prawns or with squid, and S$13.90 with both.
This is not the bubur lambuk handed out at mosques during Ramadan. On the islands it was an everyday dish, made by grinding leftover coral fish, bones and all, at a time when families had no fridge to keep the catch.
Dessert is kueh koleh-koleh and puteri salat, made by a former Pulau Bukom islander. The menu names coral fish without naming the species, because the fish changes with what islander fishermen bring in, including the few bubu (fish trap) makers who still go out to sea.
A family kitchen from Pulau Semakau
Founder Firdaus Sani is a fourth-generation Orang Pulau and Orang Laut whose family lived on Pulau Semakau for generations. They were moved to the mainland in 1977, and the island is now Singapore’s offshore landfill.
His mother does most of the cooking at Terumbu, with his aunt Rohaini running the floor and cousins helping out. The recipes come from his grandmother, Nenek Ninah, and are cooked by feel rather than by measurement.
Orang Laut SG started in 2020 as an Instagram page recording the memories, food and traditions of communities moved off the Southern Islands. Terumbu also has a small community gallery on the history of those islands.
Details
Details from CNA Lifestyle:
- Where: Chef X, #03-103/104 Clarke Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street, above Clarke Quay MRT station
- When: 23 October to 26 December 2026
- Prices: Pulau Bowl S$15.90; bubur lambuk tenggiri S$11.90 (prawn or squid) or S$13.90 (both)
