Orang Laut SG opens its first pop-up cafe at Clarke Quay serving Southern Islander dishes

Until now, if you wanted to taste the food of Singapore’s Orang Laut community, you would have to order it online from Orang Laut SG to enjoy at home. Since 2020, the community-led organisation has been selling its traditional Southern Islander dishes through weekend deliveries and the occasional pop-up and cultural event.

From Friday (Oct 23), you can simply walk into Chef X at Clarke Quay Central and order a meal. For the first time, Orang Laut SG is operating a cafe, serving the food of Singapore’s former islanders to the public. 

Called Terumbu (“coral reefs” in Malay), the pop-up runs until Dec 26. It is the 15th residency at Chef X, an initiative by Far East Organisation that offers home-based and private-dining cooks the opportunity to operate a commercial restaurant, complete with a professional kitchen, dining space and mentorship for a limited duration.

WHAT'S ON THE ORANG LAUT MENU?

The Terumbu menu is a concise affair, anchored by two savoury offerings. The first, a Pulau Bowl (S$15.90), comprises three seafood dishes served with jasmine rice and vegetables. There is asam pedas ikan karang, coral reef fish simmered in a spicy, tangy gravy; sotong hitam, squid cooked in its own ink; and sambal udang, spicy stir-fried prawns.

While the dishes may sound similar to Malay cooking, their ingredients reveal the nuances of island cuisine. For instance, the sotong hitam uses green-eyed squid or sotong nos, traditionally caught by line fishing.

“Our family uses this particular squid because of the amount of black ink that it has, and the way it's cooked is also different. So what you will taste is the thickness of the sotong hitam,” said Orang Laut SG founder Firdaus Sani, a fourth-generation Orang Pulau and Orang Laut, whose family hails from Pulau Semakau.

The second is bubur lambuk tenggiri, a fish porridge that is quite unlike the bubur lambuk commonly shared at mosques during Ramadan.

“This was actually an everyday dish for us because a lot of times, the islanders had plenty of leftover coral fish. They'd grind the bones and everything, and make the bubur (porridge) because they didn’t have a fridge and this was a way for them to not be wasteful,” Firdaus explained.

At Terumbu, the Spanish mackerel porridge – simmered with lemongrass, coconut milk and black pepper – will come with prawns (S$11.90), squid (S$11.90) or both (S$13.90).

In keeping with the spirit of Orang Laut SG’s efforts, Terumbu will be a family and community affair.

Firdaus’s mother, Noorani Rani, will do most of the cooking, while his aunt Rohaini will help run the floor, supported by his cousins. The recipes were passed down from Firdaus’s grandmother Nenek Ninah, guided by the family philosophy of ikut hati kau (follow your heart) rather than precise measurements.

The kueh koleh-koleh and puteri salat served at dessert will be made by a former Pulau Bukom islander.

The dishes were selected to showcase how coastal dishes differ from the broader Nusantara canon.

“On the menu, we say there will be coral fish, but we don’t say what specific fish we will be using because we want to work with and support our islander community (of fishermen). There are still bubu (fish trap) makers who go out to sea, and we get some of our supplies from them, so the type of fish might change according to what they catch. In that way, there's a connection from sea to table,” said Firdaus.

“What we are offering is part of the Malay Nusantara offering. To present Southern Islander cooking as something wholly separate from Malay cuisine would do a disservice to the community’s historical kinship with the wider region.”

The distinction, he continued, lies more in the ingredients, fishing traditions and ways of cooking shaped by life along the coast.

PRESERVING SOUTHERN ISLANDS FOOD HERITAGE

Founded in 2020, Orang Laut SG began as an Instagram page documenting the memories, traditions and food of communities displaced from Singapore’s Southern Islands.

According to its website, the terms Orang Laut (“people of the sea”) and Orang Pulau (“people of the islands”) describe identities that may overlap but are not interchangeable. Both encompass histories and relationships with Singapore’s maritime landscape that predate its modern development.

Pulau Semakau, where Firdaus’s family lived for generations, is now Singapore’s offshore landfill. His family was relocated to the mainland in 1977 as Singapore’s islands underwent redevelopment.

“Food is an important visible representation of our culture,” Firdaus said. “You can taste, you can smell, you can experience it. It’s accessible to anyone who wants to experience the culture of the Southern Islanders. Though we have been removed from the islands, this is something we are still connected to.”

That said, Firdaus pointed out that there is no single definitive Orang Laut cuisine. Different island communities developed their own repertoires according to what they could catch, grow or obtain, and their cooking evolved as times and circumstances changed.

The residency comes amid plans for further development of Singapore’s western islands, making the preservation of these histories particularly pertinent.

“I want to reinforce that these spaces are not empty spaces,” Firdaus said. “There used to be communities there, and livelihoods are still attached to these islands and spaces.”

To that end, Terumbu will also feature a community gallery exploring the heritage of the Southern Islands.

For Singaporeans, Terumbu is a reminder that our culinary history extends well beyond our hawker centres and familial foods. There are other older food traditions, shaped by communities whose homes have since disappeared from the map, but whose knowledge and memories remain very much alive.

Terumbu will run at Chef X at #03-103/104 Clarke Quay Central, from Oct 23 to Dec 26.