Dulukala at Island is a new cafe at Tang’s department store. They take over the former Island Cafe Tang’s. Island Cafe had undergone a major renovation about two years ago, transforming it from a dark traditional space into a bright and modern one. You can read about our 2016 visit to the transformed space here. With the change of management, Dulukala Island has, wisely, left that place substantially unchanged. It is still an attractive space. We were told that this new cafe is a totally new tenant which is no longer run by Tang’s, which does not make any real difference to us except that purchases here cannot be used to earn points / rebates using the Tang’s card.

The entire fourth level had also undergone a major makeover. Gone are lifestyle, home retail shelves on this floor. It is now occupied by retail outlets for cosmetics and beauty services.

Dulukala Island Menu

The Dulukala Island Menu retains some of the items of the former Island Cafe menu such as laksa, chicken rice and nasi goreng. What is more significant is the emergence of Peranakan cuisine as the mainstay of this restaurant. For our lunch we ordered a golden classic – Penang Char Kway Teow and a selection of Peranakan dishes. Here are pictures of some portions from the Dulukala Island Menu.

Dulukala at Island Special Menus

What was also interesting was the availability of special menus like the $39++ wine buffet and the $58++ Peranakan Dinner of Yesteryear.  Here are pictures of the special menus.

Here is an overview of the food that we ordered at Dulukala Island cafe. The Penang CKT ($19), a beef rendang combination with rice and chap chye ($23), Thai chicken wings ($12), chap chye ($16 for a small portion) and bak wan soup ($18 for a small portion).

The Penang char kway teow was pricey at $19++ but it was well liked by us. It was well fried with ‘wok hei’. There were lots of seafood – squid and prawns of good quality and the overall balance of flavours was good.

The bak wan kepeting soup was also well received.  The meatballs and the soup were tasty.  It would have been better if there were crabmeat in the meat balls.

The chap chye was also good, but we missed a robust sambal belachan to go with this. What we got when we asked for it was sweetish chilli paste that seemed more at home on a nasi lemak plate.

The Thai chicken wings were deep-fried and had a good taste. They were however very small, literally skin and bones.

The beef rendang was good and served in a generous portion.

For the each of the two main courses we could add $5 to get a coffee and a choice of two pieces of nyonya kueh. We took up this option for our two main courses. There were about eight choices of nyonya kueh. We picked the four that are shown below.

The coffee was fine but not exceptional. The nyonya kuehs were very good – good texture and flavour and not too sweet.  I should know the names of these four but they all escape me now. But I am sure everything on the counter would have been good as well. These brought our lunch at Dulukala Island to a sweet end. True to Tang’s tradition, service at the cafe was also very good,

Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

Dulukala at Island
320 Orchard Road, Tang Plaza L4
Singapore 238865

Tel. (+65) 6734 6077

Opening Hours
Mon-Sat : 10.30 am – 9.30 pm
Sun: 11 am – 8.30 pm

Nearby MRT Station: Orchard

Website

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