Happy Birthday to Me #5 Malacca Seafood

We made a weekend trip to Malacca, this time with 2 goals in mind: #1 to get my wedding shoes.

#2 TO EAT.

The last trip we made a month ago was pre-planned by family so we didn’t get to visit Portuguese Settlement, a sea-facing seafood stretch of restaurants that specialises in Portuguese style cooking. I’m not familiar with Portuguese cooking so I can’t comment how accurate the style is BUT the food is still good nevertheless.

We usually visit the 1st stall (from the car park) but this time not only were they full, they RAN OUT OF CRABS. THE HORROR. I almost left in disgust when Bryan brilliantly approached the 2nd stall and asked if they had crabs. AND THEY DID! so we went to the 2nd stall instead.

surprisingly they were rather good! I’m not sure why the 1st stall gets all the customers but I think everyone should give the other stalls a shot. This one is called Joan & El’Chico restaurant. We ordered the butter prawns. it was an EXPLOSION of butter and garlic with a tinge of prawn taste you get when you stir-fry prawns. I LOVE IT. this goes onto our list of must-eat foods in Malacca.

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Assam squid. I was expecting the spicy variety but this one came out lame. it was sour with a plum taste which was OKAY but i didn’t quite like it. I improved it by adding the belachan from the kang kong dish to this.

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THE STAR OF THE SHOW: BURN CRAB. it’s simply crabs lightly salted and peppered and put over charcoal to cook. the condiments bring out the sweet meat of the crab. This is the reason why anyone still visits Malacca.

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We went back to the cheese beehoon restaurant. Bryan saw an ad on a taxi in Singapore by a restaurant who also sells cheese beehoon. unfortunately he didn’t notice the name of the restaurant -_-

SALTED EGG CRAB. my all time favourite. I love how they pile everything into a nice pile like CRAB MOUNTAIN.

Eating Malacca: Restoran Tong Sheng

From our weekend Malacca trip:

Just around the bend from Restoran Keng-Dom is Restoran Tong Sheng. This restaurant is known for its seafood, most importantly Malacca’s well-known baked crab and cheese beehoon. I’ve heard a lot about cheese bee hoon but I’ve never had it till today.

The restaurant was packed with locals, a sure sign that this is a good place with good food.

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The famous cheese bee hoon served with prawns. this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. The only comparison I can find is the crab bee hoon they have in Singapore, but while the crab dish uses condensed milk and perhaps butter, this prawn bee hoon uses cheese. the gravy is watery but very tasty. Bryan and I were tempted to pour the leftover gravy into a bottle and bring home.

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As it was still Chinese New Year, like most chinese restaurants, this one still carried their chinese new year menu, which was rather limited. They didn’t have the baked crab (sadness) but instead they had SALTED EGG CRAB. i was so happy. Lucky me, my table had 4 children and 8 adults, and the others were stuffed so I was left to polish the rest of the crabs. All these years of crab eating training has finally paid off.

Malaysia hands down has the best Chinese food in this region.  Now I have to wait for some Singaporean to copy the cheese bee hoon dish and bring it over.

Eating Malacca: Restoran Keng Dom

From our weekend trip to Malacca, a bulk of it was eating. Uncle D picked his favourite restaurants and dragged all of us there. This was our first stop when we reached Malacca.

Without a doubt, the old men were all making jokes about it being a restaurant that serves condoms.

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Restoran Keng Dom serves steamboat, and not just any steamboat. They are known for their beef steamboat, where most other places serve the typical seafood or chicken soup based. We ordered plates of beef and gouged ourselves silly. The vegetables were thrown in to appease our stomach’s conscience.

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SO. MUCH. BEEF.

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a bowl of beef soup keeps your sorrows away.

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The restaurant is also known for its thick pork curry. I’ve never eaten beef steamboat before, neither have I had pork ribs curry. Instead of the usual bread rolls, they served puff pastry along with the curry. Dip the pastry into the curry and it’s better than any prata I’ve ever eaten out there.  THE FOOD WAS SO GOOD.

Traveling with old people

Over the weekend we went to Malacca with a bus load of old people. No we weren’t volunteers on a eldery day trip tour nor did we board the wrong bus. Bryan’s uncle D was celebrating his 10th wedding anniversary in Malacca and brought the lot of us with him. The party included  transportation, boarding and loads of food. we signed up for it thinking that we’d have loads of fun, not realising that all the younger people, the cousins, decided to drive up in their respective cars while Bryan and i were the only 2 young people on a bus of 20 fogeys.

We were the last to turn up at the pick-up point where the uncles and aunts were already finishing their breakfast, as older people tend to wake up earlier and be on time. I was amazed how much noise a bunch of old folks can make but these were people who like to have fun. Onboard the bus, Uncle D’s drinking friends were having the time of their life poking fun at him, mimicking how he orders his poor wife around and exaggerating his most-used word, AIYAH!!! They joked about the wild parties they were going to have upon reaching Malacca and even brought out a stack of play cards to wile the time away. These were the people who were out partying the night before till 4am! In contrast, the only 2 people under 40 years old were sitting at the back of the coach practically comatose from having to wake up at 6am to catch this bus.

There were 2 groups of people on this trip; the couples who were mostly related to Uncle D, and the singles who were Uncle D’s drinking friends. The couples showed up on time for everything and were generally quite proper while the drinking friends were constantly creating a ruckus  wherever they went. talking loudly in the lobby, banging their way through the corridors and waking up their neighbours, knocking a sink over in  drunken revelry. It seems age didn’t matter when it comes to having fun.

The relatively reserved relatives didn’t disappoint though;the conversations turned a little lewd at one point when a cousin explained the reason  his wife didn’t come on the trip was because she had a milk duct infection (she was breast feeding) and the uncles proceeded to make jokes about  the milk being trapped and how the cousin didn’t suck hard enough to release the milk. If said cousin needed help sucking, both uncles would be  happy to help.

it is clear that during the wedding, I have to sit this family well away from my conservative family, else I would hear no end from my mother.

No trip is complete without a few hiccups. The coach bus that brought us to Malacca broke down on one of the drives to a restaurant. We were  stranded by the side of the road as the bus driver frantically tried to call for the mechanic, unable to arrange another bus to pick us up within such  short notice because all buses were busy during this long weekend in Malaysia. So there we were loitering by the curb with 20 other older folks trying to hail cabs back to the hotel. Unperturbed, they started cracking jokes about pushing the bus back to the hotel, while the aunts quipped  that ladies get to sit on board while the men worked.

In all, it was an unexpectedly fun trip, considering we were with people almost twice our age. Who says one slows down when one gets older?

Walking Malacca

Setting up food stalls at Jonker Walk

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a chocolate GAG factory

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beaded peranakan slippers. These slippers are hand sewn and cost RM200 and above.

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The Baboon House: a nondescript cafe just a short walk from our hotel. We didn’t think much of it until we step in. In fact, if it weren’t for Bryan’s cousins who were having beers there, I wouldn’t have gone in.

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You step in an immediately it’s an oasis from the heat and noise of the outside world. Not only is it a cafe, it’s also an art gallery for a local artist Song Luo Zhe whose work hangs on the walls.

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Take me to Malacca: Portuguese Settlement

The place to go for seafood (that I know of) in Malacca is the Portuguese Settlement. located by the sea, it’s a row of seafood restaurants much like the famed East Coast seafood stretch in Singapore. This is our 2nd visit there, the 1st being the day we got together. So yes, we were re-living the moment somewhat.

The place is relatively well-known so any cabbie can take you there for RM15, which is the standard unmetered rate. However, getting back is difficult as it’s out of the way and number of cabs to private cars is akin to 1 is to 100 or something. So remember to grab your hotel number to call back, or get the cabbie’s number who drove you there so you can call back for a pick-up.

The easiest way to spot the best restaurant is the one with the most clients. food reviews recommended the first stall “No.1″ so we naturally gravitated towards it. despite being really busy even on  a Monday evening, they managed to sit us and take our order. The guy did warn us that the wait would take an hour. having been trained by my dad to wait for good food, I calmly waited while enjoying the sea breeze.

the thing about the seafood here is, all the sauces are the same. you have the usual seafood: fish, crab, prawn and squid. and you can have them prepared in a set list of ways: baked, steamed, black pepper, sweet & sour, black sauce or sambal. so to get a variety of flavours in one meal, you just pair whatever you like best. or you can have sambal everything. we decided to have steam fish (prepared with plum sauce), something which Bryan was new to but it’s something I used to have at home quite regularly.

sambal belachan kangkong. frankly i think belachan kangkong is a little overrated. I prefer my vegetables lightly stir-fried with soy sauce and garlic. But this one was pretty good coz you can actually taste the shrimp paste. yum yum.

black sauce squid. nothing fantastic. it was either this or fried squid and i generally don’t like fried food. i prefer grill, steam or baked.

This is the reason why we come to Portuguese Settlement. the baked crabs. actually when you order this, you ask for the salt & pepper crabs. almost every table has a set of these on their tables. the crabs are lightly covered as such and throw onto the charcoals to cook. this seals in the flavour and makes it really tasty. parts of the shell gets burnt crisp black and the charcoal flavour adds to the taste. YUM YUM.

The last time we were here, we ordered 5 dishes and ate till I had a visible belly under my dress, which I had to hide coz it was unflattering. this time round I didn’t bother since we’ve obviously gone past that stage of the relationship. HEHE

there’s a stall adjacent to No.1 that sells shell fish to compliment whatever No.1 is selling. from cockles to oysters, they sold every sort of creepy crawly fresh off the shore. such as these rock lobsters horseshoe crab (thanks Vix) above. these things look more the Predator had his way with a female crayfish and the eggs hatched into this monstrosity, now sitting on the charcoal grill in Malacca. These things lying overturn on the table were still alive, their legs wriggling crazily if you were to poke them. GROSS.

Take me to Malacca: Meow

What is a trip without saying hello to our feline friends. Here’s one spotted at Portuguese Settlement, a fat cat that roamed around tables looking, or rather begging, for food.

 

This one was a teenage mom, small and scraggly, but belly fulla baby kittens waiting to be born. she was sitting in the shade watching passers-by when I squat down to take a picture of her. she was so affectionate that it was hard for me to grab a picture of her while she was rubbing her face against my legs.

 

 

 

This was the 5th time I stood up to get away from her, then squatted down again to get a shot of her. for the 5th time she saw me coming within reach of her and she came running for pats again. SO CUTE!

 

A kitten lazing about at St Paul’s Church.

Take me to Malacca: Eating around Jonker walk

There were a great many other things to eat in Malacca apart from chicken rice balls. one of the things I missed eating the past few times I was in Malacca was Satay Celup. I heard stuff about it but I didn’t get to try it.

Satay Celup is really just steamboat satay, where the steamboat sauce is made up of the peanut sauce commonly found in satay, and the food come already pierced in sticks. you take as many sticks as you want, but be warned that they charge anywhere between 60 cents (or sens in Malaysia) to 80 cents per stick. There’s an assortment of fish cakes, beancurd wrapped whatevers, fishballs, mushrooms, vegetables from the leafy to the lady’s fingers, and even meat like chicken or prawn pieces. at some points it was really mystery meat in mystery sauce.

the table made of aluminium and specially made with a hole in the centre. the staff will carry a pot of satay sauce and fit the pot in the hole such that it sits on a cooker under the table. let the sauce heat up before dumping all manner of meat into your sauce. it was really good, the one we ate, as the sauce was more nutty and spicey than sweet as it is in Singapore. There are a few famous ones around the area but we found one near our hotel along Jalan Ong Kim Wee street. just look out for the light blue coffee shop filled with locals tucking into their satay (opposite some building with a corner florist shop).

and what is a trip to Malacca without Peranakan food, which I love love love so much. we wandered around our hotel looking for good Peranakan food and found 3 restaurants along the same road as our hotel. we skipped the touristy looking one and settled for one that looked like it was a family-run restaurant. When we stepped in, it was like stepping into someone’s house, complete with marble dining table and family altar. Father and son stood up hurriedly as we stepped in and scurried to the back to prepare our favourite dishes.

Fresh looking otah which Bryan said was good but I didn’t like coz it was too fresh for me. I was used to stale otah from back home.

No Peranakan meal is without Ayam Buah Keluah. the seed had a strong nutty flavour and was rather yummy. However the gravy is not thick enough for my liking. but that’s just me.

One of the yummiest chap chye I’ve ever had. didn’t know mixed vegetables can taste so good.

Bakwan Kepeting or Minced meat Crab meatball soup. you can’t see it here as it’s the fishballs that are floating but the meat balls are stuffed with crab meat and cooked into VERY VERY yummy soup. the bowl they served was big enough for 6 and Bryan and I finished it all. i love it!

see how small the meatball is compared to Bryan’s head.

They had a chendol making corner at the front of the shop. I wish I had a chendol making corner in my house. everyone should have one.

Chendol. I asked for one without red beans coz I’m weird. I think we had a total of 10 bowls in 3 days.

Take me to Malacca: too many chicken rice balls

Jonker Walk Famous Chicken Rice Balls. that’s the name of the shop. I’m not kidding. We wandered into this one coz at 3pm this was empty while the others had long snaking lines, unsurprising considering it was Sunday and the streets were packed with locals and tourists alike. while eating, a Kuala Lumperian, judging from how she spoke to us in Cantonese first before switching to Mandarin when she realised we didn’t understand (Malaccans speak in Mandarin mostly), asked if it were good. with no real basis for comparison, we said it’s not too bad. unconvinced, she decided not to eat there.

Frankly, I don’t see what’s so great about Malacca’s chicken rice balls. Am I being blasphemous? I know it’s supposedly famous but the steamed chicken is comparable to the Maxwell market chicken rice. If you were to tell me the rice balls are famous, it’s about as tasty and soft as the Maxwell one too, with varying degrees of flavour, moistness and softness from stall to stall. This one so far was the 2nd best of the lot we tried. This stall was located near some Peranankan shop called Raffles, near the entrance of Jonker. it has a rubber chicken hanging at its shop front.

and we did try a lot. on the last day, the one with the long line Hoe Kee Chicken rice balls, was fairly empty at 11am (considering it’s a Tuesday late morning, I’m not surprised). so Bryan hurried in without thought and ordered himself 10 rice balls. this was the best of the 3 we tried, where there’s a slightly stronger garlic taste to the rice balls. the stall was also famous for their lotus root soup.

Within 2 hours, we found Famosa Chicken Rice Balls, which also had an outlet behind Renaissance hotel. The one we were at is smack in the centre of Jonker Walk, opposite Jonker 88 chendol shop. I didn’t like this one as the balls were a little drier and they served roasted meat for those who don’t like steam.

They also serve rather yummy chendol. the gula melaka was so thick Bryan bought a bottle back so he can have gula everything. Gula pancakes. Gula waffles. Gula sandwiches. God help us all.

The most famous one was Chung Wah chicken rice balls, right across from Hoe Kee, at the entrance of Jonker but when we saw the line, which formed even before the shutters of the shop were opened, we thought it wasn’t worth the wait. frankly, any rice ball you find in Malacca is good enough. And by then I was thoroughly sick of chicken rice.

Rough map on the locations drawn from memory. anyway it’s all within walking distance of one another.

Take me to Malacca: Around Jonker

Cow outside a french cafe. Pictures allowed. touching not. Cow with issues.

we found one of the shophouses was converted into a museum of sorts by NUS, of all schools. apparently Tan Cheng Lock’s family donated it to NUS Architecture school for restoration and such. they converted it into a mini museum highlighting the changes in architecture in Malacca over the years.

You can see the difference in designs along the same street.

Stories hanging from the ceiling but I was playing hide-and-seek among them.

This particular shophouse used to be a clinic.

country club a few doors down from our hotel.

this neon monstrosity was set up for the weekend. they were playing old chinese hits and old people took turns to go on stage to sing karaoke. I was rather glad we didn’t pick the hotel who had the misfortune of being built next to where the stage was erected.

This is a body building school. I think this was meant to inspire.