Malacca – Cuisine

Other than history, Malacca is also home to peranakan food, portuguese food, chinese food, etc. More on places of interests and historic sites we visited on this trip here! :)

Restoran Famosa chicken Rice Ball
Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball is a Malaccan speciality, the Chinese chicken rice dish found across Malaysia is served differently. Instead of a plate of rice, diners are given balls of rice cooked in chicken stock. This is eaten together with delicious roasted chicken and a bit of garlic and cucumbers.

Roasted chicken and steamed chicken with riceballs…

Jonker Dessert 88
A cultural entity in form of museum café, legally formed on 1997 in Malaysia. Jonker88 is the subsidiary of Jia Seng Art Gallery which was incorporated in year of 1986 in Melaka, Jonker Street, now known as Jalan Hang Jebat, headed by Jason & Johnson Yoong, family team are Jenny and CS Yoong, all born in Melaka. We tried the Nyonya Assam Laksa, Baba Laksa, Ais Kacang, Baba Chendol, Durian Chendol here.

The ordering and self service counter…

The front section of the shop with antiques decking the walls…

The middle section of the shop with artwork along the side…

Nyonya Assam Laksa

Baba Laksa

Baba Chendol (left) and Ais Kacang (right)

Baba Durian Chendol

Bistro 11 Malacca Portuguese Food
We were itching for some Portuguese food and found this little restaurant near Jonker Street. A little pricey but it was our last day in Malacca and we felt like indulging a little.

four angled beans, devils chicken curry, portuguese baked fish…

Calanthe Art Cafe
Forget Starbucks. Forget Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. When In Melaka, Calanthe Art Cafe is the place to be. Calanthe Art Cafe has two shops in Melaka: the modern-yet-old-fashioned main shop along Jalan Hang Kasturi, which has an art gallery beside it; and the more mainstream branch at the Dataran Pahlawan Megamall. Calanthe Art Cafe’s claim is they serve ONLY the best coffee from each of Malaysia’s 13 States. 

We decided to order Assam Pedas Fish and Ponteh Chicken as well…

Street Food
Street food or hawker food is always where you’ll discover the root of the most authentic dishes and is the soul of the Malaysian cuisine.

Dim sum (literally meaning “touch the heart”) is the name for a Chinese cuisine which involves a wide range of light dishes served alongside Chinese tea. Dishes come in small portions and may include meat, seafood, and vegetables, as well as desserts and fruit. The items are usually served in a small steamer basket or on a small plate.

A baozi or simply known as bao, bau, nunu, pow, pau is a type of steamed, filled bun or bread-like (i.e. made with yeast) item in various Chinese cuisines, as there is much variation as to the fillings and the preparations. In its bun-like aspect it is very similar to the traditional Chinese mantou. It can be filled with meat and/or vegetarian fillings.

Satay Celup (Steamboat Satay) is a dish where an assortment of raw and semi-cooked seafood, meat (including rat meat) and vegetables on skewers are dunked into a boiling pot of water and eaten with sauces that are similar to the ubiquitous satay sauce but made with a variety of different ingredients.

A sweetheart cake or wife cake is a traditional Chinese pastry with flaky and thin skin made with winter melon almond paste, sesame and pork lard, spiced with five spice powder (Chinese spice blend of fennel seed, star anise, licorice root and cloves). Sweetheart cake is the literal translation of Low Paw Bang from Cantonese dialect.

Pineapple tarts are small, bite-size pastries filled with or topped with pineapple jam. Malacca is particularly famous for producing good commercial pineapple tarts. The pastry consists of a large proportion of butter and egg yolk, besides using cornstarch, giving it a rich, buttery, tender and melt-in-the-mouth texture. The pineapple jam is usually made by slowly reducing and caramelizing grated fresh pineapple that has been mixed with sugar and spices – usually cinnamon, star anise and cloves.