Malacca Day 2

Sometimes, when I’m in Malacca I always have this guilt feel of not visiting the historical site despite they are easily accessible. Food is always the pull factor to me and I am more fascinated with food than the historical site. To be frank, I’m not a sentimental person where I’ll appreciate the history.

Day 2, waking up at 8:15am and brought Zach down for the hotel breakfast. Nothing to shout at. The typical hotel breakfast and is good to warm my stomach. After breakfast, we head off to Mahkota Parade for shopping and to kill time while getting our breakfast digest before we head off to Hoe Kee for lunch. Dad, sis and Stella met us there and kind enough to queue and order the food. The next door chicken rice ball, Chung Wah is as good as this but I still prefer Hoe Kee in terms of the comfortable sitting area which also comes with air conditioned. We ordered Asam Fish, steam chicken, and lotsa rice balls to go with the dishes. The Asam fish is good. Fish is fresh, big and meaty. Sour and spicy to our taste bud. Zach had his share of the chicken rice ball too. However, towards the end the ball was mashed by him. Messy!

The bill came and we paid RM156 for 2 tables of 10 pax having the same dishes (incl drinks).

Chicken Rice Ball

Half steam chicken with gizzards

Yummy Asam FishWalking down the Jonker St, we saw this lady selling homemade nyonya kuih by the road side. There's a small little crowd and I wonder if she's one of the famous seller there. Looks interesting and yummy. I bought 1 packet of Soon Kueh (RM2) and I find it so-so only.

Menu posted on the side walk wall. Wanted to try her onde onde which is selling fast. Wonder it will be the same fate as the Soon Kueh.

After a good lunch, we walk towards the Dutch building and clock tower. The usual bright and colorful rickshaw caught many attention and also not forgetting the albino snake and iguana too. I’m not the adventurous person in having the snake sitting on my shoulder. Dangle a thousand infront of me, I will not too! Though I’m consider in the same “clan” but sorry, I’m not the friendly and the odd balls out of the clan! After some photo takings and bidding goodbye to our “friend”, we decided to head for chendol!

Stadhuys

The famous landmark clock tower

Beautifully decorated rickshaw

Christ Church as a backdrop

The famous snake man attracted the locals and tourist

The "celebrities" of Malacca. Zach had a chance rubbing shoulder with the slithery one.

We head off to Lily and Donald, just a few walk away. If you go down from the OCBC bank you will see Hereen House on your right. Walk further down from the Hereen House and along the Malacca river till you see a shotlot row on your right. Turn right and about 50m down the road, Donald and Lily corner is right at the end of the junction.

While walking down the Malacca river under the sweltering sun, I spotted a man in the river. He seems like looking for some treasures which I stood there for a while to see if he has found any treasure. Dad was curious too and he ask if he's looking for something. The man replied that he's looking for coins. Initially, I thought he was panning for diamond.. :p (in Malacca river?). Never heard off!

Malacca River

Donald & Lily Corner

Glory chendol!

I prefer the chendol here as the gula Melaka trickles down the shave ice and fresh coconut juice comes with the right combination. The different about this chendol and 88 Jonker is the gula Melaka texture. Donald & Lily is more runny and fragrance where else 88 Jonker is thicker, sticky like glue and fragrance enough. Depending on individual preference.

After chendol, we head back to hotel to rest and chill out by the pool. This time, I brought Zach to the adult pool with supervision from both Stella and I. Great move! He love it!

For dinner, we head of to Banyonya. Read in internet with some good reviews on the Ikan Masak Lemak Nenas, Fried Asam Prawns and Cincaluk omelette. I ordered all three with additional of kangkung fried w/garlic and Ayam Pongteh.

Now, to digest all the good food we head to Jonker St. night market. It was as crowded as usual. The place is vibrant and lively. On the other end of Jonker walk (we started off near to the Hoe Kee chicken rice), there’s a stage set up and you can watch people dancing line dance and a choir is going on from the Teo Chew Huay Kuan. This is my 3rd visit to Jonker Walk and I guess in my next visit to Malacca, I shall skip this pasar malam.

The weather is just too hot to enjoy the walk and I was carrying Zach in a sarong and didn't have chance in taking photos.

Easter in Malacca

I was in the city of Malacca over the Easter long weekend. Malacca was awarded as Unesco Heritage site recently and I’m quite proud of it as I can see some improvement and development around in Malacca now. Many of us took the opportunities to travel north and as expected I was expecting long jam at the causeway but I never expect I will be caught for 3.5 @$%# hours! Zach was behaving good considering stuck in the jam and a little mishap happen on him which he had a cut on his last finger. Skin were dangling out and we did not notice until much much later to our horror. He was brawling and crying his eyes out and we were thinking that he’s just sick and tired of the jam :p.

9 of us depart on Friday morning and the rest, 5 of them join us on Saturday afternoon. We reached Malacca town around 1.30pm and went straight to Century Mahkota Hotel to check in. It was raining heavily and we decided to have our lunch at the hotel café. I didn’t manage to take any photos here as too tired and hungry. I had Baked Portugese fish and MH had the Portugese fried rice. The rest ordered ayam percik, char kuay teow, wan tan Hor and spaghetti. Most of the dishes turn out well. Even the complimentary bun tasted good and soft with some hint of cinnamon and orange peel. I can tell they were feshly baked from the kitchen.

When the rain stops, we drove to the town area for chendol at 88 Jonker. We stopped by at San Su Gong the newly open shop at Jonker st. We bought some snacks and the concentrated Liquorice plum juice is very freshing. A must try. They do give out samples to try and the hot weather does play a part to psycho us to buy. The location is good and they also portion out a dining area for shoppers who need to rest their legs. I notice there may some future expansion above the shop as they did renovate it quite nicely. The weather is burning hot and we were almost to the brink of roast pig. The queue at 88 Jonker is horrendously long and we decided to check out the Donald & Lily corner’s chendol stall. It was closed and we decided to go back hotel for chill out at the pool. The children had fun and I’m quite pleased with the kiddy pool having 2 slides, an adult pool, 1 jacuzzi and a wading pool for the kids. There’s another pool near to the hotel lobby which somehow we were not attracted to go over. I guess the landscape of the pool does make a major role here.

When dusk falls, we headed for satay celup at Ban Lee Siang. This is another rival to Capitol satay (heard it was the originator) but this place is always with long Q and somehow it’s perpetually hot. Ban Lee Siang somehow has a little breeze but still sauna hot. Satay celup is famous in Malacca. I don’t remember other states having this. I guess we had closed to about 120 sticks for 7 of us and the bill came to RM81 include drinks. Fairly reasonable.

Next, will be Day 2 with more coming food hunt!