Travels in Malaysia

Let's fast forward a little.  After four days exploring Singapore's hawker centres and back-alley cafes, I dragged my bag to the MRT and set off for Johor Bahru, Malaysia.  This coastal city is just over the causeway from Singapore and is where my friend Mrs Hand has taken up residence.

Why Mrs Hand, you say?  When I asked her if I could include her in photos, "No way man!" came the reply in her thick Aussie accent.  "Come on, what about if your hand's in the way?" I pressed.  "Fine, whatever," she smiled.  So Mrs Hand it is.

She knew I was on an eating pilgrimage, so first stop, a nasi campur stall in a local wet market.  You load up your plate with rice from the rice cooker and then just start piling on the goods.  Chilli beef jerky, fried tempeh, emerald green water spinach and more.  The beef rendang was out of control good.  I stopped at the sea snail shells though!

 

There are loads of roadside stalls selling everything from kueh (steamed cakes) to fresh fruit.  This is Mrs Hand's regular stop for after-school snacks - freshly made fruit and vegie fritters.  I loved the cassava sticks and two types of fried banana, pisang rajah (small and sweet) and pisang besar (like plantain slices).

That night it was time for the best roasted quail, marinated in sweet soy and chilli and roasted over flames (fanned by, well, a fan!)

Alongside were delicate chicken satay served with wickedly good, rich satay sauce, full of many layers of flavour including lemongrass, chilli and just a little peanut.  Hmm - my go-to satay sauce of coconut milk, sweet chilli sauce and Kraft peanut butter isn't seeming all that appetising now!

Breakfast was at a Mamak eatery, which serves food from the Tamil Muslim community of Malaysia, including roti, dosa, curries and more.

Tissue-thin, light and puffy roti bread dipped in classic South Indian dal.  Two roti with dal cost the equivalent of 55 Australian cents.  YES - 55 cents.  That's it...  I'm moving to Malaysia.

Medical specimen or freshly squeezed OJ to go?

With the promise of home cooking, we bundled into the car for an epic journey up the coast to Mrs Hand's auntie's house, where a goat had been killed that morning for the aqiqah, a celebration of a new baby's birth.

Anything with a skull floating in it has to be good.  Believe me, this curry was insanely delicious.  The bones gave it such turbo-charged, deep meaty flavour (by which I don't mean gamey), and all the stringy bits had melted down to create a rich, silky gravy, loaded with cinnamon and cardamom pods.

More beautiful Malay home cooking - thin, mild coconut curry loaded with carrot, tofu and jackfruit, perfect for pouring over homemade sticky rice cakes...plus achar, a simple but addictive cucumber and long red chilli pickle, and more crack-tastic satay sauce.  One of the family's kids apparently eats bowl after bowl of this peanut sauce and little else.  I can relate.

Now, I could tell you the story of how Mrs Hand crashed us into a police roadblock, or how we got attacked by monkeys and had to drive off in a panic in our bathers through the conservative Malay countryside.  But I'll leave you with the South China Sea, warm as bathwater, where I floated weightlessly on my back for the longest time, buffeted by gentle swells, and stared at the blue sky above.

My favorite Penang Street Food ... Penang, Malaysia

After 3 trips to the island of Penang in a span of 10 years, I can finally tell what are my favourite Penang street food. This last trip, I was hosted by some friendly locals who brought me to taste what they thought was best if not the most popular. In the short span of a 2 hour lunch, I've eaten all these favourites.

We were whisked in a car to Lebuh Keng Kwee (minor street an off shoot of Jalan Pinang) to try the Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul. Chendol was sold at a mobile stall. Locals who came by the stall would order a bowl and then eat while standing around the stall. According to our Penang friends, the owner has set up 2 more stalls with permanent addresses. Their flagship mobile stall is still operating at its original location just outside Jooi Hooi Cafe 愉園茶室. 

As we wanted to take a seat at the table, we settled inside inside Jooi Hooi Cafe 愉園茶室. We are not allowed to order the Chendol and eat in the cafe unless we patronised their stall, which we did.

Inside Jooi Hooi Cafe, there was the Assam Laksa, another popular Penang Street food. Rice noodles are cooked and then dunked in tangy, spicy fish based soup. Those are sardine chunks that's floating above the soup in the photo. The Assam Laksa here is quite good. It's actually so much better then stalls in Gurney Drive that has become a tourist trap over the years.

Inside the same cafe, we had the Penang Rojak, that has fried dough sticks, pineapple cucumber and jelly fish. These ingredients are mixed with a sweetened prawn paste and then sprinkled with ground peanut. I think there were some tropical fruits added into the mix as well. The adding of tropical fruits is what made the differentiation between the rojak in Penang and that in Singapore.

About 3 years ago we drove about 1000km from Singapore and visited this Char Koay Teow stall in Lorong Selamat. I was glad that I'm back at the same place with the same aunty in the red chef hat cooking my plate of char koay teow. Our local friends have a difference in opinion as to whether this is the best char koay teow. It's definitely a popular char koay teow stall with the local Malaysian tourists.

The Char Koay Teow stall is located in Kafe Heng Huat 興發茶室 along Lorong Selamat.

Here's my plate of Lorong Selamat's Char Koay Teow with the fat crunchy prawns, sliced Chinese sausage, cockles, it's eggy fragrance and the obvious "wok hei" (wok fragrance). 

Apart from the street food, Penang is also known for their type of tau sar biscuits, they called Tambun Biscuit. We were brought to Him Heang 馨香餅家, a local favourite, to buy these Tambun Biscuit. (162A Jalan Burma, 10050 Penang, Malaysia  Tel: 04 228 6129)

Here's my box of Tambun Biscuit looking like nicely browned ping pong balls.

The filling inside the Tambun Biscuit is mashed up sweetened green bean paste  infused with the fragrance of spring onion oil.

Nyonya Food at Nancy's Kitchen ...... Melaka, Malaysia

Our Melaka road trip's foodie highlight must have been inside Nancy's Kitchen. If I ask everyone that has been in this trip, I bet everyone would have agreed and some may even suggest another day trip just to feast on Nancy's Nyonya food. We spotted Nancy's kitchen along Jalan Hang Lekir, a branch street along Jonker Street. That afternoon, the restaurant was filled and we only managed to queue for the popiah. We tried to make a reservation but was told that they don't take reservations. Fortunately, our conceige back at the hotel knew Nancy and managed to help us reserve a table in the restaurant.

We were seated on the second floor where we even spotted President Nathan in a photo on the wall. Service was quite good on the second floor, contrary to complains of service lapse in some reviews of Nancy's Kitchen. Many of us still missed Nancy's food and already started talking about making another trip up to Melaka.

We had almost 15 dishes and all within RM200 for 9 of us.

Cincalok Ulam - Fermented Shrimp Salad

A typical nyonya salad. The taste was too raw for me. It's an acquired taste.

Ayam Buah Keras - Chicken Candlenut

Nancy's signature dish that was pass down from generations. The chicken was cooked with candlenut and lemon grass that creates an appetizing flavor.

Sambal Prawn with Bitter Bean

Fried Egg Cincalok

Omelette fried with fermented shrimp

Laksa Nyonya - Nyonya Laksa

Thick and rich coconut base sauce that was very fragrant. HY who normally don't eat Laksa thought that it taste good.

Banana flower with Shrimp

This is the first time I ate the banana flower cooked in nyonya style. Interestingly refreshing taste.

Nangka Lemak - Jack Fruit with Coconut Milk

Cooked in various spices served with coconut and unripe jack fruit

Sambal Belacan

A tasty spicy chilli base dip sauce that is used with nyonya dishes.

Ngoh Hiang - Pork Fried with bean curd skin

Pork wrapped with bean curd skin, deep fried to have the crispy on the outside and sweet juicy pork on the inside.

Babi Pongteh

Stewed pork in slated yellow bean cooked with preserved soya bean and dark sweet soya sauce. This dish was half finished when I started to take a photo of it.

Popiah - Spring Roll

Steamed spring roll served with turnips, cucumber, fresh beans coriander leaf, eggs, garlic and manu other vegetables. A must try at Nancy's.

Pai Tee - Top Hat

Hat shaped cone filled with vegetables

Cendol Birthday Cake

It was HY's birthday, Ade and Jane actually got the kitchen to prepare a special Cendol treat. Ade bougt the candle stand that plays the Happy Birthday Song. HY looked quite touched by their gesture.

Cendol campur campur, all mixed up

Jalan Hang Lekir

Off Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock

Melaka, Malaysia

Tel : 06 2836099

Nancy's Kitchen Location

榮茂茶室 Yong Moh Dim Sum.... affordable dim sum and good pork bun

After a good night's rest, we all managed to wake up at 8am for Dim Sum to check out if the recommendations from the June edition of Her Style magazine's hold any truth. When we arrived at the place, I already liked what we saw, people filling up the tables in a old pre-war shop house and best of all, there was one big table waiting for 8 of us and the dim sum place is full house. There's no reservation here.

When we were at the table, the service staff spare no time in showing us the dim sum on a tray and we just took as many different types to fill the table. The dim sum stuff here was good for the very economical price that we paid. Eight of us ate to our fill and the result ..... RM56.

I would have to put the spot light over the meat bun. We saw a few old ladies at a table behind us eating only the meat bun. You know the feeling when you look at other folks table and peek at that special dish that they eat and you tell yourself that you have to try that. So we ordered two meat buns and we had to reorder again because they were so good. HY and I tried to share one at first and as I tore the bun into half, we realized that we spill the essence in the bun. All the juice that was locked up inside the bun spill out. When I ordered another one I started to eat it like how I eat the 'Xiao Long Bao', suck out the juice then eat up the bun. The bun was soft and the meat tender and tasted so good

Along with the dim sum food, there was even a plate of Ampang Yong Tau Foo.

32 Jalan Tukang

(Near Jonker Street)

Melaka, Malaysia

肥李 Restoran Lee .... crab specialist in Melaka, Malaysia

One of the hotel counter staff, Bill, who scored an 'A' with us for service, gave us some recommendations for good food. I can tell that he actually been to those places that he recommended by the way he can describe them. Bill pointed us to a crab specialist right at the entrance into Majestic hotel private car park (at the rear of the hotel) which was perfect venue for dinner as most of us were just slurring from our late afternoon nap or massage.

肥李 Restoran Lee was more like a local 'chi char' shop tucked under a shop house with 'no-frills' plastic chairs and foldable wooden table. The ambience was lively, very casual and also, no air conditioning except for wall mounted fans.

Lining on the wall of the restaurants were the different pictures describing the many ways that Restoran Lee can serve us our crabs. We chose the popular ......

鮮奶螃蟹 Fresh Milk Crab

This crab was cooked with milk sauce with the extra tint of piquant. The sauce wasn't too thick and hence it didn't feel at all cloying. A plate of toast was ordered for swiping up the sauce for a complete enjoyment of this crab dish.

鹽焗螃蟹 Salt Baked Crab

I prefer the way this crab was prepared as compared to the fresh milk crab. The sweetness of the crab came through with the salt that went with baking this crab.

Even though we did enjoy the crabs, I thought that they were a bit over cooked. The meat at the claws just made it over the edge of tenderness. However, the meat at the body where it joins the legs were alright. Don't think we can complain for the price we paid for the crabs. We ate only crabs for 'appetizers' and left Restoran Lee for Newton Hawker Centre for our mains. You heard me right. There is also a Newton Hawker Centre in Melaka.

155 Jalan Bendahara

75000 Melaka

Malaysia

Tel : +60 19 361 2008