Food Hunt Around Malacca

Since I started blogging about four years ago, I have made quite a number of new friends and come to know several new people, some of them who are now quite close with me. In fact, I have also had traveling trips with these people. For all the time spent communicating through the virtual world, it is a pleasure to be able to meet up with them for real once in a blue moon. It doesn't matter if it is only for a meal or just a simple meeting. One of them is Sakura Yin Hwa, who has been following my blog for quite some time now.

It was actually a plan at the eleventh hour to have a breakfast with her, as I posted a status update "Jonker tonight =D" in my Facebook wall the previous night. She commented on my status and after a few further exchanges of comments, we decided to have breakfast together on the next morning.

Yin Hwa recommended this coffee shop to us, which is located along Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai near Putra Specialist Hospital.



Smooth black coffee, which wasn't too thick and didn't leave any tartness in mouth.



Asam boey drink, which was quite different from what I usually get in Taiping. Not bad!

Restaurant Yung Lai Siang is an old coffee shop that is tucked in a quiet corner off Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai, where it meets Jalan Bendahara. According to Yin Hwa, the signature dish from this restaurant is their Hokkien prawn mee. The soup served has a rich reddish tint and is really hot and spicy. Besides prawns and kangkung, there are also tiny strips of crispy deep-fried crullers. The chilly paste tastes great as well!

They have two types of prawn mee - one is in soup form and another one is the dry version. The dry version prawn mee is mixed with soy sauce and served with a bowl of soup under your request.

The bowl of Hokkien prawn mee from Yung Lai Siang, which cost RM3 per bowl.

Besides the Hokkien prawn mee, they also have Nyonya laksa. Initially, I thought the laksa was the normal asam laksa but I later found out that Nyonya laksa is no different from just a bowl of curry noodle.

The soup looks thick but when it is stirred, the soup seems diluted.  Although the soup look watery,  the rich santan aroma was well-balance and not too heavy. For RM3, we got noodles topped with prawn, see ham, bean curd, bean sprouts and lots of deep fried bean curd skin, which was tasty once soaked into the nice broth. Very satisfying indeed.

The Nyonya laksa tasted just nice with a balanced of spicy and creamy texture.

Besides these two dishes, the coffee shop is also famous for its Grandpa's curry puff. They are huge and has bursting curry and potato fillings that are always loved by everyone who take a bite on it. Too bad I only come to know about this puff from some food blog reviews recently. 

I will try and make it a point to try them out during my next visit to Malacca.

Yin Hwa, who happens to know a senior of mine in Japan, Randy as well.

After our late breakfast, we went home for a while because Michelle had to complete some documents pertaining to her job application. Yes, somebody is gonna be a doctor very soon and if you are sick or you need a MC, you know who to look for haha!

Anyway, after she was done with her stuff, we went out to the newly opened AEON shopping mall in Peringgit. It's the second largest ÆON shopping centre after the AEON Bukit Tinggi Shopping Centre in Klang. If you read the news, this shopping centre made the headlines one year ago when a fatal gas explosion claim two lives, which also delayed its opening by a couple of months. Anyway, everything is back to normal and the mall is certainly safe for shoppers now.

Drawing lines on her photos with a classic pencil because the photo was too big to fit the space haha!

Ah Kong (Michelle's grandpa) was busy with his routine activity - reading newspaper.

Michelle has mentioned to me for hundreds of thousands of time about this ramen restaurant at the mall, in which she really wanna go. She purposely waited until I was back so that she can go and try their ramen together. So, the three of us, including Michelle's Mom had our lunch at Ajisen Ramen.

This restaurant is a Japan based-chain of fast food restaurant, with its main branch in Kumamoto, Japan.

Ajisen Ramen, which has two other stores in Johor Bahru and Skudai.

The interior of the restaurant has good ambiance. It was a weekday and lunch time was over, hence we were the only ones there.

The green tea, which was very diluted that it almost like drinking warm water. Not recommended.

Stir-fried dou miao (snow pea shoots) as starters.

I flipped through the menu and it seems that somebody didn't do a spell check thoroughly enough. The word "set", セット (setto) was written as セシト (seshito).



There were actually quite a lot of errors in the menu, including using Chinese characters when they intended to use Kanji to write them.



Spicy char siew ramen. I picked this because it is quite rare to get spicy ramen in Japan.



Kumamoto ramen.



Michelle's all-time favourite salmon sashimi, which was delicately served in a flower's petal arrangement.



Michelle and Janice.



For desert, we ordered mango parfait.

After some window shopping around the mall, we went to town to look for some biscuits for me to take back to Japan, before heading home to take another round of rest.

Since the weather was not too hot, we decided to walk to the Stadhuys area for an evening walk. Even though it was a Monday, the place was still filled with tourists as it is one of the most commonly visited tourist spots in Malacca. It was built by the Dutch occupants in 1650 as the office of the Dutch Governor and Deputy Governor. As the supposed oldest remaining Dutch historical building in the Orient, it is now the home of a Museum of History and Ethnography.

The Stadhuys is known for its red exterior and clock tower near the traffic circle in its vicinity.

Another angle of the clock tower, which often appears in postcards too.

The Taiping kid standing at the place where the nation was born.

Remember the story of the white mouse deer who kicked a dog into a river and how from that incident, Malacca got its name and an empire was born?

Here is where Tunku Abdul Rahman declared the independence of Malaya more than half a century ago.

The Malacca Fort, built in the 15th century and was a prominent landmark during the time of the Malay Sultanate.

Archaeological excavations conducted in 2006 discovered the site of Malacca Fort and was opened to the public in 2008.

Dataran Sungai Melaka, along the Malacca River is another new tourist attraction around this area.

The gigantic 13-meter replica water wheel of the Malacca Malay Sultanate. to represent the greatness of Malacca and its technological feat.

The blue monster (a.k.a. Cookie Monster, i.e. me) becomes the mascot for Mamee advertisement at a bus stop haha!

The bastion of Frederik Hendrik, which was built on the former site of the Portuguese Fort and was crucial to the defence of Malacca.

Time alignment of old Portuguese Fort (left) and the foundation of British old building (right).

Again, became the mascot for Mamee lol! You know why there are so many Mamee advertisement around? That's because the main factory for Mamee is in Malacca.

For all its night activities during weekends, this is how Jonker Street look like on a weekday.

Empty and quiet, without many tourists around.

The tomb of Hang Kasturi, one of the great five famous warrior brothers during the Malay Sultanate.

The structure of the tomb of Hang Kasturi was much influenced from the architecture from India.

The Hokkien Association but this time, there were no old folks there singing karaoke, much to Michelle's relief haha!

We wanted to get some ice-cream from a shop, but too bad it was closed already. So, we went to the opposite building and camwhored with the interesting painting on the wall lol!

The Baba and Nyonya Museum, which I have been to once.

Dinner was at a newly opened hawker centre nearby Michelle's house in Taman Kota Laksamana. Well, it is not really new but I said it's newly opened because it wasn't there yet the last time I came to Malacca haha! 

The choices of food are not that many, nevertheless it was still okay in my opinion.

Jonker Street Hawker Centre, which is just a stone's throw from Jonker Street.

Chee cheong fan, which has a thin layer of omelet around it. Something new and different, but I still prefer the original one.

Oo chien or fried oyster. Slightly better than the one we had in Taiping, but still lack behind Penang's oo chien.

Wantan mee. The biggest letdown, even more when it is one of my favourite dish. The colour of the char siew look like pirated goods,
the noodle was hard, the sauce just tasted weird.

Ikan bakar. Nice presentation and the sambal was not bad. The best of the four dishes we ordered, I think.

There has been four times Michelle celebrated her birthday since I knew her back in 2007 but on every occasion, I was in Japan and there has not been even once we are together physically to celebrate her big day. This year was no different, as I had to return to Japan three days before her birthday. Again, we celebrated her birthday earlier. We got her a black forest cake this time and we had a simple celebration at home with her Mom, youngest brother and grandpa.

This is the third time I bought a cake in less than ten days I am back. First was for my youngest sister's birthday, while the second one was for our anniversary. By the time I am back to Japan, I might be infected with the cakephobia disease haha!

As she always mentioned to me, age is just a number.

A family photo with the birthday girl and her cake.

Birthday girl posing with her present.

Birthday girl was actually posing, and wasn't cutting the cake.

Would have been better if there are less cream on the topping of the cake.

Ah Kong just finished his shower, so we asked him to take a photo with us as well.

He was still half-naked before the photo was taken, so he said to us, "Wait-arr, I wanna pakai baju first" *hehe*