Melaka Food Tour

Today was a tasty day. We toured Melaka (Melakka, Malacca), a Portuguese settlement established in the 1600's, and did so via food, which I think is the best way to take a tour. So let's begin!

Ruth, a cousin, took it upon herself to be our tour guide around Malacca. The day was sunny and warm, and we saw (and ate) all the sites to behold.

For breakfast we had sticky rice with caramelized watermelon and pork. It was alright, but compared to some of the other food we tried throughout the day, it didn't really stand out.

And now it was time to start the tour! It was self guided, and very low-key. Basically there was a Portuguese settlement built a long time ago, and was taken over multiple times by the Dutch and the British, and these are the remains that stand.

The fort

Ruth is wearing red.

The "sites" primarily included the remains of a fort built by the Dutch, and St. Pauls church.

The church

My new background photo

After touring the fort area, we walked into the town, to try all the food. Our first stop was a Malaysian snack store where we stocked up on all the Malaysian snack essentials (aka, all the crazy food we brought back for people to try) They had everything from milk tea (yum!) to durian chocolate (yuck!) to licorice lime tea (whaaaa?) to coconut gummies (I don't know how else to describe it, like mochi, but not) and everything in between.

On our way out we stopped for some palm sugar rice cakes and mango sherbet.

palm sugar jelly? Mango sherbet and red bean paste

Hot rice cakes with palm sugar syrup

As we walked through town, we perused the shops and streets, not missing anything. 

Is this not charming?

Like Hard Rock cafe, for instance...

Here we are

Then for lunch we stopped in a shop to have rice balls and chicken, which a famous dish this region of Malaysia is known for.

About 5 minutes after we had been served (see photo above) the waitress returned to our table and started taking the plates of food back. Turns out they had got the order wrong, but that's not the point here. The point is the waitress looked at each of us until we started putting our food back. Yes, folks you heard me right, we had to scrape the food we had served ourselves back onto the serving plates so they could be delivered to the right customer. Whaaaatttt, no way. Yes way, you think I'd be making this stuff up?

Well, good news is, our food came shortly thereafter, although we were all waiting for the waitress to come around and strike a second time.

I mean, its rice and chicken...Delicious, but nothing to write home about

 After lunch, we were definitely at the no-longer-hungry point, but it was snack time, again!

Rats, I've been spotted!

Swag

For this round we have bamboo charcoal pineapple tarts:

Which surprisingly are quite tasty, and durian shaved ice! The moment we had all been waiting for! (sort of, fresh durian still to come)

Can you feel the anticipation rising?

Here it is! In all its glory

 

Nope...not impressed

 So most of us found the durian flavor unbearable, although Nicole quite enjoyed it, and I found it tolerable, but not preferable in anyway.

Snack number 3, well 6, but 3rd of the second round, was pork spring rolls, and those were tasty:

No, not these, keep scrolling

Not the greatest picture, but man it tasted good.

Time for another group photo!

At this shop I also discovered iced lemongrass tea - I'll go more into this in a later post, but the Malay know how to do their drinks.

Our last stop before dinner (like we hadn't been eating all day) was a pork satay house. They served pork skewers with chili pineapple sauce.

De-lish!


Our lovely hosts, Jenny and Tony

And dad discovered his new favorite food. In fact, we ordered a whole second round of pork skewers, so he could get his fill. 

We chilled around for a little while before dinner, since the restaurant didn't open until 6, so we found this pier to explore.

And then it was dinner time. For our last meal of the day we had a normal Chinese dinner, but I think this was my favorite meal of the whole trip.

There were a couple of dark chili/curry dishes I've never had before that were delicious! Oh, so good. And I discovered I enjoy cooked ferns immensely. (I also didn't know there were edible ferns until now)

Cooked ferns

 
And I need to learn to make this.

Interesting note about the dish above. Its made with a seed/fruit called buah keluak, and it contains a deadly amount of cyanide, but when it gets cured (like an olive) it becomes edible. And it makes amazing curry.

A successful end to a successful day. I feel like we accomplished, and by accomplished I mean consumed, a lot and it was very satisfying.

Also can we appreciate how adorable my father and sister are being in this picture

One more, for luck

That's all, and I feel full again just thinking about all the food we ate. Until tomorrow!

-Natalie