• Melaka Chicken Rice Ball
• Melaka Style Cendol
• Satay Celup
• Portuguese Seafood

Hoe Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball

One of the specialties in Melaka is the Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball. There are a lot of similar chicken rice ball stalls and shops in Melaka. To taste the chicken rice ball, of cause we need to find the most authentic one. One of famous shops is Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Shop.

It is located at the middle of Jonker Street. Usually you will need to queue up for your meal.

The kitchen cum office.

The chef was chopping the chicken.

When the crowd is too much to be coped, the shop will not serve soup.

This place is always packed with people even on weekdays.

The rice is boiled in chicken stock and added in with some chicken oil, salt and flavoured with ginger, garlic and shallot. The rice is then rolled into sphere shape and served with steamed chicken pieces, chicken liver pieces and garnished with cucumber and soya sauce. They also served with chili sauce for those that love spiciness.

The ultimate chicken rice ball. Some people love the the rice to be prepared in ball shape while some love the normal rice type. As for me I love the usual rice type, maybe due to I love the feeling of rice bites.

Steamed chicken which are chopped into pieces.

Fried mix vegetable is also available as side dish.

Overall, the taste of the chicken rice is delicious. The rice is packed with aroma of chicken and the meat of the chicken is fresh. So far, we waited for 15 minutes for the seat. For those who travel from outstation, it is worth the wait. The damage for us at here was RM68 for 6 pax, which was very reasonable.

Editor’s Review (5 Stars Rank):

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Price
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Operation hours: 8:00am-5:00pm (Open Daily)
Contact: 06-283 4751
Address:4, 6, 8 Jalan Hang Jebat (Jonker Walk), Bandaraya 75200, Melaka

88 Dessert Cendol and Ais Kacang

After the delicious Melaka chicken rice ball, you can follow the path and walk down the street until you reach No. 88 Jonker Dessert. The place is actually a Museum Cafe where they display some antiques and also serves dessert.

The owner of the dessert stall was very busying slashing the ice  in every second. There is no time for him to slow down as the queue is always long.

There are plenty of dessert varieties, from Baba Durian Candol, EPC Cendol to Baba Ice Kacang and Baba Mango Ice Kacang. The price range is from RM1.70 to RM4 per bowl.

The cendol is served with green chendol jelly, ice, santan (coconut milk) and red beans like the usual Penang cendol. The only difference is they served it with thick gula melaka (pulm syrup).

Overall, I find this dessert quite unique and very different compared to Penang Style. I love the taste of Melaka-style Cendol. However, some may still prefer the Penang-style cendol as they couldn’t take the taste of gula melaka.

Editor’s Review (5 Stars Rank):

Taste
Price
Food Presentation
Service
Overall

Operation hours: 8:00am – 5:00pm (Open Daily)
Contact: 06-286 8786
Address:88, Jalan Hang Jebat (Jonker Walk), Bandaraya Melaka, 75200, Melaka.

Capitol Satay Celup

Someone did tell me, if we go to Melaka without trying out the satay celup, he will not join us. Therefore I suggested that we try the most famous stall in town, which is Capitol Satay Celup. However after trying it out, he claimed that he will not try that again next time when visit Melaka.

The reason is due to its extraordinary long queue. Standing for one and a half hours just for the 20 minutes of tastebud-pleasure. It is actually not worth the long wait at all.

Satay celup or satay steamboat is similar to our ”lok lok” in Penang except that it is dunked in boiling satay sauce instead of water. When new customers are seated, an iron pot with satay sauce is then placed in the middle of the table and then bring to boil.

While the satay sauce is still boiling, the staff will keep adding in many ingredients into the sauce like gula melaka and crunched peanut.

The ingredients is then being stirred into the satay sauce.

The choices of sticks range from seafood, meat to vegetable. They come in raw to semi-cooked. Each of the satay stick costs 70sen.

Overall, the satay celop is very unique but it is not worth the wait. If you can’t stand for long and you don’t want to risk your life being knocked down by the cars or standing in the rain, I suggest you to give up and try the one next door. The owner needs to think of some solutions if he doesn’t want to lose his business to its competitors.

Editor’s Review (5 Stars Rank):

Taste
Price
Food Presentation
Service
Overall

Operation hours: 5:00pm, till late night when the last customer leaves, (Monday Close)
Contact: 06-283 5508
Address: 41, Lorong Bukit Cina, 75200, Melaka

Portuguese Seafood

This place serves excellent Portuguese seafood. They offer home-style Portuguese fare. They serve small dishes such as otak-otak (fish cake) to larger dishes like Portuguese-style baked fish.

The location of this restaurant is inside the Portuguese settlement near the port.

One of the best dishes that I have tried in Melaka is the Portuguese style otak-otak. It is not the usual otak-otak that we had in Penang. The taste is more juicy with fish meat and the spices used are very different. It is a must-try dish in Melaka. The most important point is you don’t have to wait for one and half hour for the food.

The normal omelet with onions.

Fried Kailan in sambal style. Very delicious and the aroma of sambal was very strong. The veggie was also very fresh.

The Portuguese-style baked fish is their signature dish. The fish was very fresh and the marinated spices was hot and spicy. A very traditional way of serving the Portuguese-home-cooked-style dish.

Fried spicy chili clams. There were few big clams mixed with mussels. They were very juicy and tasty clams that mixed well with the chili sauce.

Fried Belacan Sotong in Assam sauce (Fried squid in assam sauce). It is a very uniquely prepared dish that I haven’t tasted in Penang or other places in Malaysia . The gravy was sour with some slightly sweet taste. The squids were cut into slices and it tasted fresh and crunchy.

Overall, it is a must-try restaurant when visiting Melaka. The price for 6 pax with all the dishes above is RM130. The taste was heavenly great with minimum waiting time. The only waiting time is on the  food preparation which took about 20 minutes.

Editor’s Review (5 Stars Rank):

Taste
Price
Food Presentation
Service
Overall

Operation hours: 12noon – 10:30pm (Open Daily)
Contact: 06-284 8067
Address: 18, Medan Portugese Settlement , Ujung Pasir, 75050 Melaka.

There are places that must be visited and food that must be tried out in Melaka. If not you are not considered to have visited to Melaka.

First place to be visited:

Jonker Street, Jonker Walk or Jalan Hang Jebat. Jonker Street is part of Melaka’s old Chinatown. This place covers from the oldest temple and mosque to the priceless antique shops and delicious famous restaurants. This can be considered the heart of Melaka.

The oldest Temple in Melaka which is located at Jonker Street.

The oldest mosque in Melaka which is also located near Jonker Street

The delicious local delight – grilled squids which can be found on the road side stalls.

The Famous Chicken Rice Ball Shop (Will be covered on the next food guide in Melaka)

The Famous Dessert Stall (Will be covered on the next food guide in Melaka post as well.)

Capitol Satay Restaurant (Again, will be covered on the next food guide in Melaka post.)

St. Paul’s Hill (A Famosa), St. Paul’s Hill also known as A Famosa. The Portuguese came to Melaka in 1511 and ruled the place till 1641.  When they arrived at the shores of Melaka, the first thing they did was to build a fort overlooking the river.  They named it A Famosa.  The A Famosa is one of the oldest European Architectures present in Southeast Asia.

St. Pauls Church was originally a small chapel built by a Portugese Captain called Duarto Coelho in 1521 A.D and was handed over to the “Society of Jesus” in 1548 and enlarged in 1556. When Dutch took over Melaka from Portuguese, they changed the name to St. Paul’s Church. Later, St. Paul’s Church lost its tower when the British took over and added a lighthouse in front.

Old tombstones found inside the ruins bear silent testimony to the final resting place of several Dutch and Portuguese nationals.

Statue of St. Francis Xavier was built in 1952 to commemorate his passing and internment at this place.

The Melaka River or Sungai Malacca can be seen as the beginning of Melaka history, when it was called ‘Venice of the East’ by the Europeans who traveled to it.  Its historical importance also lies in the fact that, during the 15th century, the Prince Parameswara of Sumatra created his Sultanate at the entrance to this river.

The river has a very beautiful and colorful lighting at night which you don’t want to miss out like me, I have forgotten to bring my camera that night.

Christ Church Melaka. Exhibiting the true Dutch architecture, this Church was built in 1753.  The main attraction is the jointless ceiling, a brass Bible, tombstones written in Armenian, and the ‘Last Supper’ in glazed tiles. This is one of the main attractions in Melaka where most trishaws are waiting to pickup tourists.

The trishaw is waiting in a row for business with hi-fi and speaker blasting out the latest music to attract customers.

Clock Tower in the Middle of the Dutch Square, It was donated by a millionaire in 1886 with a clock imported from England. After a while, the clock died out like colonialism and was replaced by a Seiko in 1982.

The Queen Victoria fountain which was located near to the clock tower. The fountain is funded by local Chineses to celebrate the Queen Victoria, England who was then crowned as Queen Anniversary

The Portuguese Square is a central to the Portuguese community of Melaka.  The residents there are mostly the modern descendants of past Melakan colonists who settled and blended with the locale community during the last 400 years.  This square is also known as ‘Mini Lisbon’ for its location within this Portuguese settlement.

The seaside which can be seen from Portuguese Square is very nice, peaceful and clean.

There is also a nice restaurant which serves traditional Portuguese food which I will be covering on my next post.

Overall, Melaka is a great place which is famous for its historical and legendary stories. However, my advice is it is best to visit during off-peak seasons like during weekdays or non-public holiday as it gets very crowded from food and accommodation to parking and toileting. You need to have the patience to queue up for basically everything.