Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Jonker Walk, Malacca Food Trip

I received today a positive comment on one of my blog entries about our backpacking trip last October, and I realized that I haven't posted anything about that trip in four months. It's a shame, really, because I still have a lot of stories and pictures to share about that adventure. I have my notes in my Moleskine notebook to remind me about our trip--that it wasn't just a dream--but my notebook doesn't have photographs. I did plan on documenting our trip on this blog so I can read back and look at our pictures and reminisce, but things got busy in December. Anyway, I'm going to pick up where I left off. My last entry about the trip was about our afternoon in Malacca, now let me tell you all about our food trip in Jonker Walk that evening.

If there is one thing you need to experience in Malacca, it would have to be Jonker Walk (or Jonker Street or Jalan Hang Jebat) in Malacca Chinatown, and it is best to experience it in the evening when it's alive and bustling with activity. The street is lined with antique stores and houses, and in the evening it is closed off and becomes a night market where food stalls abound.

We got to Jonker Street just before the sun set, and most food stalls weren't open for business yet. We were already famished at this point, though, so we decided to snack on the fare of one of the tables that were already ready to serve.

Jonker Walk
30 sen (P4.25) apiece, except for the sticks with pink tips which are 40 sen (P5.50)

Jonker Walk
cucumber was free :P

We tried the refreshments from this stall:

Jonker Walk

Abet liked the drinks here, we came back later in the evening.

Jonker Walk
I enjoyed the sweet-sour lime and plum juice

For dinner we tried Malacca's most popular dish at Restoran Famosa: chicken rice ball. Chicken rice ball is similar to Hainanese chicken rice (our favorite dish in Singapore), except that the chicken-flavored rice is served shaped like golf balls.

Jonker Walk
Abet's roasted chicken rice ball

Jonker Walk
my steamed chicken rice ball

Good and cheap, but I still prefer the chicken rice in Singapore. We walked around after dinner para magpababa ng kinain, and before long, we were ready to sample more of what Jonker Walk had to offer. Our pick this time: siomai! Siomai of different shapes and sizes and colors. We tried seven of these:

Jonker Walk

Abet loves tubo, he wasn't able to resist the sugarcane juice vendor.

Jonker Walk

I still haven't had my dessert at this point, so I bought a stick of assorted fruits dipped in chocolate. This wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't a cherry tomato in it. Blech. A chocolate-covered tomato isn't really my idea of dessert.

Jonker Walk

To cap off our evening, we had shared a bowl of cendol at Jonker88, a museum-cafe which is probably the most popular spot on Jonker Walk:

Jonker Walk

Sorry, super blurred photo (again, DSLR n00b here). This was seriously the best thing I ate in our entire 11-day trip. I first fell in love with cendol when we were in Singapore last year, and it is now on the list of my top 10 favorite foods. Cendol is a similar to our halu-halo, except that its main sahog is red beans and green rice "noodle strips." There's the finely shaved ice, and coconut milk is used instead of evaporada. Then there's that dark brown syrup made from palm sugar that tastes just like the latik of the biko my momma makes.

Whenever I reminisce about our trip to Malacca, I fondly think about our Jonker Walk food trip (and the cendol, of course). Blogging about this experience and seeing all the food pictures above makes me want to go back. Since I don't see a trip to Malaysia in the near future, I think I just might drag Abet soon to a restaurant named Malacca along Jupiter and see how it compares to the food we enjoyed in Jonker Walk. If I'm lucky, the cendol will taste just the same.

6 comments:

Chyng said...

noted lahat yan pagpunta ko ng malacaa sa july! Ü

Dea said...

ISAMA MO KO PARANG AWA MO NA!

nicquee said...

sayang di pwede iuwi ni chyng ang cendol. :)

Dea said...

Hay, kung pwede lang...

Dea said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cafémobility said...

oh noh, siomai, my weakness. everytime i see it, i always want to devour a smorgasbord of it.