I like potatoes. Who doesn’t?

I like curry.

I like potatoes with curry sauce.

Funny how I don’t like curry puffs because of the pastry, especially the super yucky and hard sides. Moreover, it’s not easy to find a good curry puff. It’s either too hard, too soft, too dry, too puffy, too wet, too plain or too…

There is this Indian lady that sells deep fried stuffs (traditional Indian snacks) at a junction not too far from my house. She sells this snack, that tastes exactly like a curry puff but without the pastry. Instead, it is wrapped with a thin layer of batter which is then deep fried as well. There’s pieces of onions and even poppy seeds, which might or might not explain my addiction to it.

I know it looks gross, but it is absolutely finger licking-ly delicious. Definitely ideal for those who are going out for a picnic, with those blue and white checkered picnic blanket.

And I have been eating this for lunch for the past four days. It’s cheap, three for only RM1.

I don’t know what is it, any Indian readers that can help me identify this snack? Ex-housemate Sanjev Sunder said he knew what it was, but didn’t know the name.

The stall is just near the vegetarian restaurant at Taman Bukit Melaka, near to the main road.

Updated : It’s called bonda. Thanks, Visithra

I tried really hard to think of a decent place to bring my KL colleagues for a good meal but I can’t seem to think of any, until I recalled reading Yung.’s posts on a Teo Chew restaurant called Teo Soon Loong Chan, somewhere near Jonker Street.

My aunt and dad have both said that the food at the restaurant has deteriorated over the years and the price is really on the high side for Malacca’s standard. However, since KL people generally think that Malacca’s food are cheap, this is my best chance to try this restaurant as I was pretty sure my colleagues wouldn’t mind paying a little bit more for food.

The restaurant is situated right at a crossroad, connecting Jonker Street and Blacksmith Street. It is also near the pau shop that sells the famous small big pau that I once blogged about. It is also a few meters away from Cheng Hoon Ting temple.

It is believed that the business is so good that reservations are needed as there are only a few tables (Six, at most.) inside. The air-conditioned shop is rather small and very old school. Bottles of liquors are displayed on the shelves. Heh, I even saw some Jack Daniels on it. Since there’s not much space inside the shop, the kitchen is placed outside, along the road and you can see the chef in action.

There are two kinds of chilies placed on the table. The sambal belacan and the cili padis in some kind of lime sauce. However, I didn’t touch any of it though as I prefer my food to taste original.

An old man / waiter will then lead you to a corner where they placed their seafoods like oysters, clams, soft shell crabs, sea cucumbers and etc., with ice on top to keep it cold. All you have to do is point at the items you want to eat and the old man will decide the cooking style for you. He even wrote down our dessert even before we agreed to it. So much for customer first policy.

Their specialty is their oyster noodles. It tasted reasonably good but there are better ones out there, like the stall at Jalan Bunga Raya. The sauce wasn’t thick enough but the noodles were just nice. The biggest letdown was the oysters used weren’t fresh at all.

Another specialty is their tau fus with minced meat. The tau fus are briefly pan fried on the outside to give the slight crispiness and colour. I reckon the tau fus are homemade as they were really soft and smooth. Definitely a must order won’t go wrong dish when you dine in.

Clams cooked in sambal belacan sauce. The sauce was really great, mild spiciness with a bit of sweetness in it. However, the clams weren’t fresh and I reckon it has been frozen for too long. The shells were so fragile, as it would break into many pieces the moment you tried to suck the meat out of its shell. It was really irritating to eat the clams as I had to use my hands to slowly pull out the meat.

Fish (What fish is this anyway?) steamed teo chew style. This isn’t the teo chew style that I used to know, or at least, not even a single bit like my mum’s. Not only they over steamed the fish, I couldn’t taste the natural sweetness of the fish meat due to the heavy seasoning of the sauce. They even put tiny bits of minced meat in it. Something is really wrong with this dish.

At least the vegetables were really fresh and crunchy. Heh! I like the thick chicken stock based sauce they used to cook the vegetable too.

Actually, their dessert was the thing that I have been waiting throughout the dinner. As far as I know, their yam puree is one of the best, if not, the best, in Malacca. It was really smooth, not too thick yet not too watery, just the right amount of liquidness and solidness. Served with pumpkin’s puree and some ginkgo seeds. You mix all three together and you are
on your way to heaven, literally. My mum would only make either one of the two, but not both. I don’t really like the pumpkin’s on its own, but after mixing it with the yam, absolutely delicious.

The bill came up to RM150, with RM30 each for the five of us. Yes, it was definitely on the high side as expected. However, my KL colleagues looked really satisfied and happy walking out from the restaurant. At least, that’s what I could read from their facial expression and they didn’t complain as well. However, for me, it was a rather disappointing meal. While the tastes were nice, the freshness of the ingredients were really not up to the standard.

Will I be back? Perhaps, when I don’t know where to go, someone is footing the bill and I am craving for their dessert. And the odds of all three factors popping up at one time is relatively low.

I always wanted to try this place after being told by someone that the restaurant was featured by “Taste With Jason“. The shop is called “Lao Di Fan 老地方”, loosely translated as old place and is conveniently located at Taman Kota Laksamana.

The business hour is as stated in the photo. If you can’t read it, lunch hour is from 12 noon to 3pm and dinner time starts from 7pm to 10pm. However, it is advisable that you make a reservation few hours before your meal time. Contact number is 06-2830681 and 012-2760932.

They only serve can drinks though. Green tea, anyone?

We (Allison, Debbie and I) ordered their curry fish fillet, which tasted pretty well. It was cooked with coconut milk, giving it a very fragrant smell and thick sauce. Along came with pieces of lady fingers and brinjals. However, I reckon that the fish fillet should be pan fried a little to give it a better texture, especially on the outer side.

Deep fried chicken chunks with mayonnaise. Nothing special about it but the chicken was nicely deep fried and crunchy

This tasted absolutely just like the normal sweet and sour pork, except that its tau fu this time. There were bits of pineapple chunks, vegetables and corns in it. I find the the portion of the dish is a little on the smaller side. Nope, not recommended.

I wonder why the choi dam wasn’t crunchy as it supposed to be. Nicely stir fried with small shrimps.

The bill came up to roughly RM14 per head, just about the average price that I have expected before the dinner. While I don’t really know their signature dishes that made them being featured on “Taste With Jason”, I reckon that this place is still worth visiting, since there aren’t many decent Chinese restaurants in the town.

I am so lazy to write a separate blog post for this eatery, hence, I shall just post as it is, a raw (yet to be edited) copy of my food-related news story. After running / driving around Malacca town for five events in two days continuously, and trying to rush all the stories at one go, this is what I have written or able to vomit out. I foresee my editor will be asking me to rewrite the story.

My verdict?

The lamb shank he served me the other day was a little over cooked and difficult to chew. You should request / remind him when you order the dish to avoid my incident. While the price are still somewhat reasonable for Malacca’s standard, I don’t see the reason for tourists to dine in a hotel’s cafe when they are spoilt with and have so many options of local street stalls.

Meeting Place 123 is the newly established restaurant by Emperor Hotel, providing the locals and foreign tourists a new casual dining place to have their favourite street food, authentic Nyonya dishes and also the western chops and grills.

“We may serve a huge variety of food, but what makes us stand out is our unbeatable price.

“The café is run by the F&B department of the hotel, but the price is definitely street price,” said Meeting Place 123’s manager, Peter Ang.

On the menu are delicacies and desserts from local Mamak, Chinese, Malay, Peranakan, Nyonya, American and even Italians.

Standing out from the rest are none other than the restaurant’s signature dishes, the lamb Shank ‘Harissa’.

With more than 10 kinds of herbs and spices used to marinate the lamb shank overnight, rest assured that the meat has fully absorbed the unique taste of herbs like thymes, rosemary, basil, cinnamon, star anise, mustard, fennel and cumin.

The slight saltiness in it, combined with the tender and juicy mutton, will excite your taste bud and appetite easily. It does not end there; there is a hint of spiciness and numbness left around your tongue after that.

“I created the sauce myself after many trials and combinations of the herbs and spices,” said the main chef, Ignatius De Silva who has more than 26 years of cooking experience.

Cajun chicken is also another specialty, where chicken breast meat is seasoned with Cajun spices and seared to perfection.

For the health consious or dieting individuals, you can try the Perch Fish Mirelle, where fish fillet are deep fried and then served with tomato coulis and bearnaise sauce.

“We also have otak-otak, top hat, spaghetti olio, fried rice, char kuey toew, nyonya laksa, lemon grass squids, chicken pong teh, Chuan An fish, asam prawns and even roti canai,” added Ignatius.

Apart from serving delicious food, Meeting Place 123 also serves as a place for English Premier League fans to gather and watch their games on the huge projector television.

“Weekends are EPL Nighs and there are special promotion for the beers and tidbits for football fans,” added Ang.

Apart from beers, they also serve a variety of imported house wines, mocktails and cocktails, all personally prepared by Ang himself.

He also added that there are different promotions for different days of the week, such as ladies’ night, travel trade night, bankers’ night and chilled out nights.

Meeting Place 123
The Emperor Hotel Malacca
123, Jalan Munshi Abdullah,
75100, Melaka.

06-2840777

Bad, right?

While I have personally visited Asian Havana Cafe twice (first and second), it was my third visit that I came in the name of work and that means free food.

As I have written about them before and feeling lazy (again), I shall just post a raw (unedited) copy of my write up on Asian Havana Cafe. It’s tiring and brain exhausting to write the same topic / material twice with two different style and yet have the same points, you know?

While other cafes are die trying to woo tourists and locals with authentic Nyonya, Portuguese and Hainanese food, Calvin Loke dares to be different by introducing authentic western and fusion dishes to the local food scene through Asian Havana Café.

“The western foods here have been localized to suit the taste buds of Malaysians and have lost the basic elements like fibers, proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates and minerals.

“I not only retain the basic elements, I also emphasize on the foods’ presentations, textures and retaining the true essence of western food. In fact, I have improvised it and created a whole new fusion menu,” said Loke who started the restaurant in 2004 after returning from the states.

Capital of Cuba, Havana, is very similar to Malacca when it comes to the historical values, colonization history, cultures and peoples.

It was from there where Loke got his idea of naming his restaurant, Asian Havana Café, intending to recreate an Asian version of the Havana in Malaysia.

“Everything is made using the freshest ingredients and from scratch, with no artificial flavouring and preservatives used,” added Loke.

One could expect a huge variety and extensive menu of food and beverages, serving a wide array of local, western and fusion main courses, cakes and desserts, coffee and other beverages.

Best sellers and top favourites among the customers are Havana chicken cordon bleu, seafood baked carbonara, pan fried miso fillet, saba teriyaki, pad Thai Noodles and Thai pineapple fried rice.

Seafood baked carbonara is highly recommended to those who like strong and milky sauce to go along with their spaghetti.

Unlike most carbonara, mozzarella cheese are melted evenly on top of the noodles and seafood like mussels, prawns, clams, fish fillets, bamboo clams and slices of Australian giant squids.

“The combination of cheese and carbonara is the best, complementing each other and bringing out the full flavor of both ingredients, creamy and cheesy simultaneously,” said Loke.

To avoid the customers complaining that the chicken breast meat used in the Havana chicken cordon blue are too dry, Loke added layers of ham and mozzarella cheese in it before rolling them together to keep the meat moist and juicy. The meat is then wrapped with bread crumbs and deep fried.

You get two different textures combined into one, absolute crunchiness on the outside, soft, creamy and succulent meat on the inside.

Served together with spaghetti noodles and homemade Napolitana sauce as the base sauce, the sweet yet with a tiny bit of sourness sauce does a great job in opening up your appetite.

“We got ourselves a Thai chef to teach us the original and better way to cook Thai style pineapple fried rice and the key to a good plate of pineapple fried rice lies within the amount of turmeric powder used,” pointed out Loke.

Just the right amount of turmeric powder is used to bring out yet not overpower the taste of the fragrant rice and mixed seafood inside the dish. Raisins, sultanas and spring onions are used to garnish and add more colours to the fried rice.

Another specialty of Asian Havana Café is the flourless cheese cakes, mainly the white chocolate, dark chocolate with orange, Baileys’ Irish cream and the almond and orange cheese cake are a must try for diners to complete a wholesome meal.

“Only a flourless cheese cake is able to produce a pure, soft, moist and non sticky cake texture. It should melt in your mouth,” said Loke.

There are different promotions throughout the week, with coffee lovers’ day taking the lead on Monday, “Ho Cake Ah” on Tuesday, Queens’ day on Wednesday, sport days on Thursday, chill out Friday, “Yummm Sengggg!” on Saturday and hot plate Sunday.

On Fridays and Saturdays, diners can even order freshly made and rolled sushis starting from 7pm till 11pm.

Asian Havana Café
No. 2 & 4, Jalan Melaka Raya 26,
Taman Melaka Raya,
75000 Melaka.

06-2827117

Flaunt your student card and you are entitled to 10% discount, that was what I remembered during my last visit. Heh!