Melaka Dec 2011 Pt 1

When Mei’s Mum was ill with cancer, her Dad curtailed his regular holidaying to be by her side. After she passed away he began going on holidays again, though as a nod to his advancing years, he went on packaged group tours rather than on his own. In recent times he’s been to Hanoi, parts of China, Hong Kong and Macau. As we’d never been anywhere much with him,  we brought up the idea of a holiday in Ipoh and he initially agreed then decided he’d rather not.

I thought perhaps he’d become used to holidays on his own (well, without his family in tow) and was surprised when he agreed instead to a weekend trip to Melaka with Mei’s sister, Wei Yen, her husband, Jeff and Mei & I. Mei and I had been thinking of a trip to PJ to see my Mum as well as we had not been up in some time so in double quick time we planned a Melaka overnighter with them after a quick one-night trip to PJ for Mei and me.

PJ to see Mum

After trying various hotels in PJ, I opted to try the horribly named PJ De Inn this time and the experience, though not excruciating, will certainly not be repeated. Rooms were clean enough but the overall feel was of slight seediness. Still, we did get to see my Mum and spend some time with her on one of her better days - she even remembered some details of her holidays in Europe when Mei and I showed her the pictures of our recent Switzerland and Italy holiday.

My Mum has lost weight and she has many poor days now from what I gather. When we were there however, she was relatively alert and had her wits about her. Some time ago I had let her play a piano app on the iPad which was entertaining for her, and this time the intuitive interface meant she could attempt to navigate the photo albums - though her hands weren’t always as cooperative as was ideal. Still we had a pleasant time looking at pictures and she even remembered the time my niece was with her and they met the Pope at St Peter’s Square.

Here's a picture of Mum some months ago playing with a piano app on my iPad.

While up in PJ we did our usual swing by Taman Selera for a dinner of Chinese Satay, Yong Tau Foo, Braised Pork Trotters and Ice Kacang. Yes, all that for dinner! For the two of us! And as if that was not enough, for breakfast next morning we headed to one of our favourite coffeeshops in New Town for Prawn Mee and more Yong Tau Foo for me… Malaysia is always a gastronomic excursion!

Here's Mei enjoying her breakfast at one of our favourite eating places in PJ.

Then Melaka for food and traffic jams 

I had anticipated a quick run down to Melaka to meet the others who were coming up from Singapore but traffic had other ideas. We were caught in bad jam near Nilai then again near Seremban. Worse was to come though - the road off the highway leading into Melaka was bumper to bumper and crawling. Weekend and school holidays in both Malaysia and Singapore all converged on this one road and thousands were invading Melaka like the Portugese did 500 years before. What was hoped to be a one-and-a-half hour drive stretched to well over 2 hours.

The others had reached the hotel, the Arenaa Deluxe Hotel along Ujong Pasir, despite it proving to be elusive no thanks to the maze of one-way streets that is Melaka. We eventually found our own way there and went to pick up the others who had wandered off, in true Singaporean tradition, to the nearest shopping mall after checking in. Everyone in our car, I took them to my favourite food place in Melaka. Remarkably, I don’t know any good Peranakan food places. But ask me about Satay Babi and I head out to Kota Laksamana and the Sun May Hiong shop.

From what I understand, the old couple who started the shop in or around Jonker Street ran it for years until the business was split among two of the sons who set up separate shops. The parents joined one - the one at Kota Laksamana - while the other shop is somewhere around apparently. OK this isn’t a food blog so I’m not going to do any investigative journalism.

The way it works at Sun May Hiong is you sit down and they set up your table with a metal container of satay sauce (with the pineapple puree stirred in), your plates and your drinks, then they bring the satay to you. The regular pork satay is delicious and the liver as well. They’d run out of intestines which I love and we were all a little disappointed at that. I had no idea there was chicken as well and we ordered some but we all thought it wasn’t half as nice as the pork. When the supply of satay falls, just ask for more and before you know it another 20 or so sticks land on your plate.

Here we are enjoying our satay babi.

The liver has bits of fat stuck in between to give it extra flavour. It must have worked!

Been doing it for years. And am I ever so glad he's still making it just right!

And so it went on. Mei’s Dad is the eat and run type but we stayed here for some time. I gathered he really liked the Satay and there was even talk of another trip there the next day just to get a taste of the intestines…

I do like food establishments run the old-fashioned way - eat first and pay later being one example of this - and this particular setup is run according to the very oldest of satay shop traditions I.e. they count the sticks when you ask for the bill. In this age when the implication is that the customer is not to be trusted, this quaint tradition is a warmly appreciated throwback to a different age. And very much in keeping with the ancient image of this part of Melaka at least.

Mei's Dad with a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.

Mei and Jeff likewise.

Counting satay sticks. Just like before.

How long more though is a worrying thought. The area around Kota Laksamana now has a huge hotel and a lot of work is going on around the river bank so I expect the next time I’m back in Melaka there’ll be quite a few changes to get used to. I just hope the Sun May Hiong satay is as good as it has been and that they still count the sticks when you’re done.