EatingAsia

A Dram in Malacca

It's only Wednesday and already it's been a long week. The kind of week that makes me wish I had a regular watering hole, a comfortable spot where they know me and I know them, where it's impossible to walk in for a pop without leaving whatever's weighing on me at the door, where a bit of idle conversation over a tipple carries erases the work day and carries me to dinner.

If I were in Malacca this is where I'd be this evening: at a beautiful eighty-over year-old timber bar burnished from years of spilled drink and water rings and rubbed smooth from hundreds, probably thousands of forearms. A bar with just few seats and one table, occupying the ground floor of a century-old shop house. A bar run by the great-grandson of its founder and his wife, a shy couple who never really open up unless you stop in a second, and third, time.

We discovered Sin Hiap Hin last May while in Malacca to report on its situation three years after being named a Unesco world heritage site. As I wrote in this post on finding old Malacca (it's not easy, but possible) the old town's prognosis isn't good. Everyone I interviewed for the story was frustrated, even despairing, of the public funds spent on new attractions while the city's historical architecture and living culture deteriorates, evaporates. As one of the local conservationists I spoke with said, "Malacca is overflowing with history and richness and culture. We don't have to create anything."

Sin Hiap Hin isn't in any of the brochures touting Malacca's viewing tower, its reconstructed fort or the shopping mall built on the padang where Malaysia declared independence from British rule. It's not in the "Where to Drink" sections of guidebooks that direct you instead to watering holes along Malacca's sanitized riverbanks or to the bars around Jonker's Walk.

Sin Haip Hin is just a nondescript little place on Java Lane, which in the early part of the 20th century was Malacca's entertainment center. Up the street is Tay Boon Wah barbershop, which also opened in the 1930s. Around the corner was the Chinese Theater. Surrounding Sin Hiap Hin were brothels and other bars and opium dens and cheap lodging houses.

Java Lane is dead quiet now, especially in the evenings. But if you sit in Sin Hiap Hin around sunset you can almost imagine the street outside teeming with life -- with new arrivals and hustlers and theater goers and men and women out on the town.

With a bit of coaxing Lian Suan and her husband will reminisce; they'll talk about the laborers who used to convene here for beers and stronger stuff when the Malacca River was still busy with boats ferrying goods from the big ships docked at its port to the warehouses just across what used to be known as the Iron Bridge. "Oh, it got noisy," she smiles wistfully. "We were open very late!" No longer. Come after 630pm or 7 and you'll likely find Sin Hiap Hin's doors shut tight.

On our last visit we admired the bar's fine vintage dram measures; Lian Suan's husband offered them to us as a gift. We couldn't accept. Family heirlooms they are, not something to be handed over to strangers. But later we wondered if we'd done the right thing. The bar's customers are dwindling, and Lian Suan told us they'll probably sell the house eventually. What will become of that beautiful timber bar? Will those dram measures be treasured by the couple's children or their children? Or will they be viewed as junk and tossed in the trash?

Sin Hiap Hin, 5 Java Lane. A wide range of Chinese liquors (try lychee-scented Boon Kwi Loh) sold by the bottle or by the shot, plus ice-cold beer and non-alcholic beverages from the fridge.

Finding Malacca

In April and May we spent some time in Malacca, for a story on the state of the city three years after its listing as a Unesco World Heritage Site. (In July 2008 Unesco jointly listed Malacca and George Town, Penang as Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca.)

Read all about it (and view some mighty nice photos) in the August 2011 issue of Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia.

I began my reporting in Malacca feeling pretty disheartened. For one thing, I intensely dislike what is probably the city's most touted tourist attraction: Jonker Walk. Maybe that's because I have -- thanks to this wonderful book -- an idea of what the street was like before tourism officials decided that Malacca's old town needed a kitschy night market. Until the Jonker Walk scheme was hatched the street was home to a community of long-time (century-old, some!) businesses and family homes in which real Malaccans lived and worked.

Or maybe I was discouraged because Malacca's charms aren't as obvious as those of George Town, an achingly nostalgic city with a certain low-key urban buzz ... and one that we've come to love over the last 5 or so years.

Those charms are all but invisible every weekend when masses -- I mean masses -- of visitors (and their cars) descend on old Malacca's narrow streets. "We basically go inside at noon on Friday and don't come out until Sunday evening," a conservation zone resident told me.

I'm not optimistic about the future of Malacca's historic core. The Hard Rock Cafe being built on one bank of the Malacca River (among other things) fairly sums up official Malacca's views regarding the non-importance of conserving and preserving the city's historic assets.

But after spending time with native Malaccans and newcomers, people who love their town and are fighting against grim odds for its future, I was able to see its beauty and its uniqueness.

Go on a weekday and stay the night, wander the old town's lanes and tiny alleyways early in the morning and in the hours approaching sunset, and you'll see them too. Skirt Jonker Walk, skip the chicken rice balls (yes, I wrote about them years ago, but I wouldn't spend a meal chit on them now) and seek out the old-style nosh holes that, for lack of flash and/or signage, fly under the radar of visitors.

Here is Malacca as it's always been, Malacca for Malaccans, undisturbed and unperturbed by expensive 1.6-kilometer monorails to nowhere, water wheels claiming a questionable pedigree, and revolving towers with a bird's-eye view of landfill over the point at which the Malacca River meets the Straits of Malacca, the former site of one of the most important ports on southeast Asia's spice route.

Long Fatt's business card says it all: Traditional Teochew Porridge.

This small family-owned and run restaurant was established over eighty years ago by an immigrant from Shantou (aka Swatow), Guangdong. It sits near the western end of warehouse and wholesale thoroughfare Kampung Pantai, next to dimunitive Aw Hai Tien Buddhist temple. Imagine this: when Long Fatt started up the back doors of warehouses across the street opened right onto the Malacca River; deliveries were made by boats ferrying goods from the big ships anchored at Malacca port.

At half past ten Long Fatt's accordion doors are folded open wide enough for the good smells of long stewing to escape into the street. Inside the restaurant all is quiet save for the thwack and sizzle of chopping and frying, the swish-swish of shuffling feet as the family's oldest working member ferries dishes from kitchen to display counter, and the chirps of songbirds flitting about cages hung over the kitchen.

One of Long Fatt's specialties, found on nearly every table at lunchtime, is a neither aggressively sour nor especially spicy version of asam (sour) fish, made with forefinger-length specimens cooked over a low flame for twelve hours. The fish's bones become appealingly gelatinous, soft enough to eat. Even if you avoid anything piscene at the table it's a dish you can't help but admire at the display counter: a spiral of silvery head-on fish prettily layered in an old-fashioned enamel bowl and submerged in thin orange gravy.

Long Fatt's stewed pumpkin is notable for an almost nutty richness balanced by the pungency of scallion leaves, and its mustard is reduced to southern American-style velvety sweetness. Whitebait caramelized with shallots is an irresistible relish that cries for main dish status. Vinegary taucu (fermented yellow bean paste)-based chili sauce is the condiment of choice.

By 1pm Long Fatt's morning hush is forgotten, its narrow dining room hums with conversation, and the dishes on display at the front counter are greatly diminished.

Go early.

[Dave shot a number of portraits of some of the wonderful people we met in Malacca. Have a look on his photo blog Sky Blue Sky, here.]

Long Fatt, No. 15 Kampong Pantai, Malacca. 06/283-0129.

Malacca: Voices From the Street can be purchased at Malaqa House on Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock.

In Malacca, Spring Puffs and Malaysia on a Plate

We spent the last afternoon of our last visit to Malacca with a resident of Kampung Chitty. The Chitty village is home to a dwindling community of descendents of long-ago marriages between male southern Indian immigrants to Malacca and mostly Malay women. Also known as Malaccan Peranakan Indians, the Chitty are unique group within Malaysia's larger Indian community: they speak not Tamil but Malay (with a sprinkling of Tamil words) yet their religion is Hinduism. Chitty cuisine is heavily Malay-influenced, and unlike fellow southern Indian Malaysians, Chitty are not vegetarian.

There are, unfortunately, no Chitty restaurants in Malacca. But the village is worth a visit for its lovely old wooden kampung houses, few temples (notably unadorned when compared with other Indian temples in Malaysia), small but informative museum, and friendly residents. Sadly,we were told that the place rarely receives visitors.

We'd skipped lunch that day and began the drive back to our hotel with growling stomachs. A simply rendered sign beckoned: MEE KARI. Wee expected more of the Nyonya-style curry noodles we'd enjoyed a couple weeks before.

Instead we discovered a take on curry mee that paired a soupy Indian-ish curry with yellow noodles and ingredients found in Indian-style rojak or pasembur: spongy deep-fried fritters, bean sprouts cubed potatoes, firm tofu batons and hard-boiled eggs halves. And there were Malay touches as well (it was, after all, a Malay-run stall); the sliced green cayenne chilies and kalamansi half that garnish southern Malaysian noodle specialty mee rebus.

What we were eating was Malaysia-on-a-plate: disparate Chinese, Indian and Malay ingredients melding into a perfect, scrumptious whole. Kalamansi juice cut the subtle sweetness of the warm spice-fragrant curry soup, potatoes and egg added heft to what was essentially a meatless dish, and chilies made it all pop.

The fritters were among the best we've ever had: threaded with caramelized scallion slivers, they held their crunch even after sitting in the soup for ten minutes. They were so delicious, in fact, that after we finished our noodles we ordered more fritters to sop up the rest of our soup.

The mee kari wasn't the only surprise at this stall.

There were also fabulous filled pastries which, though called "curry puffs" by ladies running the shop, tasted not at all curry-ish. We think they're more appropriately called "spring puffs": crispy curry puff-like wrappers enclosing ingredients more often associated with Chinese spring rolls: carrots, bean sprouts, mushroom shreds, and tofu.

Our spring puffs were served chopped into thirds and doused with a light sweet-hot chili sauce. Others ordered a mixed plate of spring puffs and fritters (the same ones that starred in our curry mee) dressed with a sauce heavier on chilies than sugar.

This stall also does a brisk business in your basic nasi lemak (pandan-fragrant coconut rice, sambal, fried egg). As we ate we watched the friendly proprietors working double-time to fill multiple carry-out orders of a dozen or more.

Kari Mee, Spring Puffs, and Nasi Lemak Stall, Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock just past the Shell station on your left if you are heading away from Malacca's old town (walkable from the end of Hereen Street), Malacca. 11am-5pm, closed Sundays.

In Malacca - Laksa, Pickles, and Pai Tee

We're just back from a few days in Malacca. My notebook is full of scribblings, few of which concern food. Dave and I were there (and will be again soon) to work on a heritage story -- which means that, for a change, eating was not our primary concern.

But the beauty of working with a photographer is that while I'm busy with interviews he's out and about, walking the streets looking for great shots. Being Dave, he can't help also being on the lookout for delicious food -- even if that's not the storyline he's shooting to.

So kudos to The Photographer for rediscovering a great little food court on Temenggong Road, just outside of the old city. (A review of the archives reveals that we actually ate at this bustling spot three years ago.) It's home to a stall serving up some pretty exemplary Nyonya specialties.

 

This 75-year-old gentleman swears by Nancy's laksa

Like curry laksa. Nancy does a spare, almost spartan version, more broth than tofu puffs, cockles, and sprouts. Attention to detail is evident in the ever so thinly shaved cucumber and daun kesom (laksa leaf, aka Vietnamese coriander) garnish that she meticulously arranges with small tongs.

It also shows itself in her belacan-free sambal, which is bright with chili flavor (not just heat) and a hint of lime leaf.

Nancy's laksa gravy is superb. It smells and tastes of the freshest coconut milk, yet isn't so over-the-top rich as to weigh you down.

Which is a good thing, because you'd be crazy to walk away without tasting her version of pai tee, a Nyonya specialty rarely (if ever) seen on the street.

To be honest, I had never encountered a "top hat" -- little pastry cups filled with shrimp or pork, cucumber, stewed jicama and egg -- that I would willingly meet again. The versions I've sampled have always been more style than substance, cute but utlimately disappointing, with too-thick and/or too-oily shells and a lackluster filling.

Nancy's pai tee turned me. Assembled to order (like the laksa garnish, using those tiny tweezer-like tongs), they start with the barest possible fluted pastry shells, and finish with feathers of omelette and a dusting of caramelized sliced shallots. Nancy serves her delicious homemade sweet-hot chili sauce on the side rather than squirting a dab inside each pai tee, to preserve the crunch as long as possible.

Biting into one of her top hats, I finally "got" the point of this dish --- the shatteringly crisp shell, the warm and soft dark soy sauce-stewed jicama, the fresh crunchy cucumber, and the chewy egg strips together in one bite made for a lovely marriage of warm and cool, salty and sweet and a little bitter.

Incredible to encounter such a lovingly made version of such an intricate and delicate dish at a hawker stall. (Once again -- the unexpected delights of street food!)

Bonus: Dave re-stumbled upon Nancy's stall just as her mango tree is fruiting. Which means that we were able to pack home some fantastic mango pickle. On the tart side, somewhat crisp, and really tasting of the fruit, it'll make a perfect side for curry and shine equally as brightly on a sandwich. Also available: a lovely mango jam (fruit, a wee bit of sugar, and nothing else) and mango-dragonfruit jam (slightly less tart than straight mango).

Get 'em while you can.

Nancy's Nyonya Laksa, Pai Tee, etc.Tong Fang Coffeeshop/Food Court, 124 Jalan Temenggong, Melaka. Early morning to noonish, closed Wednesday.