Hainanese chicken with chicken rice balls are my absolute favorite and a must-eat item whenever I visit Malacca. So we all had to go to Jonker Street to satisfy my craving. Jonker St is really hard to miss if you are in Malacca as it is in the heart of town. Despite it being a little too tourist driven, I still feel that there is much charm to the place with its old shop houses. Having great food in the area sure helps its reputation as well!
After having my craving satisfied, we needed to satisfy my mothers’ craving by bringing her to eat her favorite Jonkers Street Gula Melaka chendol and Nonya Rojak. My mum kept telling me that she was absolutely full from the chicken rice ball lunch but the chendol was so good she finished 2 bowls and then finished my remaining half a bowl. Gosh! Now I know where I get my gluttony genes from.
And in case you were wondering, we also managed somehow to find room for the rojak! I think we must have evolved to be cows with 4 stomachs. But then again it was planned as a food trip so it has to live up to the expectations!
I did mention in my last post that this was a foodie hunt trip to our friendly northern neighbor, Malaysia, right? So our first stop is Malacca. I usually give Johor Bahru a miss because of all the scary stories I ‘ve heard my Malaysian friends tell me. Thus the nearest town I’ll usually stop in when travelling north is Malacca.
The first stop is Baba Charlie. It’s a very famous nonya kueh shop ( I mean, they even have a Phua Chu Kang endorsement that says that it is the best!). The store only opens till 3pm everyday except Thursdays when they are closed.
And if you want to check the store out the next time you go to Malacca, here’s the address.
72, Jalan Tengkera Pantai 2 75200 Melaka
My mum was really excited about the nonya kueh here because she says that it’s difficult to find really good ones these days and this is about as authentic as you can get. They even use flowers to color their kuehs instead of commercial colorings! There were so many different varieties of kuehs, I didn’t know the names to most of it. I tried the Ondah-Ondah and it was really yummy with gula melaka (coconut sugar) oozing out with every bite!
The love letters were really fragrant and every one of their products is still handmade from scratch. The kitchen is an open concept next to the little food selection area and if you are lucky, you can smell the aroma of freshly made kuehs sifting through the air.
We bought tons of kuehs, and other nonya specialties. I’m sure you can tell from the pictures, the crazy amount we bought and my very happy mummy will be bugging me to bring her back to this treasure trove of nonya kueh soon.
My mom saw all the yummy food photos I took when I went up to Malaysia the last trip and she got really tempted. Since then, she has been bugging me to take her on a food trip in neighboring Malaysia. Some time last year, I finally found time to take her on a long drive up North with many stops along the way for food and sightseeing. I’ll be posting on this trip in the next couple of posts.
Here I am on my first day being the driver of this food expedition. I’m seriously the chauffeur in my family! Everyone expects me to drive all the time
Louis and Emmie were guarding my belongings and obviously wished they could come along too. I would love to bring them along if not because of the crazy quarantine restrictions they have to go through.
It was such a rainy drive. For a sneak preview of the up coming posts, watch the video below.
Last month, I was invited to participate in a bloggers N.E.mation! workshop to learn more about stop motion animation. If you’ve not heard of N.E.mation before, N.E.mation! is a competition for youths to express their notions on Total Defence through animation. ( A really cool concept!)
Encouraged by the success of the five TD animation clips featured in the National Day Rally in 2006, Nexus has organised N.E.mation! since 2007 to provide a creative platform for students to express their personal ideas about Total Defence. With only 300 students in the first season, N.E.mation! has grown to attract over 2,200 participants this season. Since its inception, over 7,200 students from 160 different schools have submitted their stories to N.E.mation!.Several of the 50 clips produced so far have won local and overseas accolades over the years, such as the MediaCorp Viewers Choice & the Annecy Awards. (I’m so proud of our young Singaporeans!)
In the bloggers workshop, they basically were gonna equip us, in a couple of hours, the skills that they equip students to start our interest and knowledge of stop motion animation. So I got to do my own short little clip given a general story board on stopping air pollution.
Everyone in the class got to cracking right away! Drawing, cutting and forming all sorts of ideas in the short time we had. I had so much fun in the workshop and so much ideas that just couldn’t fit into the time frame we had. I learnt so much about the process of stop motion and what I had to look out for.
And if you are curious to what stop motion animation I made in the workshop, here’s my video below. You can also view it on youtube at http://youtu.be/fYhSIcWRW-E
What I managed to do in this workshop is so simple and basic compared to the students’ works. I really can’t wait to see what the students would come out with this year. The animation clips of the top ten finalist teams will be judged by a panel, including industry professionals such as Raman Hui(Animation Supervisor, DreamWorksAnimation SKG) academics and; Animation SKG), academics and government officials. In addition, the public can vote for their 3 favorite clips in January 2012. The winners of the competition will be determined by a combination of public voting (50%) and judging (50%).N.E.mation!
So please join the community at nemation.sg and be a member of the team you support and vote for your favorite clips to support the teams. News of how to vote will be released on N.E.mation’s facebook page.
Oh, and here are a couple more I tried with friends when visiting KL.
While travelling, I received wonderful news that I had won the Vichy spa water video contest! Many thanks to Vichy Singapore, Pearlin, Eunice, Regina, Andrew and Steven for making it possible. I had lots of fun filming it in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia cause everyone was super co-operative and excited about it! If you haven’t seen the video yet, you can view it below, on Vichy Singapore Facebook page or on youtube at http://youtu.be/ZhUQN8bXNYs
Sometimes I amaze myself with the amount for food I can eat in one sitting. My metabolic rate has always been on the high side but age has pretty much caught up to me and I do actually gain weight these days! It started off as a great thing and now I’m worried cause at the rate I eat I might turn unrecognizable in a few years
Anyhow, we reached Malacca a little too late and my favorite stall for the famous Malacca chicken rice balls were already sold out so we headed to a competitor’s shop. Still great tasting but it’s definitely not as good or as moist as the original stall. I was really hungry so a plate of chicken and 10 rice balls just for me!
After my meal I had Jonker Street famous durain ice chendol, a bowl of mutton soup and even found space for a packet of mua chee and some chinese cakes! Gosh… it doesn’t feel like a lot until I start writing about it!
