By Vibrant Dot Staff
Are you wondering what to eat in Malacca? Are you craving for authentic and delicious local delights other than food from the touristy Jonker Street Night Market? What are some of the best tasting nyonya restaurants in Malacca?
My colleague and I were fortunate to have some recommendations from a friendly local Grab driver, and below is our favourite list of Malacca food stores and restaurants.
1. Chop Chung Wah’s (中华茶室) Chicken Rice Ball
Chicken rice ball is one of the most famous local delicacies in Malacca, and there are several chicken rice stores along Jonker Street. If you are keen to try this, do keep Kedai Kopi Chung Wah on your radar—it has the best-tasting chicken rice balls that we’ve ever tried!
Its chicken rice balls are very fragrant and moist. Their uneven shapes and sizes signal that the rice was tightly pressed into balls by hand. The poached chicken is tender yet well-cooked. Make sure that you come early as the queue is normally packed with locals and tourists. Their chicken also sells very fast. So try to arrive before 2pm to secure your plates of delicious chicken and rice balls.
2. Go Noodle House @Aeon Bandaraya (有間麵館)
If a restaurant has a full house late at night (after 9 p.m.), with queues constantly forming outside its entrance, its food must be very delicious—Go Noodle House is no exception!
What makes eating at Go Noodle House really fun is that you are given lots of room to customise and make your very own delicious bowl of noodles.
You could choose either the superior soup or the spicy soup to go with the noodles. I would recommend the superior soup as it is so hearty and delicious. Many would also choose to add a hint of yellow rice wine (Shao Xing Hua Diao Wine) to the soup to elevate the taste.
Their rice noodles (mi xian) is a must-try; it has a very smooth texture.
As for the toppings, bursting meatballs are the most popular. When you have your first bite of the meatballs, the soup inside may literally burst out, so be careful!
Fu Zhou fish balls and homemade fish paste would make great toppings as well.
3. Pin Pin Hiong (品品香)
Pin Pin Hiong is famous for its delicious pork lard mee sua noodles. Each bowl is filled with pieces of pork, pork liver, oysters, pork intestines and vegetables. Drinking their fragrant mee sua broth while watching the store owner’s family cooperating with each other to cook made me feel at home.
We ordered a side dish of oyster omelette as well. The taste is not too bad, but the oysters were a tad small and the egg was a bit dry and flat.
Our Grab driver recommended their stir-fried pork liver with ginger and we decided to give it a try. You have to ask the owner for the dish as it can’t be found on the menu. The pork liver was cooked just right. It’s pink inside, showing that it’s not overcooked and won’t taste too hard.
If mee sua doesn’t excite you, you can try their pork chop and hor fun, which are very popular too.
4. Bak Kut Teh near Novotel
If you want to have a taste of traditional Malaysian Bak Kut Teh (pork bone soup), we would recommend Hokkian Bak Kut Teh (福建肉骨茶), which is located right beside Novotel in Malacca.
It would be a great way to start your day with a bowl of hearty bak kut teh soup. The pork ribs are tender and infused with herbal fragrance.
If you are interested, their stir-fried pork liver is worth trying as it is not a dish commonly found in Singapore. Although I’m not a fan due to its strong smell, my colleague loved it.
5. Restoran Tiong Porridge House (粥之家)
Also located right beside Novotel, the store is often packed with customers having late night supper.
We ordered a small-sized minced pork porridge with preserved egg (皮蛋瘦肉粥), but the portion was enough for two people. The porridge was cooked in claypot and piping hot. Although it looked plain, the porridge turned out to be very flavourful and delicious.
The smooth-textured porridge infused with the fragrance of the pork beats most of the bland-tasting porridge filled with MSG in Singapore.
Credit: Chan Lee
Credit: Geck Hiang Tang
Nyonya Restaurants
Since Malacca is known for its unique Peranakan culture, Nyonya food is a must-try for tourists visiting Malacca. Which restaurant has the best-tasting Nyonya food?
Well, according to our Grab car driver, any restaurant will do as their food tastes more or less similar.
However, we think that Kocik Kitchen, notwithstanding its humble appearance, serves the most delicious Nyonya food that even beats some restaurants popular with tourists.
6. Kocik Kitchen
The Peranakan food at Kocik Kitchen is very authentic and tastes richer and stronger compared to other Nyonya restaurants. It’s also Halal-certified.
We would recommend their curry chicken, which has a very flavourful and unique taste.
The lemak prawn (prawn cooked with coconut milk) is pretty exotic and tastes succulent.
Their service was good and the staff also taught us how to eat chicken buah keluak, or chicken cooked with ‘Indonesian black nut’. The preparation of the dish requires lots of effort as buah keluak is originally poisonous and needs days of soaking, cleaning and boiling to make sure it is edible.
If you are keen to try some local dessert, their cendol mixed with gula melaka tastes immensely delicious.
7. Nyonya Makko Restaurant
The cracker below will be served first as the appetiser and it was surprisingly delectable. You can buy a packet to treat your family and friends, and we saw some diners purchasing it.
Their Ayam Poteng chicken stew cooked with fermented soy bean sauce was good and tasty. The Udang Nanas (pineapple prawn) has sweet and fresh pineapples. Their Nyonya Chap Chye was pretty standard. However, the sotong (calamari) was a bit disappointing. It was oily and the marinated sauce was not that tasty.
If the above dishes are enough to fill your stomach, you can try their dessert. Their cendol is also one of the better ones we have tried while in Malacca. There’s always a queue lined up at Nyonya Makko Restaurant, so be sure to come early to avoid waiting.
8. Nancy’s Kitchen
This is a popular family-run restaurant packed with tourists. The Peranakan food here was decent and the restaurant is considerably highly-rated on Google, but compared with other Nyonya food in Malacca, it felt a bit lacklustre.
However, the restaurant is tastefully decorated and boasts a very traditional ambience.
Read the following articles to find out what you can do and where you can stay when visiting Malacca:
https://vibrantdo.co/6-best-malacca-hotels-to-stay-at-for-a-memorable-holiday/
https://vibrantdo.co/10-trendy-boutique-hotels-in-malacca-2019/
https://vibrantdo.co/10-best-snacks-to-buy-in-malacca/
https://vibrantdo.co/top-8-malacca-cafes-2019/
