Melaka Shopping

Melaka, Malaysia is a haven for hard to find ingredients ! Not only will you find lots of delicious spices for your curries, you'll chance upon oddities like this colourful bits. Now before you think those are jelly beans, let me just say that it's actually uncooked tapoica jelly. Locals cook these gelatinous coloured bits for "bubur cha cha", a delicious, sinful and hip-expanding dessert.

What to buy: Keen to make Burbur Cha Cha? You're in luck, here's a simple low-fat recipe you can follow...

Bpacker's Lo-Fat Burbur Chacha

Ingredients
1)A potpurri of diced yam, sweet potatoes, soaked black-eyed beans
2) Some tapoica jelly
3) A pkt of coconut milk (low fat )
4)water
5) A pinch of salt
6) Syrup mixture consisting of 125g palm sugar , 3–4 pandan leaves, shredded and knotted and a cup of water.

What to do:
->Prepare the sweet potatoes, yam and beans. For the potatoes and yam, steam them. For the beans, boil em'. Resist the urge to eat them after cooking, just it set aside.

-> Make your syrup next, boil sugar, water and pandan leaves until sugar dissolves. Add the coconut milk+salt followed by the yam, sweet potatoes, black-eyed beans and jelly. Stir evenly. Remove the pandan leaves and serve either hot or cold.

What to pay: A colourful bag of colourful jelly cost around RM3 to 4

Are you a fan of Jerry Hopkins (The Chap who wrote Extreme Cuisine)? If you are, then I think you will take to this specialty from Melaka, Malaysia. Called Cincaluk, it's made from tiny shrimp left to rot in salt and rice for weeks on end till it turns a pinky brown colour. The smell, needless to say, stinks like cheese but it's helluva delicious!

What to buy: For us Peranankans ( Straits Born Chinese ) , no dish is ever complete with this stinky, salty shrimp sauce. Like the Thais with their ubiquitous fish sauce, we use it for practically everything, as a dip for barbequed fish, a sauce for beef noodles and even as seasoning for fried chicken. If you're keen, buy a bottle of the sauce from the famous Tan Kim Hock store in Melaka and try this simple but delicious recipe. Bon Appétit !

Bpacker's Cincaluk Chicken

Ingredients
1)A couple of chicken thighs
2)A salty marinade consisting of 1 tbsp sugar +2.5 tbsp cincaluk +1 tbsp lime juice
3)Herb seasoning consisting of 1 sliced onion+chopped garlic + 2 batttered stalks of lemon grass
4)2 tbsp olive oil
5) 1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce, for colour

->Chop the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces and dunk them in the salty marinade for 15–20 minutes.

-> While your chicken marinades, heat the oil in a wok till it sizzles like enrique iglesias. Fry the herb mixture next. Add the marinated chicken next and fry until it's nice and fragrant . Add a little water and soya sauce and continue to fry until chicken is cooked.

What to pay: A bottle of rotten shrimp sauce cost about RM3 to 4 at Tan Kim Hock

Like the beaded shoe, the nonya kebaya has been described as traditional haute couture. I feel almost decadent each time I slip on a blouse with intricate embriodery and lacework because it takes hours of painstaking labour to make!

What to buy: Melaka is the right place to buy the beautifully embroidered top that you see on the mannequin. Worn by the Peranankans on special occasions, each piece can fetch up to RM700 if the piece is hand embroidered on Swiss Voile.

What to pay: Expect to pay RM150-RM200 for a 'real' nonya top made on Swiss Voile. If not, go for the cheaper ones made of courser materials.

Even if buying honey is not high on you list of priorities, it's still worth popping by this quirky 'bee museum' as it's the only one in Malaysia. Other than buying honey, you can see how bees get artificially inseminated like cows..

What to buy: Go for the king of all their honey - "propolis honey" as it supposedly contains lots of antibacterial goodies. Propolis is actually the bee glue used to line their little insect jail cells.

What to pay: Honestly speaking, all good quality honey is not cheap. Expect to pay about RM30 for a bottle of those golden elixirs. Fret not if you don't have the cash, those enterprising fellow accept visas.

Wearing couture on your feet, that's how I feel each time I slip into one of these beautiful slippers. My love affair with these things started since young since all the grown-up women in my household had pairs of beautiful shoes embroidered with flowers, birds and even the seven-dwarves...

What to buy: When you're in Melaka, you're practically in Peranankan ( Straits Chinese ) Shopping Haven . You can find good ol' pernankan fashion ware here and beaded shoes..

What to pay: It takes many weeks to complete an intricate design so a good pair can cost up to RM300+. A 'fake' pair will cost less as the designs are less intricate and the beads are bigger. The shop that I'm recommending have been making these shoes for generations . They even make tiny 5cm shoes for women with bound feet!

Now if you haven't tasted this yummy brown coconut sugar , you haven't been to Melaka, Malaysia! Why else would they name the sugar after the state anyway? Gula Melaka is made from from the sweet, watery sap that drips from cut coconut flower buds. Contrary to belief, it isn't palm sugar but coconut sugar.

What to buy: Good Gula Melaka taste lusciously sweet, creamy and rich like caramel when it's soft. To use, pop a piece into a bag and hammer it into small pieces. You can find good, fresh Gula Melaka from this little factory -shop in Jonker Street.

What to pay: RM4 for about 6 pieces

Like the the Netherlands, traditional wooden clogs will always be in fashion in Melaka, Malaysia... well, at least to the tourist. I wonder if anybody actually remembered that these clogs were traditionally used in wet places like the kitchens and toilets? The toilet slippers came in plain red, of course, unlike the flowery new designs. Even if you're not keen on these clunky slippers, you can get a mini-me pair on a key chain. Kitsch but cute

What to buy: Pop by Jonker Street and you'll see lots of these clog-making shops . If you can, pester the shop keeper to let you see how those clogs are made. It's a fast-disappearing art as it's difficult to get young apprentices.

What to pay: Expect to pay up to RM20 if you want delicately painted flowers on your toilet slippers...

Other than being a self-professed foodie (Yao Kwee - it means glutton in a Chinese dialect), I'm also a Coffee Addict (Kopi Kwee - go figure ). So bad is my addiction that I need to have my cuppa in any part of the world! Café noir in France, Cafe Den in Vietnam, and of course, Kopi O in Malaysia. So Melacca makes little exception..

What to buy: According to the locals and fellow Kopi Kwees, the best, freshest coffee in Melaka, can be found in a little shop in Jonker Street. It's over here that arabica beans are freshly roasted before they're packed in tiny fragrant bags for your cuppa.

What to pay: A packet of coffee bags cost around Rm8 or so