Continuing on with posts from my trip to Malaysia in October…

Li Ching and Carina brought me to a well-known satay celup restaurant for our main evening meal in Malacca (Melaka). I’ve forgotten the restaurant’s name but it was the original restaurant on the street. We had to wait for a table to eat at, in contrast to the almost identical satay celup place (opened by a former employee of the original’s) which was almost empty.

The satay celup tables are specially-designed with a pot set-in in the centre containing boiling satay sauce, heated by gas from table-specific bottles.

The attendant brings around various satay sticks for the guests to choose what they want and cook them in the satay in their own time.

Various satay celup sticks including quail eggs, rice balls, fish sticks and fish balls

The very top left of the satay celup tray contains pigs ears. The small plate has cucumber slices and the satay pot is in the bottom right.

The pigs ear was crunchy. Carina and Li Ching did not want to tell me what it was before I ate it as they were scared I would refuse to eat it if I knew beforehand. I did find out and was not put off 🙂

Prawns, fish and clams. Century egg with ginger is on the small blue plate. The egg tasted interesting.

Cooking the satay celup sticks in the simmering sauce

The restaurant menu

The staff calculated our meal cost by adding up the number of sticks left on our table. Each stick cost half a Malaysian ringgit (about 16 Aussie cents).

As I like to try everything, I tried every single different type of satay stick. Needless to write, by the end of the delicious meal I could eat very little more.

As mentioned earlier, I ate masses of wonderful food in Malaysia. I ate Chinese the most but also sampled Indian, Malay and Nonya (Peranakan) cuisines. Later I will write a specific posting on the Satay Celup I ate in Malacca.

From left to right: porridge (Kim, what kind?), various dumplings (in silver trays), chickens feet with mushroom, and dipping sauces

The first meal I ate after arriving on the overnight flight from Istanbul was dim sum somewhere near Bandar Tasik Selatan, the 3rd stop on the KLIA Transit train between the airport and KL. Kim took me to an outdoor restaurant full of people eating their Sunday dim sum breakfasts.

Dim sum involved different waiters coming around with trays offering their portion-sized dishes. We were free to select whatever we wanted of the huge variety on offer. Each dish was on a distinct plate and at the end of the meal our bill was calculated by the number and kind of plates left on our table.

After visiting the Batu Caves, Kim and I ate at an adjacent vegetarian Indian restaurant. Curries and chutney were scooped out of the containers onto specially divided plates and eaten with the fried flat bread.

Clams, BBQ pork and dumplings

The hawker centre signs in the background list such delicacies as Pork Organ Soup and Claypot Frog Porridge

From left to right: paw paw, guava, pineapple and another fruit. The small bowl contains a dipping mixture made up of sugar, salt and dried plum powder.

The above 3 photos come from the Chinese hawker centre Kim took me to on my first night in Malaysia.

Satay, omlette and clams

Two nights later I met up with Yinli and Pek Yen at another Chinese hawker centre for some good food and beer and great conversations. Afterwards I took a taxi back to Flic’s place in Brickfields. The taxi rate was very cheap even allowing for the 100% after midnight loading (when it should have only been %50) 🙂

Clams, squid and snails in Malacca

Prior to the satay celup meal, Li Ching, Carina and I ate ‘entree’ at a critically acclaimed but difficult to find and (on the surface) somewhat seedy backstreet restaurant. The hole behind the plate in the centre of the photos is an integrated rubbish bin.

A delicious spicy laksa and barley water breakfast at Donald and Lily’s nonya restaurant, Malacca.

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