Walking the streets of Melaka as tourists was the perfect excuse to be nosey and peruse the container gardens that are a ubiquitous display of the Malaysian preoccupation with nurturing specimen ornamental, culinary and medicinal plants and those used for ritual consumables.
Malaysia seems to be a nation of gardeners, each little private-yet-public collection of container plants manifests intrinsic personal, ethnic and cultural predilections of the gardener.
We fell in love with the water container gardens placed amongst other pots. The lotus plants had sadly gone over but the broadleaf arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia), another popular plant, was flowering its socks off. Small fish are kept in the containers to eat any mosquito larvae.
The container gardens lining both sides of Jalan Hang Kasturi, the street along which the tinsmith's workshops are located, are particularly attractive. We stopped to talk to a tinsmith and purchased a scoop he'd made. We plan to use it for scooping potting compost.
Peranakan favour red flowered or foliage plants, such as desert rose (Adenium obesum), bougainvillea, allamanda, ixoras and coleus, to bring good fortune. We were a little surprised at not seeing many indigenous plants - perhaps we didn't know them to recognise them or perhaps, like to gardeners the world over, the exotic and the new seem more attractive and interesting.
We popped into this agriculture shop and chatted about growing veggies with the old proprietor. We decided we've got to try and grow more of what we love to eat especially kai-lan and kangkung.
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Plants bedecked with Chinese New Year Hong Bao.
Ferns and orchids hung beneath a washing line. We imagine the dripping washing creates a perfect micro-climate.
We'd long admired the rough, hand-thrown, pierced terracotta orchid pots and this led us to go off the beaten track on our return to KL in a determined search of pots we could purchase for our own.
Cincalok and belacan for sale.
If you plan to do one thing in Melaka we recommend visiting the Baba and Nyonya House Museum, and to time your visit for an informative and comprehensive 2 hour guided tour. We admired the beautiful silk hangings, the Peranakan decor - the dark wood furnishing against the graphic, celadon hued tiles and the open layout of the kitchen and dining area.
We also enjoyed visiting No 8 Heeren Street, a stripped-down and restored dutch colonial era shop house and the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia.
Walking around tarmac streets during the mad dog midday hours of course necessitates rehydration and nothing does this more effectively than an ambrosial bowl of cendol: hoar-frost-thin shaved ice flakes, green pandan-imbued, short, irregular noodles of glutinous rice flour, fresh grated coconut milk and a rich, earthy gula Melaka (coconut palm sugar) syrup.
We enjoyed the experience of eating at Kedai Aku dan Dia as they had just opened their shuttered shop after closing for lunch, they were still in the process of prepping ingredients, grating coconut, extruding cendol, shaving cakes of gula Melaka for the anticipated afternoon rush. We got to peek at the internal courtyard of their shop house.
Our Aku dan Dia cendol was assembled in front of us, the ice freshly shaved with a very generous dollop of gula Melaka, it proved to be our favourite. We also recommend their onde onde, we gobbled the little balls, of soft chewy rice flour paste stuffed with a lump of gula Melaka and rolled in fresh grated coconut flesh, while they were warm, just out of the pan so, no pics to taunt you with.
25 Jalan Hang Kasturi, 75100 Melaka
We also sampled the cendol made at Jonker 88. The proportions were larger, the additional ingredients of sago and red beans added interest but perhaps made the dish less refreshing. The large mound of ice was less melt-in-the-mouth and made the dish taste more dilute.
No. 88 Jalan Hang Jebat (Jonker Street), 75200 Melaka
We enjoyed the bustling, cluttered interior of Jonker 88, being busy it was self-serve and people readily shared tables.
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