Medan Selera Tengkera (Tengkera Food Court), better-known to local Malaccans by its older nicknames, “Pokok Ketapang” or “Big Tree”, offers a wide variety of Malaccan street food - not necessarily the best-tasting in town, but the most accessible to foreign/outstation visitors, as the food court is located near the tourist belt of Jonker Walk and Heeren Street.
We started off our second day in Malacca with a Sunday morning breakfast here, just 5 minutes’ walk from our hotel.
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Hainanese curry rice, with soy-braised pork hock, stewed cabbage & egg. I’ve always had a weakness for good Hainanese curry rice, but it’s been ages since I had a really good one back in Singapore.
This Malaccan one does not really come close to what I’d yearned for, but it’ll do.
This stall is run by Mdm Yap Min Fong, whose mother is 83-year-old true-blue Hainanese grandma, Madam Yap, who did all the cooking.
Madam Yap’s daughter, Mdm Yap Min Fong served up my order.
Hainanese curry rice, with chicken-and-potato curry, soy-braised pork, hard-boiled egg and braised cabbage - quite a substantial breakfast plate.
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Economy beehoon mee with “ngo cham bak” (Spam) & fried egg - this stall, which serves my personal favourite Singaporean breakfast option, is from Madam Tan Lian Kee.
Very good rendition here, closer to the Singapore version than the ones I’d had to contend with in Kuala Lumpur (mostly overly-salty - ugh!) and Penang (bland & tasteless, pretty meh) - I’d come back here just for this.
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Malaccan-style nasi lemak, I chose the one with chicken rendang, from Mr Lee Chee Choy.
Malaccan versions of the nasi lemak, a ubiquitous breakfast dish all over Malaysia and Singapore - will always include “kangkung” (water spinach), which we won’t find in nasi lemak renditions anywhere else. Malaysians everywhere do eat “kangkung” quite a bit, especially when stir-fried with sambal belachan, but somehow, not with nasi lemak. But for Malaccans, it’s a given!
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Mee Siam from Mr Lim Poh Kue - Melaka-style mee Siam is dry, unlike Singaporean ones, which will come with a sour-sweet-spicy gravy.
Besides the usual garnishes of shrimps, hard-boiled egg, and egg omelette strips, you also get julienned strips of fish-cake. What is it about Malaccans and their fish-cake?!
Overall, an enjoyable breakfast meal. It’s been nearly 4 years since I was last here (COVID lockdowns stole 2.5 years of our lives away). Malaccan food has its own defining features - it’s funny when you think that Malaysians from other states, and Singaporeans, would come here and find dishes which “sounded” familiar, but will be quite distinctly different from our own renditions back home.
We chose to throw caution to the wind. Nothing we ordered here turned out the way we’d expected. New flavours, new textures, but all part of our Malaccan experience.
Address
Medan Selera Tengkera (Tengkera Food Court), also known as “Big Tree”
47 Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lok (Heeren Street), 75300 Malacca, Malaysia
Different stalls have their own operating hours, but most will be open on weekends.
