Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last post, we're currently on a brand new journey back in early Feb 2019 when we went on a road trip to Malacca City, Malaysia, for my cousin's wedding! It had been over a decade since we last visited Malacca and it also gave us a chance to reunite with our relatives again, just in time for Chinese New Year!
And last week, we made it to Malacca and settled down in Ramada Plaza Hotel, before having a nice late lunch in the form of chicken rice balls! We also went window shopping and bought some snacks from the nearby Mahkota Parade!
I didn't manage to finish writing about our day last week, so here we go!
1 February 2019. Friday.
After spending the afternoon shopping and snacking in the pretty dead mall, we went back to our hotel room to rest up a bit and dodge the heat. It was absolutely sweltering outside so we took every opportunity to hide and enjoy some air-conditioning. The hotel was really nice and comfortable though, which was good. We also had adjoining rooms with my brother and sis-in-law which made it convenient.
Anyway, after that we met up with my relatives in the lobby and we all went for dinner together! Since we were only going to be in Malacca for the weekend, we decided to revisit some old memories of eating Satay Celup!
If you're unfamiliar, satay is a Southeast Asian dish of seasoned, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce. And satay celup is a popular Malaysian dish where an assortment of raw and semi-cooked seafood, meat and vegetables are dunked into a hot boiling pot of satay gravy. And I think it first originated from Malacca itself! So what better place to enjoy satay celup than its historical birthplace?
Source: aromasian
Anyway, my relatives (who live in KL) know of this famous satay celup franchise called McQuek's so we went to one of their main branches in Malacca!
The restaurant itself is quite open, with a high shelter and your classic plastic chairs and tables. But each table comes with a slot in the middle to put the piping hot pot of satay gravy!
It does get really warm though, especially with the hot satay gravy and the hot, humid weather. It wasn't as bad at night but it was still pretty warm. Thankfully there are big metal fans about to blow wind and circulate the air.
After we got our tables and ordered 2 pots of satay gravy (to share between the 9 of us) the next thing to do is to pick out what ingredients we wanted!
There was such a wide selection of skewers! From vegetables to different types of fishballs and other seafood, to sausages and meat! Here's a video of all the wall of fridges in which they keep their skewers!
We picked out a variety of vegetables, meat and mushrooms to dip into our satay gravy!
There was so much I wanted to try! And we actually ended up eating quite a lot!
But it was also really warm so we bought drinks and I went with the classic watermelon juice! I remember that's exactly what I ordered many many years ago when we ate satay celup.
A curious thing I did back when I was younger was to dip my skewers into a cup of water after that so I would just be eating the meatballs. I couldn't really take the heat and the spice of the sauce back then so that's what I would do. I think I tried the sauce and didn't really like it or something. But now I love it!
At the end of the meal when we all had our fill, we counted up how many sticks we had and each stick was RM1 each!
I don't know how much we had but it was definitely quite a lot between the 9 of us.
But after that we weren't done! There was a hawker center not too far away and my uncle had a craving for oyster omelette, so we got a snack. I was really stuffed already though so we just took a look around.
This definitely felt like a classic coffee shop.
But I don't think you'd find one of this size in Singapore. Maybe only the one in Old Airport Road can rival this size.
Since we just ate, my uncle only got a small plate to share as a snack.
Most of us didn't eat though especially since we were so full. It did look pretty weird with 9 people just sharing a small plate of omelette.
After that, my uncle, cousin and aunt went back to the hotel. While my mum's older sister brought us to go visit my grandmother's house. It had been a really long time since we visited this house and it was also special showing Sean and my sis-in-law what it was like.
The house was a semi-detached house I suppose? And this was the car porch and front gate of the house.
I realised I forgot to take a photo of the living room, but it was pretty wide and had nothing much other than an old TV and some couches lining the walls. But being in that house again was such a throwback.
This was the master bedroom and also the only room with an air-conditioner. It was also the room that my whole family would sleep in whenever we visited for Chinese New Year.
This was the seating area outside the master bedroom where my grandmother had put up a whole wall of family photos and mementos.
Nothing had really changed from the last time we visited over a decade ago! The couches were still the same, the cabinets, everything.
This was the kitchen, with the dining table and stools underneath it. A sink on the wall where I would brush my teeth when we stayed over. And my mum or aunt would make a cup of hot chocolate/milo for me on at that breakfast station and we would have biscuits for breakfast.
There was also an attic in the dining room with a staircase that led there. But ti was really steep and high and I remember being scared of climbing those stairs when I was younger. But when he was around, my grandfather would sleep up there.
And this was the kitchen! I didn't really spend too much time here but my grandmother, aunt and auntie would cook lunch and dinner for us here whenever we visited. And that door led out into the backyard which was full of tall grass and mosquitos. After we ventured out there once we never went out there again.
The only reason I would enter the kitchen was to go to the bathroom or bathe, since the shower and toilet was attached to the kitchen.
But before we got a shower installed, the only way we could bathe was to fill a bucket or pail with water from the protruding part of the wall which formed a sort of trough and dump it on ourselves. The classic Asian way to bathe.
It was such a throwback being in that house again. I remember when my brother and I were so much younger the last time we actually visited for Chinese New Year and stayed in this house. We used to stay up and play card games, and we even brought our Wii one time to play games on the TV. So many times I would fall asleep on this couch after dinner.. man those were the days..
It was also really special bringing our significant others here! Having them experience at least a little bit of this part of our lives was so interesting. It would've been nice if our other brother was also here, but oh well.
And with that trip down memory lane, I think that's gonna be it for today! Tune in next week when we experience a first part of a traditional Chinese wedding - the chuangmen/door games and the tea ceremony!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #138 (Malacca): Time Traveling Road Trip to Foodieland! 😋
