Malacca

As we counted down the weeks to our short trip to Malaysia and Singapore, our friends had started calling it the Great Food Trip. With reason of course, because after laying out our itinerary, we all realized that our plans and destinations had something to do with food. Number one on our list of tourist spots to visit was Malacca, about two hours away from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, not for the architecture or the history or those charming colorful trishaws, but for the best chicken rice balls in the planet.

Just as Cebu is known for its lechon and Hong Kong for its roast goose, Malacca is known for its chicken rice balls. And you can just imagine the million and one restaurants that claim to have the best, or the original, or the most famous version of their locale's specialty. Being the responsible travelers that we are, we scoured the most reliable and comprehensive source of information we could get our hands on for that one place that the locals considered to have the best chicken rice balls in Malacca. Ever-reliable Google said Hoe Kee, and so that's where we went.

While Magellan?s search for Malacca was primarily to check out the spice trade, ours was to find chicken rice balls. So we requested our friendly driver to take us to Jonker Street, which we heard was a microcosm of Malaccan culture, with its quaint antique stores, temples and of course, restaurants. We asked him to take us to the best chicken rice balls place, hoping that it would be Hoe Kee, as we discovered on the blog universe to be the best in Malacca. Unfortunately, we were brought to some place with red walls and menus plastered across with www.chickenriceballs.com. Now, everyone knows that it?s not the highly publicized places that are actually favored by the locals. After all, you don?t go to some chain restaurant like Gerry?s Grill for the best Crispy Pata ? you go to that tiny stall in some side street behind the Mandaluyong City Hall for the real stuff. So after figuring out that we weren?t in Hoe Kee, we decided to walk further down Jonker Street to find it. We guess we?ll never really know if Hoe Kee is as authentic as chicken rice balls can get, but at least we can say that Google did not let our first-timer taste buds down.

After finding Hoe Kee, which happened to be a good two-minute walk from that other chicken rice balls place, we placed our order: a shitload of steamed chicken and rice balls. We arrived a little before the usual lunch hour but they had already run out of roasted chicken, which we also wanted to try. We should?ve figured from the rope barriers outside the restaurant that the queues here get pretty long and that dishes here run out quickly.

Hainanese chicken is a pretty popular dish, even in the Philippines, so you?ve probably already tried some version of it. What makes Hoe Kee?s steamed chicken different is that it?s really flavorful, even before smothering it with the usual ginger and chili condiments. People are generally deterred by the paleness and follicle-darted texture of steamed chicken, so we suggest an open mind when eating at Hoe Kee. This especially applies to Filipinos who strangely believe that chicken is unsafe if not cooked through, all the way to the bone. In this part of the world, the chicken is steamed only until the meat is no longer translucent and well, raw, leaving it with a tender texture. We hate to make such a bold statement, but we?re almost positive that Hoe Kee will make steamed chicken lovers of those that don?t like its generally pasty and bland appearance.

We?re unsure if any other part of the world has a delicacy similar to Malacca?s rice balls, but so far this is the first we?ve tried, and we love it. It?s actually quite unsettling to think about how the rice is hand-rolled into perfectly round golf ball-looking things, so we?d rather not delve into how they?re made. We just like to rationalize that the hand-rolling under the heat of the Malaysian sun imparts additional flavor or, to be more accurate, saltiness. If you like how the rice that is usually served with Hainanese chicken is prepared, then you?d undoubtedly like the rice balls as well. Like what?s served with Hainanese chicken, they are cooked in chicken fat and oil and other Asian culinary staples, so you can expect an equally rich and tasty accompaniment to your steamed chicken. Except that this is round, pudgy, and mushy at the core.

We reckon that, save for the rope barriers outside that evoke the feel of an exclusive guest list-required club, part of the charm of Hoe Kee is that the place itself is completely unpretentious. Sure, this place is packed most of the time, but you?d be sorely mistaken to expect a fancy atmosphere with elegant china and dapper waiters. Instead, Hoe Kee is a small family-run restaurant, where the owner?s teenage son will take your order and his wife will bring your drinks. It is so homey in fact that the plates and cutlery, disposable of course, are given by the son or the nephew or the cousin, and you?re on your own distributing them and setting your own table. Well, what do you expect from a meal that costs MYR 10?

After our hearty chicken rice balls meal, we felt that we were ready to take on the sweltering heat of Malacca and check out what the rest of Jonker Street had to offer. But alas, only after crossing the street, we found that the climate was just too unbearable for us to continue, without shaved ice for dessert, that is. We found a place called Perfect Ice, just a few meters away from Hoe Kee. Well, it?s not a ?place? really, because it?s just a man behind a stand-up freezer stocked with different flavors of shaved ice. With so many choices ? around twenty of them ? we found ourselves struggling to settle on one or two flavors for our individual orders. We eventually landed on the following: red plum paired with watermelon; lychee; honeydew; and dragon fruit with lime ? certainly not the expected chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or orange. In spite of the rather exotic flavors and combinations, we must admit that our dessert of Perfect Ice was refreshing, and yes, albeit trite, perfect.

While our food adventure in Malacca was limited to lunch in Hoe Kee and dessert at Perfect Ice, we would definitely love to return and try other local favorites. We hear that there are loads of other must-try places and dishes, like Durian cendol or Portuguese curry for example. And if our excellent lunch is any indication of the kind of food that Malacca has to offer, we can definitely rest assured knowing that a second trip would not be a total waste of time, or money, or calories.