Melaka – For Foodies, the Good and Decent – Part 2

This one’s for our Missouri bud.:)

One local blogger in SIngapore has remarked in his posts about Melaka; that generally speaking, the grittier the place, the tastier the food is likely going to be. We haven’t quite put that theory to absolute test yet, but having tried several Indian eateries and stalls in our Melaka stay, we’re ready to say that Indian cuisine is good everywhere we go. We covered these three places on our third day: lunch, dinner and supper.

Restoran Saravanna

After reading the blogger’s post of the Indian fare whipped up at this roadside restaurant, we gave it a go for lunch. The place was almost directly just opposite The Majestic at Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai; you just cross the road, walk about 10 meters, and there it is.

Like many other Singaporean Chinese, we all love Indian food, though when it comes to knowing for certain what to try, we can get a little clueless. For this time round, we tried the Roti canai – which is the Malaysian equivalent of Roti pratas – and had a couple of egg and eggless ones. Bit of novel experience too; that gravy helpings are DIY. There’s a contraption comprising several metallic containers of gravy variants, and you help yourself to it (though you don’t get to horde the entire gravy train to yourself though – it’s communal).

Total damage for 2 egg, 2 kosong canais, Ling’s Teh Halia and a can drink for me was MY$8 (S$3). Nowhere can you find similar and as delicious fare at this price in Singapore.

Vazhal Elai (Banana Leaf) Restaurant

This restaurant, located at 42 Jalan Munshi Abdullah, was a lot harder to find. Tripadvisor’s entry for this eatery is “Banana Leaf” restaurant; only that the place’s signboard says something else. It didn’t help too that the iOS and Google maps gave conflicting instructions where this eatery was. We ended up wandering around looking for the place on the first evening, settling for Lu Yeh Yan eventually. We found the place the second time round just now. Compared to Restoran Saravanna, the place looked and felt cleaner with its brighter décor and looked recently renovated.

We were the only Chinese in the restaurant at dinner time, and got quite a mix of both curious and also amused looks at these two obvious non-locals with a three year old girl who didn’t stop chattering, the moreso when I fished out the E-M5 to take pictures of what we were having! The fare served in this restaurant was common Indian fare, judging from the menu pasted on the wall, but it sure was authentic. I had the mutton, Ling had the chicken and vegetable sides alongside white rice, all served on banana leafs – literally. Hannah had the Thosai. Just look at her:

All delicious, and we cleaned our plates excepting Hannah; she wanted to leave some room for the candy cookies back at the hotel. Damage was MY$16 (S$6.50). The funniest thing was that Ling was still hungry. So, without stopping, we headed back in the general direction of the hotel and stopped for…

Puteri Erra Roti John

This stall was located at a foodcourt also almost directly opposite The Majestic at Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai.

There was a long queue for this fellow’s Roti Johns; at least a dozen and another half were served before it came to our turn. Ling chuckled that the joint is like a factory line; someone just concentrates on frying the bread, someone else does the vegetable and gravy dressing, and a third person does the packing and serving. Ling ordered two, but was misheard and we got three instead at MY$2 each ($0.80). The stuff was pretty oily but once you get past the fact that eating one of these will make you feel like you’ve just deducted a few more days out of your life, they were still incredibly delicious.

And no; we didn’t finish all three – it was too much food LOL.