Hi I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate, today we're in Malacca
Malaysia and we're about to go and try Nyonya or Peranakan food we are so
excited to try this mash up of Malay and Chinese cuisine, we're hungry, let's
eat
we've ordered a ton of different dishes we've come to Unicorn Cafe in Malacca and actually when we
were trying to find a Nyonya restaurant to visit it was sort of hard because a lot of
the restaurants in town were really quite expensive but we stumbled across Unicorn
Cafe and I really liked the story as well, it's run by a young Nyonya
woman who's trying to spread the love of Peranakan cuisine or her heritage to the
world and it's awesome, it's so great so we have ordered some curry chicken it's called chicken
curry debal so it's chicken cooked in a spice filled gravy and there's
a touch of vinegar I hear, we've ordered seh bak which is a pork which is
cooked in a really dark looking sauce with lots of spices, we've got a fish which is
covered in this sambal sauce and we've got some coconut milk vegetables which are
cooked with rempah which are spices this looks so good we cannot wait to get in so
I keep saying Nyonya or Peranakan, when you come to Melaka you'll see a lot of
Peranakan and Nyonya restaurants, basically the Peranakan or Baba Nyonya are
the descendants of Chinese migrants who came to Malacca in the eighteen hundreds
and who intermarried with local Malay so the food is like a mash up of Malay and
Chinese food so lots of Chinese ingredients using Malay spices.
The wait
to eat this is killing me so I'm just gonna dive in and grab some of
everything to start off, there's this chicken curry I'm gonna grab a huge thing of that I can see
mustard seeds in there which is, that's pretty unusual and then we've got the
pork I'll grab some nice big bits of that, the sauce is really runny actually
it's got, it's very watery but it's very dark looking and then the sauce on the
chicken curry is much thicker and quite gritty it looks like there could even
be some nuts or something in there really really gritty and then this fish
is just beautiful with the chili piled up on top so I think I'll just rip into
that too and just grab some while we're at it. Look at this chilli it's so thick on top
the sambal, incredible let's just try it, oh there's a lot of oil underneath so can you see that
the oil from the from the sambal luckily it's gone down to the bottom that's
probably where you want that. The fish is quite
it's not that fleshy but it's kind of like a tuna the style of fish, there we go I'll
just grab a little bit to get going I've got a few bones in there I'll have to
navigate my way through alright let's start with some sauces actually I'm
just gonna try the sauces so the chicken curry
it's got a real twang it's not very spicy at all, it's got a spice. I'm just gonna try some more
as my spoon had the sambal from the fish on it still
really good spice just a nice mellow curry taste though oh that's a really good
sauce, let's try this the sauce from the pork, ohhhh that's like a slow-cooked soy sauce
style sauce that's really deep it's got a great saltiness really deep in
flavour I want to try some of the stuff with the actual protein so we've got the
rice the chicken and then the sauce
Mmmm oh yum
it's got sort of a floral taste I can't really pick what it is it's quite unusual
it's sharp, then spicy and then just leaves this like tang
that is really really good it sort of is this the vinegar one Sheena? Yep! Yea so it's
got a touch of vinegar in it and that's the tang I'm getting this really vinegary
just aftertaste which I love. Let's try some of this pork dish I got one
piece of pork which looks like quite lean pork
oh man that's phenomenal the meat just falls to bits, that sauce it's really sweet
but it's salty as well, it's so well-balanced
often with a sauce like that you put it in your mouth and you think it's too
salty or too sweet that is just perfectly put together
while I'm at it I might as well try everything. I'm gonna rip off some of the fish so I've
got a little bit of the skin which should have a nice crunch on it and then I'm gonna get a
little bit more of the sambal sauce because look at it, it's just it's so
thick and beautiful looking so I reckon this bite deserves a whole lot of
that samba
it's not as spicy as I thought it would be, it looks like it's gonna be fiery as heck
but it's actually quite sweet and then has a vinegar taste as well it's
coming on a little bit now the the spiciness but just in a nice like
tingle like popping candy it's just tingling all around my mouth
but it's not not that spicy I'm gonna try a little bit more but without the
big whack of sambal on top, oh the fish it's kinda like a tuna, sort of a mackerel in taste
actually to it as well like, quite quite oily that's really nice, really tasty fish.
I've gone crazy and just loaded up my plate with all of the dishes I'm gonna get in and try this curry it comes with
potato which is really interesting and the sauce like Thomas said is so
textural there's I think lemongrass, mustard seeds and there's probably a lot of ginger. I'm gonna give that a go.
It's really flavoursome so it's not blow your socks off in the pedas or
chilli spice levels but you can taste all that lemongrass and that ginger and the
other spices in there, it's so flavoursome I can't wait to eat more of it, I'm gonna
give these.. "thank you Aunty, no that'a alright'... Aunty has just brought over the pai tee which we also ordered it's a Peranakan
starter and it seems to be like a dumpling
skin or some sort of skin- crispy and it's filled with um shredded egg and I can
see jicama which is like a turnip or a raddish, correct me if I'm wrong and then maybe
some fried shallots I'm just gonna pop this in my gob whilst it's here. There's also some I
think this might be sambal belacan which is like a fermented shrimp
chilli condiment, I'm going to stick some on there, they're so cute and just
give it a go, it's like a little cup, not sure how it works but
I got a really strong hit of garlic from the sambal belacan and I don't know what that wafer is but its almost like a bland potato chip that type of
texture and flavour. And then that beautiful, soft vegetable in there the jicama
it's really sweet. That's a great little starter. I'm gonna get back to this plate of
deliciousness. This fish Aunty told us it was called cencau and it does it looks really oily
like a mackerel like Thomas said and I've just loaded up with that sambal lets try it
yeah that's so delicious, it's not as strong in flavour as say a mackerel but it's got the same texture
and that sambal is like the perfect spice, the heat is starting to come through now but it's
sweet when you first put it in your mouth. I'm gonna try this seh bak, the pork dish
this really is quite Chinese, it reminds me of a dish that my grandma
used to cook and you can see in this broth here that there's heaps of soy sauce it probably has
aromatics like clove and star anise it looks real good
mmm yea you can really taste that star anise it's really strong in flavour but overall it's quite a sweet
dish. I'm loving all this food- Nonya food all the way.
I loved that meal it was so
good and remember always details down below in the description box of where
we're eating, what we're eating because we want you guys to be able to try this food as
well so always look down below to figure out where we are
so you can try these places and while you're down there drop us a comment say
if you enjoyed the video which dishes do you like if you've had Nyonya food
before, which dishes should we try, yea what dishes should we have next time and the
most important thing make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already and hit
the little notification bell beside the subscribe button because
that'll mean you get a little notification whenever we post a video. We're gonna
carry on with the Nyonya theme and we're gonna go find some Nyonya kuih so kuih are
snacks or sweets, did you get dripped on? Arrgh air conditioner drips
a lot of our subscribers told us that we had to visit Baba Charlie for their
Nyonya Kuih so we're here it looks really local like I think it's just someone's kitchen, there's
someone's washing line and fence it's very much a back-alley little restaurant
this is pretty exciting to check out this kuih shop
There are so many kuih to choose from so
you just grab a basket and go for it and everything signed so there's apam balik
which is that delicious like pumpkin I mean pancake/crumpet kuih, there's
kochi hitam which is shredded coconut with gula melaka there's all these
beautiful looking snacks I'm just going get right in
kuih are purchased, these look really interesting and so different to some of
the other ones we've tried if you haven't seen our trying kuih videos
we've done two of them so far so we'll link them down below, there's playlists so
check those out if you're interested in us just eating kuih but these are the Nyonya
kuih super interesting, they're so beautiful, look at all the colours the blue look at those layers I
think the blue would come from the sweet pea flower? Butterfly pea
butterfly pea flower which you see in some dishes here they flavour things or
colour things blue and it's just it's just really jelly like this one and it's
really really interesting looking I'm just gonna dive right in what are you
gonna have? I'm gonna try this one here, I'm not sure what's in it but it's wrapped
in a banana leaf and it just feels really soft and squishy, how's that? This is
like coconut jelly on top and its really soft it's really pudding like and down
below here it's much more jelly in texture quite sticky and chewy and I
think it's a gula melaka it's got a burnt taste the blue doesn't really have
any flavour but looks incredibly pretty that's super nice. Oh look at that thing. I've just unwrapped my
one and it's like sticky I think glutinous rice flour, blue on the bottom
too, blue on the bottom too and oh wow look at that blue, that blue is sensational, it
looks like an amazing texture, it's really soft and squishy, I'm gonna bite into it, give that a go
look at that, wow look at how stretchy it i, what's inside? Coconut. Coconut and sesame seeds and
the glutinous rice flour's very sticky and quite savoury but then you get that burst of
sweetness from that coconut and the sesame seeds, so good. We've got
plenty more of these to try but I am so full so I think we're gonna have to save
them for later sadly we won't video them sorry but based on these two these are
all going to be something special so this I reckon is another place
you've got to check out when you're in Melaka, it's once again, slightly outside
the centre we're actually on the other side of town now but totally totally worth
checking out, super cool place and the locals all these cars you're seeing
that's where they're going no one's going anywhere else but that little
stall so it's clearly a popular spot thank you so much to all our subscribers
who recommended Baba Charlie to us we're so glad we came here because it's
proving to be super delicious, winner! We hope we inspired you to eat and explore
like a traveller, not a tourist, remember we're here in Malacca for a
week and we're gonna be filming a ton of food videos so make sure you subscribe
so you don't miss out on new videos we'll see you next time give this video
a thumbs up if you liked it. Jumpa lagi!