A gourmand's heaven

Dewi Anggraeni, The Jakarta Post, Malacca

One of the pleasures experienced by visitors to Malacca is the richness of its local cuisine, linked with its cultural heritage.

Most of the sidewalk cafes serve delicious and good value meals with fresh air and the world outside as their ambience. Restaurants with inside dining also abound, some emphasizing the cuisine itself, others a special atmosphere.

In Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, also known by its Dutch name, Heeren Street, and its English nickname, the Millionaires' Row, a restaurant popular to international visitors, Restoran Peranakan, nestles among homes of the Straits Chinese.

Peranakan and Baba-Nyonya are alternative names for Straits Chinese in Malacca.

Owned by Charlie Cam, himself a peranakan, the restaurant offers Nyonya cuisine -- a blend of Malay and Chinese culinary traditions -- as well as some Western dishes. However there is a clear focus on culture and a special ambience for the diners.

From outside it is surprisingly unassuming. If you did not look up and see the signposts while walking past the place, you would not know that it was a restaurant. Unlike most restaurants where diners are immediately visible when you look in, Restoran Peranakan looks like the home of a wealthy Straits Chinese family, who happen to keep their front door open.

The front room is furnished with traditional Chinese furniture with rich intricate lace carvings. Photographs of ancestors adorn the walls, interspersed with beautifully gilded mirrors. Inside the spacious house, the tables are not crowded together. They are interspersed in such a way that you feel you have been invited to eat in a family home.

This strategy has paid off, because every day up to 50 visitors from Japan, Australia and various European countries arrive and discreetly step in, showing respect as if they were entering a private home. The background music is subdued and the chattering of the diners among the clattering of dishes and cutlery far from overwhelming.

It is open seven days a week, but only for lunches, between 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 'This is basically a residential street, so there is no business operating in the evening,' explained the manager.

If you are not too concerned about the romance of dining and prefer a Nyonya cuisine with more bite and definite flavor, you may want to try Restoran Nyonya Suan in Jalan PM3, Plaza Mahkota. Here the chef does not bother to adjust his cooking to the tastes of his diners; every dish is genuinely Nyonya, spicy and tangy.

In Jalan Laksamana, one of the streets in the township's historic belt where the road is paved, a pleasantly quaint restaurant, Kafe Loony Planet, is right at the entrance from the north. It is a watering hole, eating place and Internet cafe all at once.

The name itself makes visitors, especially seasoned travelers, associate the place with the well-known publication Lonely Planet, which has become a primary reference for most of them.

According to Anthony Vaz, one of the present owners, his predecessor had chosen the name to establish that association. The Internet facilities are part of the plan.

The clientele can be roughly divided into two streams in terms of the different times of the year. 'We get visitors from Europe, America and Canada during the first half of the year, and from Australia during the second half. I think people want to escape from cooler weather at home.'

Throughout the year, however, visitors from other Southeast Asian countries as well as locals also hang out there almost every night. The restaurant does open its doors to people who only want to have a drink and socialize. Apart from the Internet facilities, there are racks of old magazines, such as Time and Newsweek as far back as the 1970s. On the walls are framed clippings of news that in some way changed the world in the last 50 years.

All that does not mean that the management of Kafe Looney Planet pay scant attention to their food. They offer authentic local Portuguese cuisine as well as Western, Malaysian, and Japanese dishes. Its Portuguese baked fish may remind diners of Indonesia's pepes ikan, only hotter and spicier.

Anthony, who also lectures in business administration, is there most of the time. The Indian-Chinese-descent owner believes, the fact that the place retains the original ambience of a pharmacy downstairs and living quarters upstairs has added attraction to his restaurant. With up to 200 visitors darkening its doorstep throughout the day, every day, he is probably right.