Malacca is famous for chicken rice balls, ichi kabin, belacan and the old fort but PHILIP LIM prefers to sink his teeth on the nyonya chang. He tells why.
WALKING down Jonker Street is no fun when you know most of the shops have been refurbished and renovated to the point of losing their authenticity.
Still, Malacca is a relatively fun place to be if you have a pair of sturdy feet and a voracious appetite. Before anybody could say "Malacca cuisine is only so-so", take a deep breath and then exhale.
So after a much-hurried chicken rice ball lunch at the famous Kedai Kopi Chung Wah, it was time for a walkabout which involved pounding the pavement of Malacca's narrow streets.
Turning a tight corner, I came face-to-face with Jonker Walk which was next to the Cheng Ho museum. Just when I thought I had seen it all, somebody spotted a nyonya chang (dumpling) shop called East & West Rendezvous.
It wasn't exactly the kind of name one would expect from a shop selling old world recipes but there it was, looking rather innocently back at us.
There were two red Chinese lanterns at its entrance and a bunch of nyonya chang as a visible enticement for those who have a sentimental craving for this type of delicacy.
Inside, proprietress Grace Tan was tending to her business of making nyonya chang. In other cities and towns along the west coast of the peninsula, there are plenty of nyonya chang stalls but only the real nyonyas or the children of nyonyas can tell what a genuine nyonya chang tastes like.
On a cursory examination, the chang on sale at East & West Rendezvous in Lorong Hang Jebat looks suitably enticing.
It seemed to have all the right ingredients in correct proportions.
So to offset any disappointment after the first bite, we decided to get only a pair. Half an hour later, back in our hotel room, one of the nyonya chang was subjected to an expert's taste-at-first-bite.
Minutes later, we exchanged some knowing looks. We made a quick dash to the hotel elevator, into the basement car park and headed back to Lorong Hang Jebat.
Yes, we have hit the Mother Lode.
Grace Tan, nyonya chang maker extraordinaire, turned out to be the genuine article. Frankly, she didn't look like the kind of person who was capable of producing first-class nyonya chang.
She dressed well and didn't look like an "auntie" at all. She later revealed that she learned the family secret of making this type of Chinese dumpling from her grandmother. Tan, whose age I tactfully neglected to ask, deftly wrapped two types of glutinous rice with an elongated bamboo leaf.
Her dainty hands reveal a lifetime of well-honed skills at making nyonya chang. First, she folded right and then she folded left. With a few quick hand movements which would have earned her some compliments from magician David Blaine, Tan had produced a couple of nicely wrapped up dumplings.
She proudly put them on the table for me to admire, which I did. Tan's generations-old nyonya chang recipe consists of plain white glutinous rice and blue glutinous rice. The pièce de résistance of her specialty is the filling which comprises winter melon, meat and mushrooms.
The blue colour in a separate bowl of glutinous rice comes from the butterfly pea flower or bunga telang.
However, I suspect she might not have used bunga telang to produce the colour because hers had a distinct blue which was quite unlike that of bunga telang.
The three ingredients — mushroom, meat and winter melon — were immediately identifiable. The Penang variety of nyonya chang uses cekur root which has an unmistakable fragrance. It is visibly absent from the Malacca version.
The reed strings would come in last so that the nyonya chang could be tied up and hung for all customers to see and admire. Tan proudly disclosed that many of her customers were from Singapore where obviously such quality nyonya delicacy was unavailable.
She usually makes the nyonya chang by the hundreds. She flipped open her orders book and revealed that she had an outstanding order from a Singaporean for 200 pieces of nyonya chang.
She has at least two workers to assist her when the orders are large and the deadline is short.
There was one instance when a foreign customer placed an order for 1,000 of Tan's home-made specialty. Naturally, a nyonya chang maker of her stature would not go unnoticed by the media.
Thus, during the years of her chosen profession, Tan has been interviewed by the TV, and other mass media.
I was the Johnny-come-lately who only walked in for a taste of the elusive nyonya chang which had been found wanting in terms of quality in many places including Penang.
The Hokkiens describe the nyonya chang as "puah kiam tee" (half salty and sweet).
I am probably not the only person bewitched by the quality of the nyonya chang which came straight from Tan's hands . Judging by the number of orders she receives per week, this is one very busy woman.
Understandably, Tan is supremely confident of her wonderfully rare skills at making splendid nyonya chang. Too bad, she is located in Malacca. She would have made a lot of nyonya chang lovers very happy in Klang Valley.
But Tan's culinary talents extend beyond the nyonya chang realm. She is also skilled at making very delicious durian cendol, using only 100 per cent gula melaka.
If you prefer, she also excels at making pineapple tarts.
Actually the ideal way of eating nyonya chang is when it is still hot. That can only mean that the ingredients are all fresh and the dumplings are freshly steamed.
Under those circumstances, you won't be so soon in forgetting what it is like to partake in five-star feast of a delicacy made from a recipe passed down from generation to generation.
Unfortunately, the art of making really great nyonya chang seems to be dying There are still a lot of chang makers but nyonya descendants will tell you that they can do without those mediocre-standard chang.
We can only hope and pray that more people like Grace Tan show up now and then to thrill us to bits with their little gastronomical creations from the era of the Babas and Nyonyas.
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