The cutest of cute

I can resist no longer. For two weeks and counting I have been joined on my adventures by the cutest two year-old, my niece Sahana. I recognize my bias but also must exert my uncle prerogatives. Forthwith, a collection of the best shots of this wonderful little girl.

Diving into a bowl of ice cream like it would disappear from the earth. And also celebrating a fantastic Chinese meal from Summer Palace.

Staring at a rava dosa like she is calculating the geometry of stuffing the whole thing in her mouth.

Putting on her best smile with the mascot of Tiger Balm.

Surveying her kingdom from a perch at the playground.

Riding her mamu's shoulders, making friends with an orangutan, and hamming it up for the camera.

Looking excitedly around while cruising the Singapore River.

Patiently riding the bus sitting in her own seat.

Learning the history of Melaka at the old Portuguese fort.

See, she's pretty awesome, right?

Peranakan all the way through: food of Melaka

Part of the plan of venturing to Melaka was to partake in Peranakan food early and often. We did just that, over the three meals we had in the town.

First up was lunch after our arrival at the Restoran Peranakan. Recommended by our hotel's local map, this place turned out a decent lunch but lacked some in ambiance. It seemed crafted for the tour bus set.

All dishes were served family style with a large lazy Susan in the middle. One dish was fried bee hoon. This noodle dish came with a lot of fixings, including seafood, scallions, and bean sprouts. It served to sate our appetites.

Another was a spicy prawn curry consisting largely of prawns, potatoes, and red curry. Very very spicy, with the plain curry on rice being my favorite way to eat the dish. The prawns were very overcooked and quite mushy.

A third was brinjal with vegetables, a stir-fried eggplant dish. Totally ok.

The best of the bunch was the chicken rendang, a fried chicken that was stewed in spices as well. The sauce really packed a punch and kept the chicken from getting too dry.

Finally, there was sauteed kangkong. The water spinach here was a welcome green addition to our table. All said, a filling lunch but we were hopeful that Melaka could do better.

Our second meal was dinner at Nancy's Kitchen. Despite the anglicized name, this place was locally owned and run.

As starter we had some more popiah and kueh pieti. Both were the best I've had on the trip so far. The popiah was so rich with different flavors and textures. The kueh pieti packed a mini punch, with more chilli than I expected.

The first main was pork with tamarind sauce. This was scrumptious. The pork was a mix of pork belly and pork slices and had been slow-cooked for some time. The tamarind marinade added a sweet contrast to the meat. Yum.

The next main was the restaurant's signature dish, Nancy's chicken candlenut curry. Candlenut is very close to a macadamia without as much flavor. This curry was good, though other dishes were clearly better.

Sahana's favorite is next. Deep fried soft shell crab that was lightly done and with good batter. She kept having more and more until it was all gone. I tried a bit too and it was nice.

Final dish was brinjal with chillies, more eggplant. Like the eggplant for lunch, this was cut too thickly and so remained underdone with the bitter notes sometimes lurking in eggplant.

For Nancy's, the starters, the pork, and the crab were a cut above the rest.

Our final meal in Melaka was a lunch at Jonker 88. Jonker is the colonial name of the shopping street. This restaurant was neat because it functioned like a Singaporean coffeeshop. There were a handful of different vendors from whom you order directly. Your food then comes on a tray and there is open seating for your meal.

We shared three noodle dishes so the whole gamut could be explored. Front and center is baba laksa (baba is the word for man in Peranakan). This laksa was tremendous, with rich notes of coconut milk balanced by chilli and bean sprouts. There were also large balls of tofu that soaked up the delicious broth.

The second laksa in the back right is nonya laksa. This laksa was not coconut milk based but rather vinegar based with a strong sour note. Initially a bit hard to take, it grew on me and by meal's end I was a fan.

The third dish was a wanton noodle dish. This was also excellent, with a long sheet of thin beancurd complementing the noodles.

As a nibble with the meal we had a set of fishballs, which were great. Not too fishy and with an intriguing sweet, sour, and seafood sauce, these did not last long.

And the dessert round brought us home with a nata de coco ice kacang and a durian chendol. These were nice given the heat but just ok versions as the ice was very grainy and re-froze to itself, rather than being like fine snow. The chendol and grass jelly were delicious, however.

A final walking around treat were some of the ubiquitous pineapple tarts. These were tasty, flaky and filled with not too sweet pineapple, especially when they were warm.

Such was our tour through the Peranakan cuisine of Melaka. Each meal was better than the last, with the laksas of meal three rating high on a trip-wide scale.

Quite a collection of museums under one roof

The second afternoon, Jenika, Sahana, and I ventured to the oddest collection of museums I have ever seen under one roof.

There was the International Kite Museum, with poorly kept versions of kites from around the world. It was interesting to see how kiting has sprung up in many cultures (and, apparently, not always by direct transmission from another culture). There were also a couple of neat anthropomorphic kites.

One floor up was the Museum of Enduring Beauty. This was a bit of a shocker, as it turned out to be a museum exploring the different ways different cultures physically alter the body in pursuit of beauty. There was, for example, a section on lip ornaments with examples from tribes across Africa.

There was also a section dedicated to the corset and to waist thinning, including the amazing story of an Englishwoman who got down to a 13 inch waist (no, that's not a typo). Aside from the discomfort, she apparently had no ill health effects and died of natural causes in her 70s.

Other sections included neck lengthening, tattooing, scarification, and dental modification. Whoa. The air-con was also busted and so the environment was a musty 95 degrees and humid, lending a bit of surrealism to the whole affair.

The third museum was the Museum of Tops, dedicated to the lattu, or spinning top. This game is played by children all over Asia, including by my brother-in-law Anshul in India. Sahana is a lucky recipient of a new lattu and should be learning the game shortly. The game also has a competitive version that is much like marbles, including a circle on the ground, but is played with tops that are spinning the whole time.

A fourth museum presented the history of Melaka in quasi-3D. There were monitors with 3D projections of reenactments of various parts of history. There were paintings that had been rendered in 3D to change as you move past them. And there was a 360 degree movie theatre, sadly out of commission on the day of my visit.

The fifth and final museum was the People's Museum, about the culture of Melakans. I didn't get the chance to spend much time here, but it looked relatively thorough.

So: kites, beauty, tops, 3D, and people. Has anyone ever come across a more eclectic set of museums anywhere?

"Whoever is Lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice"

With Malaysia, another unvisited country, so close, we planned a weekend sojourn. We would head to Melaka (spelled Malacca in times past), on the western coast. It was a short 4 and a half hour bus ride away.

The town has had a fascinating history. It rose to prominence as the seat of the Malacca empire which stretched south to Singapore and Indonesia and north to Thailand in the 15th century. It was the most prosperous port of the region, and gave its name to the Straits of Malacca, a stretch of sea between Malaysia and Sumatra, Indonesia. The Portuguese were the first to colonize, but failed to rejuvenate it as a waning port. The Dutch soon knocked them off the perch. Finally, the town fell into the hands of the British when they traded parts of Indonesia with the Dutch, essentially drawing a line through the Straits to separate their territories. Next up was Japan, which occupied Malaysia during World War II after routing the British. After the war it reverted to British rule, but also began its path to independence, which was proclaimed in 1957. Melaka is such a historical place in Malaysia that the first Prime Minister came to the center for the independence proclamation.

And so it has a rich cultural past that creates the amalgamation of cultures, food, and architecture that exist today. One addition to that mix is the Peranakan culture, for those of mixed Chinese and Malay heritage. This culture dominates the food, which will come in a later post.

Our time there started with a walk through the old town, over the river, to the site of many colonial buildings. There were several churches, including the Christ Church Melaka and the Church of St. Francis Xavier, built by various colonizers and missionaries.

There was a nice riverside walk that had quaint furnishings, including Dutch bricks.

A sign in a park told the story of the name. The abridged version is that a local prince was out hunting in the area with his dogs. A small white mousedeer valiantly proved its courage by fighting his dogs even though it was outsized. Impressed by its audacity, he decided this was an auspicious place to live. He happened to witness this encounter under a Melaka tree, and so that became the name of the town.

We also wandered into the sultan's palace's grounds (a bit after hours, it turned out). Besides being full of neat flora and fauna, there was a cool monument that had the title of this post inscribed on one side.

From there we went to A Formosa, a gate that is all that is remaining of the original Dutch fortifications. After a quick climb up a steep hill, we got stunning views of the ocean and the city. Off in the distance you can see Eye on Malaysia, a ferris wheel that has been relocated from Kuala Lumpur. There was also a neat old church on the top of this hill, named St. Paul's Hill.

Our adventures the next day took us to Harmony Street, so named because it is home to three houses of worship from different religions.

There is the Kampung Kling Mosque. Interestingly, the architecture had Hindu influences as well as a pagoda style.

There was the Sri Poyyatha Vinayaga Moorthy Temple, sadly closed on this fine day.

And there was the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, for followers of Buddha.

Lastly, there was the ubiquitous Peranakan architecture, with cool shuttered windows on the second floors, large interior courtyards, and internal spiral staircases.