Category: The West Side

The day after my birthday, I headed to KL with my family. The next day, 6/9/2013 (wow… more than a month ago ;p), we drove to Melaka for 2 days 1 night trip.

It was so cloudy and was expecting it to rain very soon.

Indeed! It rained right after we got into Red Square area (all the buildings are painted red).

First thing first, we looked for our hotel. I booked The Baba House Hotel (No 121 – 127 Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Jonker Street, Malacca / Melaka, Malaysia 75200 ) from Agoda. Got pretty good deal for it, very lucky, basically we’re paying one room price for two rooms, USD22+/night if not mistaken. Sweet! Took me days to find a place to stay there and finally found this, the cheapest of all for this standard and location. I noticed that many people actually booked it through Agoda. I guess that’s where the deals are. There’s a lot of cheaper places but with our group, it’s pretty impossible to just go to any backpacker.

Left: The lobby area. The interior is definitely giving you the feel of the Baba Nyonya heritage.

Right: The back of the hotel, it took us quite awhile to find it, they have free parking there. We actually went round and round to look for it even with GPS. It stated that we’re there already but we couldn’t recognize the place, kept thinking it’s the Bird Nest Museum as we saw the banner there rather than the hotel’s name. Very silly.

Left: Dining area of the hotel. This is where you’ll have your breakfast if your room comes with breakfast, not ours though. You don’t need it at all. There’s so much food out there! Eateries are just right outside the doorstep.

Right: The shop, part of the hotel where I got my kebaya.

Our rooms, Superior King – No Window and Superior Twin – No Window. They were very thoughtful to give us rooms next to each other, so we were able to just open the door in between. The floor was so cold because it’s not carpeted but don’t worry about that as there’s bedroom slippers for you.

Left: Only instant coffee, no tea for the room. Bottled waters were complimentary too. There’s also toiletries provided in a reusable and resealable transparent bag.

It can be really cold in the room so we had to switch the air-con to fan mode. The interior is quite dated but well-maintained. The best thing is that it’s located in the center of the tourist attractions, all in walking distant! Love it! One interesting fact, the hotel belongs to a guy from Kuching! We thought it belongs to someone from Melaka itself but it’s not, instead it’s someone all the way from East Malaysia.

If you manage to get offer for it, it’s a good deal. However, if you can’t, I won’t recommend that, it’s a bit pricey.

We went to Jonker 88 for lunch since we couldn’t check in, we reached there at 12pm but could only check-in at 2pm. It was raining and was a Friday, so the queue wasn’t too bad. If it’s on a weekend, goodness! Massive queue to brace.

Left: Baba Chendol (RM3).
Right: Baba Durian Chendol (RM4), the durian puree wasn’t enough, couldn’t really taste it. However, it is special in its own way.

I still prefer the chendol from Penang or even Kuching. The chendol here became hard after came in contact with the ice. Don’t like it that way. Sorry, I really don’t understand what is there for people to rave about it. It’s just the coconut milk and gula melaka that gave it the taste, otherwise, there’s really nothing much. I guess it’s because of the hot and humid climate that makes whatever cold yummy.

Left: Nyonya Asam Laksa, spicy but the taste was not too bad.
Right: Rojak, very different from what you get from Kuching, lots of fruits in there. Quite sweet. Portion wasn’t too bad.

Left: Yong Tau Fu, had better ones back home, this is just so-so. Nothing special. Didn’t like the noodle too, oh well… It’s just us disliking yellow noodle because of the bitter taste of this type of noodle.

Right: Was shocked by it. See it for yourself. Not shock? LOL! I don’t quite remember what’s this, I think it’s seafood soup.

Sorry… I thought I had taken photo of the menu, apparently I didn’t, so I have no idea of the price, I didn’t order them too as we split into two groups to order, one group ordered dessert, the other group ordered all the other dishes. Dessert was self-service. Meanwhile the other, you order, pay, and wait for them to send it to you.

Overall, Jonker88 has great environment but the food got not much to rave. I’m sure there are other places serve much better food. Maybe… I don’t know… Didn’t stay long enough to discover more. It’s just conveniently located in Jonker Street and it was easy to spot due to the crowd.

To be continued…