On our last evening in Melaka, Ling and I both wanted to try different cuisines. We had quite a bit of Indian cuisine just yesterday, but I still wanted to try this Tandoori restaurant that’s rated #1 of all restaurants at Tripadvisor. Ling on the other hand wanted to try Milk crabs at a Chinese restaurant just outside our hotel. What to do – we have only so much stomach space to go around.
Thing is; we’ve had mostly average to abysmal luck with Chinese food in Melaka (you’ll read about this in our Foodie post #4) and I wasn’t that keen to test luck again, whereas all the Indian cuisine we’ve tried in Melaka – putting aside the fact that it was all Carbo heavy – have been pretty good. Moreover, Pak Putra Tandoori & Naan was in the approximate direction of Jonker Street that we were going by anyway.
Now, finding the place was supposed to be easy – except that this time round, iOS maps were just plain wrong, pointing us to an address that was about 100m away from the actual place. We wandered around the area for nearly 45 minutes before eventually finding the restaurant – imagine the relief we felt.
The restaurant is like many other local Melaka restaurants we’ve dined at; it’s spartan, totally functional and without the usual amenities i.e. air-conditioning that Singaporeans expect at eating places. A quick visual glance at the other patrons also having dinner gave us early confidence though: both Chinese, Indians and Malays were robustly tucking into Naans, and we saw a mix of patrons: families, couples, singles and even a couple of elderly Caucasians, mildly surprising since the street was some distance away from the very touristy Jonker Street.
Feeling all adventurous, we ordered three Naans: a garlic/butter, an onion, and a double-cheese which was highly recommended by a Jonker Street salesperson we’d just bought pineapple tarts from. The Naans come with their own gravy, but we added Tandoori chicken which a lot of other patrons were also having, and a mutton daal. And a large Mango Lassi (of course, Matt). The Tandoori chicken was barbequed well on the outside though small bits of it were still a little bloody. Its meat was succulent with strong flavor and a slight tinge of chili. The mutton daal on the other hand was just prefect; thick, lots of spices, and generous in its helping. The mutton dip was so good we just ignored that accompanying Naan dip altogether.
The bill came to MY$33.50 (S$13.50); slightly pricier than the other Indian fare we’ve had in Melaka, but still way cheaper than back in Singapore and delicious to boot.
The walk back to The Majestic took 50 minutes, and ended with Ling grumbling if we could avoid finding #1 rated restaurants that were so far from our accommodation LOL.
Just curious, how did you train Hannah to be able to accept such wide variety of food? My girl is a picky eater and everytime we go out, we have a headache as she doesn’t want to try out the food we order for her!