The Chicken and the Balls

When it comes to chicken rice in Melaka, most people are recommending the two places at Jonker Street, i.e., Kedai Kopi Chung Wah and Hoe Kee Chicken Rice. However, the Melaka Top 3 begged to differ. It was a difficult decision to make for us as we were going to have only one chicken rice meal, so we decided to go for the No. 1 listed in the Melaka Top 3 website, i.e., Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant.

This place is a bit outskirt of the city, humbly hidden inside a housing estate. Nevertheless, it was not difficult to find with GPS.

The first thing you see inside the shop is the big signboard with the standard operating procedure. You order the food and drinks at the counter and a receipt will be issued. You place the receipt on the table and your order will be served.

The serving stations were full with workers manning the rice balls and chopping the chicken. They were working non-stop as the crowd was building up when we visited this place. There were many packets prepared for take-away too.

The food and drinks were served quite promptly after making payment. The standard operating procedure really helps in the efficiency. The poached chicken was very juicy, succulent, tender and flavourful. The chilli, garlic and ginger dip was top notch too. Adding a bit of soy sauce to the dip is highly recommended.

The chicken rice balls were quite sticky and moist. They were full of the chicken flavour and you can tell that they authentically cooked with chicken stock.

If you want a taste of the Melaka chicken rice, I highly recommend this place. However, the queue can be as long as the two famous shops at Jonker Street.

The Durian Feast at Cameron Highlands

When we were coming down from Cameron Highlands, we saw many wild durian trees along the way. When we spotted some durians for sale by the roadside, we immediately asked our driver to stop the car for us to buy some. We were just thinking of buying some for us to bring along but we ended up digging in on the spot as the durians were too good. There is no other better place to eat durians than under the durian trees!

Roaming the Markets at Cameron Highlands

There are several daily markets and a weekend market at Cameron Highlands. Some of the markets are open air but mostly are in shop lots.

The most common merchandises at the markets are local produce. These are the places to get the freshest stuff produced in Cameron Highlands. There are some vegetables and fruits that are commonly seen in supermarkets and there are some uncommon ones.

These olive-like fruits are called "buah cinta" or literally the love fruit. I don't know how is the taste because I didn't try.

We also bumped into a stall selling sea coconuts. This was the first time I saw the real fruit of sea coconuts, so I bought one to try out. The flesh was very refreshing and not as sweet as the canned fruit. The water was also full of fragrant.

The Colourful Flowers at Cameron Highlands

Other than roses and cactuses, there are many more types of decorative plants for sale at Cameron Highlands. We visited several nurseries and farms and found these flowers in bloom.

There is a type of flowers called the blue butterfly. The shape of the flowers does not resemble a butterfly in any way. However, when two of the flowers are put back to back, the name unfolds. The hunt for the blue butterfly is one of the things to do at Cameron Highlands.

The weather at Cameron Highlands is very suitable for the chrysanthemum to glow, so most of the nurseries have them on sale. There are many types of them which are very colourful indeed.

The Strawberries at Cameron Highlands

One of the main produce at Cameron Highlands is strawberries. There are many farms planting strawberries in small or large scale. The farms that we visited were those not specialised in planting strawberries, so they are just considered small-scale strawberry farms.

The Vegetables at Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands is one of the main sources of vegetable for Malaysia. Many types of vegetable from the temperate climate can be planted here. The vegetables at Cameron Highlands are extremely fresh as they are taken directly from the source. Therefore, we ate our meals mainly with vegetables.