Teochew Food in Malacca - Teo Soon Loong

When you have a group of two, it's harder to have a good variety of food when eating at Chinese restaurants.  So with our group of four, it was a good time to go try out the food at Teo Soon Loong, a well-known Teochew restaurant in Malacca.  It used to be in a tiny coffee shop on Jalan Hang Kasturi, just round the corner from Jalan Hang Jebat, but has shifted out of the Old Town to a newer, much larger restaurant in a newer part of the city (on the reclaimed land area).

Our hotel got us a car via Grab - a modest RM6 only.  We drove well out of the old town, through undeveloped plots to a small cluster of buildings.  I was not really expecting a large crowd but when we got there, the restaurant was packed!  Good thing that we had a reservation (via our kaki in the jewellery shop).  We had to wait for our table to be ready (we were a little early) and so had ample time to review the menu.

We chose a mixture of recommended dishes (off the internet) - the pork ribs with bittergourd (really tender, highly recommend), the braised Teochew duck (it was good but not as good as the pork), cai por hor fun (good wok hei but not enough cai por for me), braised noodles with oysters (I know, two carbs but we couldn't resist) and sweet potato leaves cooked with ginger (to be honest this was a revelation - I really enjoyed the freshness of the vegetables and somehow the gingery flavour complemented it well).  Indeed a suitable dinner for our last night in Malaccca.

Buying Manek Potong Shoes

Every time we visit Malacca, we end up visiting this little Kasut Manek (Nonya beaded shoes) shop down Temple Street called Lim's Trading.

Down Temple Street

But it was always an exercise in window shopping.  For myself, I was determined not to buy another pair until I had finished making my own.  And that took years!  As for my dear friend, she makes her own shoes most of the time!

But this year I was determined that I would buy a pair of "Manek Potong" shoes.  For the uninitiated, "Manek Potong" represents the utmost pinnacle of beaded shoe craftsmanship.  The beads are smaller than the standard machine made beads, and even the better quality Japanese Beads.  Apparently they are made somewhere in the former Czechoslovakia, cut by hand such that the facets of the beads are less regular and reflect the light differently as a result.  Because the beads are smaller, the patterns on the shoes are more intricate as a result.  The beads are also difficult to get, because the Czech factory which made them has discontinued the line... ... at least that's what we are told but somehow there are rumours that there is a new source ...

Anyway, Mr Lim is well known in Malacca/Malaysia for his beaded shoes, as this New Straits Times article can testify.  (The article also gives a little more background on beaded shoes, which I'm not going into here as I've done so on a number of times on this blog already).  In 2012, he received the Unesco Seals of Excellence for Handicrafts in recognition of his work.  What is so unique is that rather than just use the "traditional" patterns, he designs his own beautiful designs, of goldfish swimming with water and seaweed rippling around them, of birds and flowers amidst the foliage.  You can choose yourself a pattern, and he will sew it up for you, get the cobbler to make up the shoe and post it to you.  I have to say that I was tempted to do that but fortunately I found the perfect shoe in terms of fit, design and style so I bought it on the spot (for a pretty penny, I should add). Here it is:

Birds and flowers - my Manek Potong shoes

In my humble opinion, they go nicely with my new turquoise kebaya and orange sarong :-)