Part 2: Melaka Adventure with the Peugeot 508 RXH

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(Daddy revs)

After a day's worth of shopping and relaxing by the hotel pool, Day 2 of our Melaka road trip marked the beginning of some hardcore feasting. Because what is a visit to Melaka without piling on the pounds?

And we had the Peugeot 508 RXH 2.0 Hybrid 4's GPS navigation system to thank for bringing us on our mini food hunt around Melaka town. All we had to do was to either enter the GPS coordinates or road name and voila, we found the places rather effortlessly.

We started with lunch at Restoran Ole Sayang, a Peranankan eatery located along the main road of Melaka Raya, which is pretty near Hatten Hotel Melaka.

See the 'Closed' sign hanging on the door? We barely made it inside at its closing time of 2.30pm - blame it on the heavy buffet breakfast that our hotel served up. But arriving at the stroke of closing time has its privilege as well. For one, we did not have to queue and was attended to instantaneously.

The restaurant is a Halal one, so no babi pongteh there. Other than that, the menu is a typical Peranankan one which serves the usual nyonya dishes.

We ordered the Ayam Pongteh, Cincalok Omelette, Sambal Udang Petai, Chap Chye, Beef Goreng Lada and some Beancurd with mince meat dish (I forgot its actual name).

Personally, I found the food to be slightly above average. Restoran Aunty Lee at Jalan Ujong Pasir still ranks as my fave Peranakan eatery in Melaka... although the Ayam Pongteh and Cincalok Omelette did win over some fans in the form of the three monkies.

After such a hearty lunch, it will be criminal if some yummy dessert isn't thrown into the mix as well. And for dessert that truly melts in one's mouth, we did not have to look further than Nadeje, which is famous for its silky soft Mille Crepe.

And what do you know - there is just a Nadeje outlet at Mahkota Parade, which is just beside us. Ooh, lucky us... because this is one crepe that the wifey has been dying to try for the longest time.

Mille Crepe is a dessert that originated from France and its name literally translates to Thousand-Layer Crepe, something like the kueh lapis that we are familiar with. Only difference is this crepe is a cake and it is stupendously fluffy and delicious!

There were so many flavours to choose from but we finally settled on two - Original and Tiramisu (RM9.50 per slice). Yes, only two because all of us had naively thought that we were too full from our previous nyonya lunch.

Well, we thought wrong.

The three monkies ended up liking the mille crepe so much that the wifey and I could barely manage 3 mouthfuls each. But I couldn't fault them; the pleasure-rich layers of butter-soft creaminess and immaculate texture with its not overly sweet taste was a temptation that none could ever resist.

A must-try dessert if you are in Melaka. Or if you prefer a more traditional form of dessert, be sure to stop by Jalan Tengkera for a piece of flour... or otherwise known as putu piring.

The Tengkera Putu Piring stall (the one with the blue shelter in the above photo) is as nondescript as it can get, really. But come sundown - it only opens at 6pm - the shophouse comes alive amid a largely-deserted road of Jalan Tengkera.

And I could not miss it even if I had wanted to, as a whiff of steamed rice flour and gula melaka fragrance lured my nose to the stall the moment I stepped out of the Peugeot which was parked opposite. And then the batches of these pale-coloured, dotted with patches of dark brown snacks came into full view.

The putu piring is made to order, so be prepared to wait. But let me assure you that the wait for these babies are totally worth it.

At RM1 per piece, these pieces of flour are the best putu piring I have ever tasted. It was as soft as a pillow, studded with delicious bits of gula melaka. Be sure to request for your putu piring to come atop a bed of freshly grated coconut (No additional charge).

And for best results, this is one snack that tastes best when eaten piping hot.

But if you are looking to further enhance your eating experience in Melaka, then our next food destination will no doubt triumph and rise above all. If eating cockles in a back alley doesn't do it for you, then I don't know what else will.

Imagine sitting on a stool while slurping on cockles and la-la at Tong Bee Stall with motorcycles whizzing past you in the back alley. So exciting!

And its prices are pretty reasonable too, with quite an extensive menu even if you are not into shellfish.

But the star of the stall has got to be its cockles. At RM2 per plate, they were fresh and meaty, devoid of any weird or fishy taste. In fact, they were just so erm, bloody good! A thing to note is that you can request how well-cooked you would want the cockles to be.

The dipping sauce that came with the cockles was fantastic as well. It had the necessary flavors of spiciness and sweetness with a slight sour tinge which complemented the cockles really well.

The monkies didn't try the cockles though, but I did order the la-la (or clams), Cuttlefish with Kangkong and tahu rojak for them. The tahu rojak was pretty alright while the cuttlefish with kangkong didn't disappoint. Ash thoroughly loved the clams though, and we had to order a second plate of those just because he demanded it.

If you ask me, this is one place that one should not miss trying while in Melaka. I had initially envisioned the place to be smelly and dirty since it was located at a side of a drain in the back alley. But surprisingly, there wasn't any foul smells or unsightly rubbish when we were there.

To get to Tong Kee, just keep an eye out for Madame Kings Department Store along Jalan Bunga Raya and walk right into the alley beside it.

After all the gorging, there was still the small matter of having dinner - yes, we are such pigs - where we headed back to a steamboat buffet eatery that we had patronised during our last Melaka visit.

V Love Hot Pot's main selling point is its price: RM23.80 for Adults and RM11.90 for Children. For an all-you-can-eat steamboat buffet! Which came well-stocked with raw food items - crabs, prawns, clams and mussels, meat - as well as a hot food section with rice, bee hoon, chicken wings, nuggets and the usual fried food, and rounded up with ice cream and jelly for desserts.

So it wasn't any surprise that we too slept like pigs on our second night in Melaka.

And come next morning, we were all refreshed to make our reluctant trip back home.

Much like our drive up to Melaka, the return leg was just as uneventful. And the ride in the Peugeot 508 RXH must have been so smooth and quiet that the monkies blissfully fell asleep for the most part of the drive back to Singapore.

My final thoughts on the Peugeot 508 RXH? I loved it for its combination of good looks inside and out, its spaciousness, its engine performance, its four-wheel drive capability, and the overall driving experience. Well, the marvelous fuel economy aspect of the car is definitely a bonus as well - a single tank of diesel can offer up to 1,800km mileage, which means I could have gone to Melaka and back FOUR times on a single tank!

GIVEAWAY ALERT! (CLOSED)

The lucky winner has been picked! Congratulations to Alice Rachel Neo for winning a weekend's drive with the Peugeot 508 RXH! Please email me at kelvin(at)cheekiemonkie.net for details on how to redeem your prize. Thanks to everyone who have participated!

Want to try out the Peugeot 508 RXH too? Just for our blog's readers, now you can! Peugeot Singapore is giving one lucky reader the chance to have the car over one weekend. No driving up to Melaka unfortunately but you will still have lots of fun driving around Singapore with your family!

To qualify for a chance, simply name a feature of the Peugeot 508 RXH (Hint: answers can be found in my Part 1 post HERE) either in the comments section in this blog post, or in the corresponding Facebook post HERE.

DOUBLE your chances to win when you share the Facebook post! Do remember to set your posting to 'Public' so that I can see it.

The contest closes on 14 April 2014, 2359 hours.


For more information on the Peugeot 508 RXH 2.0 Hybrid 4, visit http://www.peugeot.com.sg/


Useful Information

Restoran Ole Sayang
198 & 199, Taman Melaka Raya, 75000 Melaka, Malaysia.
Tel: +606 2831 966 & +606 2834 384
Opening Hours: 11.30am - 2.30pm & 6pm - 9.30pm (Closed on Wednesdays)

Nadeje Mille Crepe
G-23B, EG 4 & EG 5, Ground Floor, Mahkota Parade, 75000 Melaka.
Tel: +606 2843469
Opening Hours: 11am - 10pm daily
Other outlets: http://www.nadeje.com.my/Contact.aspx

Tengkera Putu Piring
252, Jalan Tengkera, 75200 Melaka
GPS Coordinates: N2 12.076 E102 14.326
Tel: +606 282 1505
Opening Hours: 6pm – 10pm (Closed on Sundays)

Tong Bee Stall
Off Jalan Bunga Raya, 75100 Melaka
GPS Coordinates: N2 11.990 E102 15.110
Opening Hours: 6pm onwards, until stocks run out (Closed on Wednesdays)

V Love Hot Pot
No 1, Jalan Kota Laksamana 2/7, Taman Kota Laksamana Sek 2, 75200 Melaka, Malaysia
Tel: +60 16-377 9111
Opening Hours: 5pm-12am